28/05/2026
One of the things I love about exploring human creativity across the globe is how slight differences in how different languages describe the creative process can gift you with new insights into how creativity works.
A few days ago I was in Norway and learnt about the Norwegian word “Nyvinning”.
It is the Norwegian word that covers the intersection between innovation, novelty, breakthrough, advance, and new development.
The Norwegian word has a profound meaning that these English words lack.
“Nyvinning” is made up of the word “ny” meaning “new”, and the word “vinning” meaning “winning”.
So, in Norwegian, when you innovate something you are “winning something new”!
A poetic interpretation of the word “Nyvinning” could be: “When the future wins over the past.”
NewWinning - which really should be the English word for “innovation” - is a better word for what innovation is, since it highlights that by doing something new we benefit and we win by doing that.
Nyvinning shows that an idea has beaten the old ways of doing something.
I learnt about this positive word in a discussion with Erling Moen Synnes, Chief Information Officer at DNO, one of Norway’s oldest and most internationally active oil and gas companies.
Erling is passionate about human growth, both for himself and for the people who work with him. At DNO he has worked in extreme situations - like oil fields in Northern Iraq or the rough seas of the North Atlantic. Regardless where he has worked, his mission has been to make other people reach their potential.
He said to me: “If you (as a leader) are responsible for other people, then it is your responsibility to move them to a new place. A better place. If someone who works for me says ‘I now dare to do things I did not dare to do before’, then I am happy”.
Erling is worried that we are losing our potential as people are too focused on just following procedures and processes. Not that procedures and processes are not important - they are, perhaps especially in the oil and gas industry - but we need people to think beyond that.
We need people to look for new ways to do things. Better ways of doing things.
We need the future to beat the present.
We need NewWinnings.
𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡:
𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑘 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 2000 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑔𝑒. 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 75 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘.
𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑘 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑡: 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡@𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑘ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛.𝑐𝑜𝑚.
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