Top Three Blogs on Innovation Talent

By: Suzan Briganti

Innovation is a hot topic today. No wonder that there are numerous blogs on the subject. In a fascinating report, CapGemini found that “difficulty finding the right people to drive innovation efforts was the number one constraint to innovation success.” So we assumed there would be lots of good advice in these blogs on the people side of innovation ‑ innovation talent, leadership and teams. We set out, full of enthusiasm, to find the best blogs on innovation talent.

 

Methodology

The Swarm Vision team set out to identify the best blogs on the subject of innovation talent. How did we do it?

• First we identified the top 60 blogs using several online lists
• We then focused on those blogs with at least 5,000 Facebook fans or Twitter followers, of which there are 31
• We then analyzed recent months of these 31 blogs, looking for any articles on innovation talent
• We also searched key terms on each of 31 blogs to unearth older articles of relevance
• We tagged each article on the aspects of innovation that it discussed (e.g. creativity, leadership, teams, hiring, retention, culture of innovation)
• Finally, we rated each blog on the percentage of articles related to innovation talent, and on the quality of those articles. We defined quality as offering clear advice (not fluff) based on empirical results, not just assertion.

Three Surprising Findings

Based on our research, we reached three unexpected conclusions:

1. Little out there on innovation talent
   Our first surprise was that the top 31 innovation blogs offer few articles on the subject of innovation talent. This is particularly surprising given how critical the people side of innovation truly is.
2. Casual & vague treatment of innovation talent
   Our second surprise was how these mentions were mostly in passing, not dedicated in-depth treatments. The blogs that did mention the topic offered pretty vague advice, such as “You need to hire the right people for innovation,” with little guidance on just how to do that.
3. No framework for innovation talent
   Thirdly, the subject of innovation talent seems to lack an organizing theory or framework. There are shards of wisdom here and there about creative people, environments that foster creativity, the power of diverse teams, and the like.

Our overall finding is that the vital subject of innovation talent is not well developed, and that there is a need for a framework for innovation talent, to guide companies on their innovation journeys.

The Drumroll, Please

That being said, three innovation blogs stand out for covering the subject of innovation talent, and for specific articles of value. Consider these blogs your starting point:

Blog Name	# Facebook Fans	# Twitter Followers
Stephen Shapiro Blog	5,492	7,976
Innovation Management	5,399	12,683
Destination Innovation	237	42.1k

What do you want to learn about innovation talent?

We’d like your opinion. Please comment on this blog post, telling us:

1. Is innovation talent an important subject for you?
2. What specifically, do you struggle with when it comes to the people side of innovation?
3. What would you like to read about in an innovation talent blog?

Based on your feedback, we may just dedicate our writing to cracking the meaty subject of innovation talent!