Enterprise Social Media Usage Pays Off In Innovation And Knowledge Sharing
This concludes the survey by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), the global community of information professionals, authored by Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Digital Business and the AIIM Task Force on Social Business and Innovation.
How Human Behavior Can Skew Innovation
A variety of human group behaviors can undermine innovation. For best results, we need to be aware of them and mitigate those that can derail innovation efforts.
3 Big Benefits of Visual Thinking
Exciting times ahead for innovation managers who understand the value of thinking in pictures. Here's why.
The Hidden Driver of Innovation at Apple – Revealed
One of the things that's becoming abundantly clear from reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is that a key to the company's innovation wasn't just Jobs' prodigious talent and relentless drive for creating "insanely great" products. There was also another element that I haven't seen anyone talking about as they eulogize this technology giant.
Devising a Communications Plan for Collaborative Innovation
Members of a community engaged in the practice of collaborative innovation gain tremendous insights as they pursue that practice through the phases of an enquiry-led campaign. What ideas and insights do we contribute to the question at hand? What have we learned about the practice itself? One commitment that campaign teams make to the community is to create forums and provide the resources to share these insights. In this article Doug Collins suggests an approach by which the campaign team can build a basic communications plan to meet their commitment for sharing relevant information at each phase.
Benchmarking E-mail Usage to Assess Collaborative Innovation
The practice of collaborative innovation opens the door to meaningfully transforming the ways in which people engage with one another as they pursue the critical questions facing the organization. Understanding the extent to which people continue to use incumbent means of collaboration can help you to understand the extent to which they have embraced the practice. In this article Doug Collins suggests having a look at our old friend, e-mail.
Social Media Reinforce the Competitive and Innovative Abilities
Last week, the Dutch Financial Times reported that the Netherlands moved up to the seventh place in the yearly competitiveness index by the World Economic Forum (WEF). To close the gap with the top five, social innovation needs to be tackled. Not only raising R&D budgets, but also better innovation management and work smarter.
How creativity is revolutionizing the book business: Corey Michael Blake
Corey Michael Blake is president of Round Table Companies, a firm that works closely with authors to develop graphic novels. In this interview with Michelle James, he explains how the book business is being transformed today, and the central role of creativity in all parts of the revolution.
What is Innovative Leadership?
Who are innovative leaders? What are their qualities and how do they drive innovation within an organization? Jeffrey Baumgartner provides a tantalizing profile to which we can aspire.
How to Communicate the Value of Idea Management
The success of an organization's idea management program is at the mercy of its supporters - the employees. The innovation team and top management must effectively communicate their goals to employees so they understand what's expected of them and feel confident that their ideas will be taken seriously. Enno Scholz walks us through this communication process.
Taking Both Users and Organizations Seriously: The Development and Organization of Participatory Innovation
Participatory innovation is still a new experience to many practitioners. How do you make sure you are actually listening to users? And how do you organize your company internally to properly involve external stakeholders. Participatory innovation is the new discipline of involving users of products and services, and understanding what they are really saying, even if some of those signals are not what you want to hear or see.
How To Foster Greater Collaboration Between Innovators and the IT Department
Success in innovation requires greater collaboration with the corporate IT department, yet in many cases friction between the two leaves innovation managers with tools they don't want to use or IT managers with tools they can't support. How do you get this critical relationship right?
How to Create a Supportive Environment for Outside Innovation Partnerships
How can organizations derive the greatest value from consulting engagements or other outside partnerships? Here are three strategies that can make a difference whenever external resources are used, such as hiring a consultant or partnering with another firm.
Five Ways to Re-Ignite Innovation and Get Things Humming Again
A journalist recently asked me this question: What are the five things the CEO of a once-innovative company must do to “innovate innovation” (or innovate the innovation process) and get the creativity process humming again?
Changing Mental Models to Make Innovation Work
We see a lot of programs being run in companies in the name of innovation. Of course some of the large corporations need to run innovation programs for name sake. They need some window dressing for analysts and industry observers lambasting the same for not being innovative enough.
Five Steps to Profitable Innovation
Innovation is one of the hottest topics in business these days. More and more, companies are coming out with new products and services designed to amaze their customers and get them to dig deeper into their pocketbooks. Only problem is, most of what passes for innovation these days doesn’t stand out as very new, different or compelling. As a result, most innovation efforts are lucky to pay for themselves, much less actually turn a profit.
The crucial role of networks in helping firms generate and execute new ideas
Interpersonal networks within organizations have a huge influence on how successfully firms can generate and execute new ideas, says innovation professor Tim Kastelle.
Creativity is key to organizational and individual sustainability, says Annalie Killian
Creativity is not only essential to the sustainability of organizations, it's also key to individual health and happiness, points out maverick woman Annalie Killian.
Strategically Engaging Your Organization
Strategic management today must focus not only on meeting short term targets and budgets but also on building an organization prepared to succeed and lead into the future. This is obvious, you may say. But how is this simple reality reflected in how we strategically lead and engage our organizations? Read more in this article by IMD Professor Thomas Malnight.
15 Foundations for Facilitating Creativity in the Workplace
Here are lessons learned from 12 years of creative facilitation in business, from creativity expert Michelle James.
Personal Innovation: We Need to Stop and Think
Innovation experts love to make lists of obstacles to innovation. These lists include issues like lack of time, resistance to change, poor communication, middle management and so on. Employees like to cite obstacles such as these in part because they place the blame on the organisation and their mangers rather than on themselves. And, indeed, can you imagine a middle manager responding to a questionnaire on obstacles to innovation with the answer: “Why, I believe I am a major obstacle to innovation in this firm.”? But the truth is, possibly the biggest obstacle to innovation is simply that people do not stop and think!
Defining an Innovative Firm – It is Much More Than Technology
Innovation is very much the word of the moment. We hear it used in science, the arts, in politics, in society, and often for good reason. For example, the creation and building of the European Union, is one of the most innovative – and indeed frustrating – processes in history. So what actually is innovation? Read more in this article by IMD professor Georges Haour, IMD, one of the world's top business schools.
How to Develop a Creative ‘Elevator Pitch’ that Captures Attention and Interest
To sell ourselves and our big ideas, we need elevator pitches that stand out, are unique and stimulate a response. Clearly, some creativity is what is needed to design such a pitch. Jeffrey Baumgartner explains how to develop one.
The Innovation Hype Cycle
According to the Gartner Hype Cycle model, media coverage of a new technology goes through five distinct phases. Graham Horton has discovered that the way media treats innovation follows a similar pattern.