The Death of Innovation Crowdsourcing (As We Know It)!
Ideation focused crowdsourcing has been around for some time, but the approach is often not producing the desired business results in order to justify continued investments. How does the model need to change in order to drive real business value?
Only Engaged Innovation Teams Succeed
Engagement of teams is a must-have when addressing the key issues related to sustainable innovation programs. In the second of a series of articles focused on Innovation Culture, we are going to share our views about the way organizations should stimulate and encourage the creation of teams truly committed with innovation. Besides the more usual ad hoc requirements regarding team and individual creative performance, having a clear focus on team management is essential to achieve a more balanced and sound innovation program.
Corporate Open Innovation Portals, Part II: Two Successful Case Examples
Jos Tissen of Unilever, based in the Netherlands, and Shawn Heipp of Elmer’s Products, based in Ohio, USA, have something in common. Each manages his company’s corporate innovation portal, the website used to encourage technology solution submissions from external customers, suppliers, inventors, and businesses. Tissen and Heipp describe their unique portal implementation choices and their results to date.
3 Reasons to Innovate Without Borders
You might have noticed that organizations don’t exist in a vacuum anymore. They don’t make decisions autonomously (if, indeed, they ever did) – handing down products or processes that they guess people want. Social media and digital engagement have changed all that – the expectation is now one of a dialogue, constant communication, and constant improvement.
Paving the Path for Innovation Purpose and Closing the Alignment Gap
Defining the organizational purpose and promoting organizational alignment are two key factors for creating a culture that supports innovation. In this series of articles focused on Innovation Culture, we are going to share insights and cases of organizations that implemented innovation programs (and less structured initiatives) with the involvement of a wide range of managers and employees.
What Happens When Leadership Focus Shifts Away From Innovation?
Corporations tend to focus on fads, often packaged into corporate initiatives or programs, that roll in and out of favor over time. Attention from leadership around any single initiative doesn’t last forever, and it will shift to the next bright and shiny object at some point. How do you prepare for when this happens?
Where Your Next Great Idea Comes From: 3 Great Ideas from Surprising Places
Innovation without borders means that you’re no longer concerned about where your next great idea comes from – you’re only concerned with it being great. It means that there is no job title, mission parameter, or geography that curtails creativity or delivering on that creativity.
The New Normal: From Product to Platforms and Processes
Platforms and processes, rather than products, will become the focus of new business creation as we move forward. The main characteristic of a handful of new trends in business – Collaborative consumption, Sharing, the Maker movement and the Circular economy – is that the value creation is less about adding some new feature to a product. Instead, the appeal of these models is that they can deliver more value for less by involving a number of stakeholders, including the users, in co-creating solutions.
Challenge Question Formation for Crowdsourcing
Organizations that pursue the inquiry-led form of collaborative innovation often have an outcome in mind. They may seek the “low-hanging fruit” of immediately actionable ideas. They may seek ideas that help to re-envision the business. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins reflects on how the savvy practitioner manages the challenge question formation process to help the sponsor achieve their desired goals. The key? Knowing how to dial up and dial back the level of transformation incumbent within each question.
What Is An Employee Innovation Network, And Why Should You Care?
As Innovation Program leaders look to expand their scope and influence across complex, global organizations, they are turning to the development of Employee Innovation Networks. This article examines what these networks can look like, and provides some high level overview of the value that they can generate.
In Pursuit of “Actionable” Ideas
Engagement matters on the front end of innovation. Tangible results matter on the back end. Organizations that pursue the practice of collaborative innovation seek, ultimately, actionable ideas: ideas whose implementation yields benefits.
Pushing the boundaries – part 3: Making open innovation relevant to more economic players
This is the last article in a series of three, illustrating how we can push the boundaries within open innovation research. After reading a recently published strategy book by Rita McGrath, “The end of competitive advantage”, the writer is convinced that it offers several handles to understand open innovation in a broader, strategic context.
Retrospective on the Dirty Maple Flooring Company
Our columnist Doug Collins began the Dirty Maple Flooring Company tale last fall. Twenty episodes later, the story in which Dirty Maple embraces collaborative innovation has come to an end.
The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 20
Chief strategist Charlie Bangbang has experienced the first evolution of his practice of collaborative innovation at Dirty Maple by applying the blueprint. What lessons does he take about innovation management? About crowdsourcing? About leadership?
The R&D department: From Innovation Engine to Part of the OI Machine?
The success of Open Innovation hinges on many organizational aspects as we have discussed extensively on the MOOI forum in the past months and will continue to do so as of September 2014 onwards. To summarize, we have discussed corporate strategy, top management, organizational structures, HR, culture, and IP in light of Open Innovation.
4 Things to Think About When Launching Your Innovation Program
Launching an innovation program is challenging for a number of reasons. Most of the time, champions of innovation face two main problems: 1) the general challenge of coordinating the various aspects of the innovation department, but also 2) educating the rest of the community about the value of innovation and how it will impact them. Addressing some of the main questions or challenges right off the bat paves the way for innovation success later.
The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 19
How might we measure our practice of collaborative innovation? What story do we tell by the factors we identify and the indicators we track? Does the plot interest our audience?
For Philips, Open Innovation is Vital to Stay Ahead of Competition
“Open Innovation and technology scouting are vital for us to stay ahead of competition and identify cutting edge technologies that will allow us to propose the best products to our consumers”. In this interview, Steven Vaassen, Open Innovation Leader at Philips Consumer Lifestyle, shares his view on OI and how Philips is organized to decide when and how to use Open Innovation.
Corporate Open Innovation Portals: An Active Part of an Open Innovation Strategy
As part of the Open Innovation movement, many companies now actively solicit technical solutions, products and business ideas from innovators, customers, suppliers, and the broader marketplace of technology providers. Some companies have begun utilizing structured innovation submission programs, typically implemented through their corporate websites. This article, the first in a two-part series, helps companies understand Collaborative vs. Direct Portals, and the importance of IP-anti-contamination and efficient filtering in choosing the best innovation portals for their unique situations.
Forecasting Success in Innovation Teams
A 2012 study by the Harvard Business Review surfaced several interesting findings about the practice of innovation for the enterprise, including the innovation ambition matrix, which details how “firms that excel at total innovation management simultaneously invest at three levels of ambition, carefully managing the balance among them.”
Pushing the Boundaries – Part 2: Making Open Innovation Relevant to More Economic Players
The MOOI-forum is in its 5th month now, focusing on Open Innovation and corporate culture as theme. Every month, great discussions emerge on the forum. This article takes a look at how open innovation can be applied in many different strategic settings compared to the showcases described in different publications during the last decade.
6 Easy Steps to Innovate any Product
This article brings the 6 step method of AULIVE. A case study of surfboard innovation is illustrating the process.
Innovation Golden Rules
In a February 2014 presentation, Herman Wories of the DSM Innovation Center made a compelling statement about the role of innovation in any organization: “Innovation is no longer a competitive advantage: it’s a competitive necessity. In order to keep up, you need to continuously innovate.”
The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 14
Part fourteen of the series finds our leader Charlie Bangbang and his team resolving their first collaborative innovation challenge for the Idea Mill Program. How did it go? What did they do? And, is it to serve mett wurst for lunch, ahead of an afternoon collaboration session?