How to Use Generative AI to Turn Your Insights into Investable Ideas (Part 1)
Innovation is often glamorized by the bookends of sourcing promising ideas like colorful post-it notes or highlighting the final polished product we see in the store. Stories of the unglamorous hard work required to bridge the gap between “I have an idea” to its realization are often not shared. Generative AI will undoubtedly play an enabling role throughout the innovation process by making it easier for people with new ideas to get off to a fast start. We will show you how generative AI can accelerate idea development and help get you across the finish line with less effort and in record time. Leveraging CO-STAR Whether you are an employee with a great idea or an aspiring entrepreneur, you [...]
A Yin-Yang Model for Global Sustainability: Moving Towards Rural-Urban Balance
This article employs a holistic, interactive East Asian framework—the ancient yin-yang circle—for presenting both defensive and proactive carbon control strategies in urban and rural areas. Given the recent wave of deadly wildfires in the American West, attention is focused here on the future significance of oceans as a massive carbon sink for fighting global climate change. Life probably arose in the sea, and the sea may end up having to save the planet.
Ideas from All? Try the Whiteboard Technique
By Bryan Mattimore “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” Albert EinsteinIf you’ve ever had an experience with a suggestion box program – either running one, or more likely submitting a suggestion – the mere suggestion of having a suggestion box program at your organization might send your head spinning – and not in a good way. Truth is, with rare exceptions like Toyota, Frito-Lay and Dart industries, traditional suggestion box programs are – and continue to be -- one of the most dismal failures in business. How come? Suggestion box programs do not fail because of a lack of initial employee interest or enthusiasm. They fail because the process for managing, vetting, and developing submitted ideas isn’t as rigorous [...]
What is the Process for an Employee Innovation Challenge?
A growing trend over the past several years has been to host internal innovation challenges. Companies do this because they find it’s an excellent way to find solutions to long-standing problems, positively create culture (particularly in a remote workplace), and also to nurture the budding intrapreneurs who want to find career growth and new opportunities.
Is Innovation the Secret to Adapting to the Regenerative Future?
The inevitable changes ahead for our industries and for our way of life are just as profound as they were in previous shifts in eras. The Climate Action Sweepstakes is committed to supporting efforts that help companies step into the early days of the Regenerative Era with clarity, courage and maximum positive impact by leveraging the power of their employee network.
Interdisciplinary Innovation: Being Innovative is a Way of Imagining, Perceiving, Expressing, Inventing & Inspiring
Innovators present creatively disruptive traits, disrupt old ways, and inspire better ways to do things. They are passionate to connect, to learn, and to explore by understanding commonalities and appreciating uniqueness. Being innovative is a growth mindset and a proactive attitude. You cannot wait for something to happen---keep curious, always think profoundly, learn fresh knowledge, and acquire new capabilities.
How Can Nonprofits Develop a Pilot Innovation Process that Works for Volunteers?
The innovation process (as variable as it can be) has a seemingly basic format no matter what your goal is: once you understand the problem, you identify some solutions to test. Those tests often occur in some limited, proof-of-concept format and are then rolled out for large-scale adoption. However, while testing out some sort of pilot scenario seems like a logical next step, many organizations aren’t sure how to do this, and it’s especially true for nonprofits where resources can be limited and every dollar must be accounted for.
3 Ways Real-Time Financial Data Drives Business Intelligence
Finance is no stranger to using data in predictive analysis, forecasting, and more, but what can real-time data bring to the table?
An Innovation Competition is a Great Way to Influence Culture
In a 2017 Harvard Business Review article, Anna Steinhage, Dan Cable, and Duncan Wardley talk about the impact competition can have in a workplace. They described how hosting an internal challenge can generate creative results and inspire collaboration or it can create unethical behaviors and cutthroat rivalry.
Innovator Dilemma vs. Innovator Phenomena: The Theory of the Firm’s Phenomena
Established firms’ strategies remain characterized by the inability to master---some will say even comprehend---the economics of choosing. It is particularly surfacing unresolved relationships between [1] technical-technological, [2] economic and [3] social combinations taking place within established firms e.g. manufactured product.
7 Steps to Reconcile Co-Innovation and Confidentiality: How Secret Should Your Co-Innovation Transformation Be?
In an increasingly competitive, connected and globalized world, co-innovation and value co-creation have recently become the norm for all R&D projects from startups to large organizations. In fact, co-innovation is critical to the development and sustainability of organizations of all sizes and and all industries.
Create Better Business Outcomes With Results-Only Innovation
Results-only innovation is an exploration of what is viable and pragmatic. This can help produce additional value for businesses and end users.
10 Tips for Dealing with Employee Recruitment and Retention
In September, McKinsey released a report describing the “Great Attrition,” a recent wave of cross-sector resignations we have witnessed throughout the world, primarily based on the exhaustion of employees due to the pandemic.
Top Five Challenges When Pitching a New Idea
Hardly an innovation event passes without mentioning how Kodak passed on the digital camera or how Blockbuster decided not to invest in streaming entertainment. But with the rapid rate of disruption, how do you ensure that great ideas can penetrate established organizations?
4 Ecosystem Strategies for Digitalization: Insights from the Swedish Mining Industry
Orchestrator, dominator, complementor, and protector: these are four ecosystem strategies toward digitalization. In this case study, we look at an equipment supplier wanting to participate in digitalization initiatives of its industrial customers, so it must configure an ecosystem strategy to align with multiple partners.
Unlocking “Pipeline Gridlock:” Effective Portfolio Management is the Key
Too many projects in the development pipeline is a common but serious complaint in new-product development departments. Pipeline gridlock leads to under-resourced development projects, which end up taking too long to get to market, and then often under-perform. Solutions are offered—Gates with Teeth, Red Flags, and the Productivity Index—to achieve a more balanced development pipeline with fewer projects but better projects.
What Companies are Excelling at Innovation in 2021?
Every year, IdeaScale hosts the Innovation Management Awards to honor the work of organizations who are accessing the voice of the crowd and the power of digital innovation programs to generate extraordinary results. The competition has three categories: best innovation engagement strategy, best innovation process, and best innovation overall. Here’s what we can learn from this year’s winners.
7 Essential Ingredients of a Crowdsourced Innovation Campaign
Many companies are introducing Innovation as a Service, which means an internal group acts as a consultancy that can solve problems for business owners. These innovation teams bring a number of skills to the table, including research, communications, project management, networking, and much more. Many have also adopted a “proudly found elsewhere” solution approach, which uses crowdsourcing to ask the entire workforce---or even beyond the walls of the organization---for solutions to existing problems.
Is Data Hindering Your Innovation Efforts? Five Data Missteps That Paralyze Innovation
Data can be a powerful enabler for innovation, but when used incorrectly, it can be a paralyzing force. It's a critical component in measuring and understanding the need for innovation—if you cannot measure something, you cannot improve it. Whether you collect data based on historical perspectives or through experiments, it can bring the insights needed for truly great innovations.
The Six Pillars of Innovation Culture
Every year, IdeaScale asks our customers what their main priorities are for the coming year, and without fail one of the top two priorities is to create a culture of innovation. Every innovation thought leader, every organizational engagement specialist, every pundit or leader in transformation says that this is the secret to avoiding disruption.
How National Culture and Policy Impact Innovation Strategies
National cultures and policies influence innovation rates, approaches to innovation, and funding. Here's what innovation leaders need to know.
How Leveraging the Gig Economy Keeps Innovation Flowing
The future of work involves embracing the gig economy, which includes freelancers, partners, and other vendors. Business leaders must scale with this in mind.
Calculating the ROI of an Idea: Ideas That Saved Time
Crowdsourcing and open innovation initiatives are vital by bringing vast stakeholders together to share ideas on complex problems and opportunities. Much of the focus is set on engaging the crowd yet deciding which ideas to take a risk on requires data on the likely impacts and costs.
The US Coast Guard and Rapid Adaptation: “There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Textbook Hurricane’ or a ‘Standard Oil Spill'”
From recognizing innovators, to empowering your team at every level, to developing innovation outposts, the US Coast Guard are experts in innovation and idea management. Learn more in this podcast interview.
What to Tell Your Boss When You Make the Case for Innovation Management
The term “innovation management" has been around for a long time (at least since the 1980s – if not before), but for many business leaders establishing a sustainable innovation management program is still a new concept. Executives aren’t sure what skills they need, who should be on their team, what activities are essential to success, and who they need to partner with.
How to Break the 5 Habits That Hurt Ideation
Many companies find it hard to prioritize ideation. Here are five ways to break the pattern and gather a wealth of ideas for your organization.
How Do You Uncover Unseen Problems?
Anyone who works in the problem definition space knows the pitfalls of hidden issues. Solving a problem is sometimes dependent on who is articulating the problem, the lens with which they view the world, and the space that they have at the table...
Five Reasons Why You Should Think Like a Criminal
Have you seen the movie The Day of the Jackal? In this 1973 film directed by Fred Zinnemann, Edward Fox plays a professional assassin, the "Jackal," who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle. It is a compelling thriller in which it is hard not to admire the cunning and guile of the ruthless killer. In the end you feel disappointed that he did not succeed with his audacious plan. It is an example of a genre of storytelling in which the main protagonist is a clever criminal. We seem to find them fascinating. Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher who becomes a master drugs dealer. The Sopranos is about a Mafia family. Ozark concerns a money [...]