How to Improve Return on Investment With a New Project Management Approach
Too often, leaders label projects as successes or failures based on budget and schedule expectations. Although time and cost are critical factors, they ignore whether the project delivered the expected benefits.
How to Create a Competitive Advantage Through Innovation
In the modern world of business, innovation is both an equalizer and a differentiator. It can give tiny startups an edge over global conglomerates and enable industry leaders to develop competitive advantages.
How to Innovate Your Business to Make It Climate Efficient
Climate efficiency is key for the future of everyone on this planet. With an issue of such magnitude, you may feel that individual actions cannot make a large impact. While your business by itself cannot solve global warming, the actions you take can inspire others and can have a much bigger impact than you may realize.
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 [...]
Four Traits Your Next CEO Must Have For Your Organization to Thrive
Want to ensure your organization will thrive over the long run? If so, then your next CEO must have these four traits – 1) relentless focus on the long-term future; 2) inherently entrepreneurial mindset; 3) solid grounding in reality and the fundamentals of business; and 4) behavior of a consummate diplomat.
How Can Enterprises Think and Execute Like a Startup?
Around the world and across industries, enterprises are facing tremendous market upheaval. Transformation and disruption were the new normal well before the pandemic, but the coronavirus crisis accelerated certain trends toward innovation and digitization and led to the fundamental rewiring of old business models.
The Biggest Adaptations We Need to Make to Accommodate Climate Change
In 2020, for the first time ever, solar and wind made up the majority of the world’s new power generation. In 2021, the US alone committed to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030. And as of Earth Day this year, more than 30% of the Fortune 500 have made commitments to a carbon-free future.
Whitepaper: Stimulating and Measuring Open and Cross Innovation
As two intermediaries from Hamburg that foster open and cross innovation processes, Science Scout (an initiative of Hamburg Innovation) and Cross Innovation Hub (Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft) joined forces to start a discussion around the stimulation and measurement of open and cross innovation processes.
Create a Team of Master Problem Solvers
Problem-solving is an essential skill as an innovator. If problems stump your employees, how can your organization ever innovate for customers? Luckily, problem-solving skills can be learned, and as a leader you can create a team of master problem solvers and innovators.
What is the New Model for Innovation Success?
In this series I’ve been critically examining the significant changes impacting the corporate innovation competency, which leads to how organisations drive future growth and impact.
In Search of the Perfect Brainstorm: An Update of Collaborative Ideation
Imaginary scenario: you have been invited to a meeting to explore new approaches to a wicked problem. Loudmouth Number 1 describes his solution. Loudmouth Number 2 vehemently disagrees. A heated argument ensues. Some people take sides. Others remain silent. There are bruised egos. You are not the only one who feels frustrated. All that time just one single idea has been considered. Have you ever experienced such a meeting? Have you ever wondered why brainstorming came to be? Brainstorming Today: Why It Needs an Update These days the noun “brainstorming” and the verb “to brainstorm” are used (and misused) extensively and in many different ways. Our working definition in this article is that brainstorming is a “process to enable purposeful, [...]
What are the Challenges to Government Intrapreneurship?
Government innovators face specific challenges: regulations, compliance issues, cooperation with numerous other branches of government...but they also access some of the most technical and influential trends of our time.
Unleashing Virtual Creative Collaboration at The Sonophilia Foundation: What Can a Nonprofit Teach Us About Virtual Creative Collaboration
Does creativity suffer in our virtual world, or could working virtually actually lead to more collaborative environments, better ideation and heightened interaction?
Is South Africa the Next Silicon Valley?
When you think of the most innovative places in the world, what do you picture? Silicon Valley and its array of tech startups? Tokyo, because it has the highest number of patents filed worldwide? London, where over 15% of the workforce is employed in the tech sector? Or are you imagining somewhere else?
Trending Questions
What is a trend, and other questions answered by Sébastien Van Laere, Co-founder of Superframe, an agency using insight and foresight to develop brand-, innovation- and business strategy for some of the biggest global brands.
Five Questions to Answer Before Crowdsourcing
As the director of the IdeaScale Crowd community, I recently had the opportunity to share some insights and best practices for innovators who are new to crowdsourcing, and may not have conducted their first campaign yet. We discussed five questions to ask as you prepare for your first campaign, why those questions are important, and some examples of good and bad answers to those questions.
Why People Buy Innovation Management Software
Every year, IdeaScale analyzes our system and customer data and releases a report on crowdsourced innovation trends and benchmarks. You can find this year’s report here, but one of the questions that we pay a lot of attention to is why people are looking to purchase an innovation management platform in the first place.
Who Are the Creators Among Us?
For a long time, the prevailing theory was that the creators, ideators, or innovators among us were a special type of person that had an innate gift for inspiration. The idea that creativity could be taught was much debated, but it is also one of the most commonly debunked myths in the innovation space.
Building an Imagination Machine: Exclusive Interview with Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller
Imagination is one of the least understood but most crucial ingredients of success. It’s what makes the difference between an incremental change and the kinds of pivots and paradigm shifts that are essential to transformation — especially during a crisis.