In part three of this series Anthony Ferrier considers why organizations are seeking ways to identify, engage and drive their employees towards innovative activities, with titles such as Intrapreneaurs, Innovation Catalysts, Innovation Champions, etc.
Innovation hubs are popping up from Addis to Amsterdam and Boston to Bangalore. Fuelled by ideals of openness, community and collaboration, hubs aim to be the next orgware for innovation—beyond business incubators and R&D labs. Managers, policymakers and investors have taken note, but are grappling with how to engage. What makes hubs so appealing and can they teach innovation managers anything new?
In part two of this series looking at ways organizations can support intrapreneaurs, Anthony Ferrier suggests a list of strategies and approaches to improve the effectiveness of intrapreneurs in your organisation.
Cast your mind back, to pre-2008 times, when bright and bushy tailed graduates would come out of business school looking for roles in the relevant employers of choice. Generally those organizations were large businesses, providing incentives such as expensive dinners, a career advancement path and generous financial packages.
How do innovation leaders access additional resources to enhance the scale and impact of their efforts across complex, global organizations?
Research and practice have investigated firms’ benefits of co-creation with external stakeholders, such as more creative ideas, reduced development costs, and improved product quality. However, little is known about how consumers perceive products and their firms that communicate about such co-creation activities. Using two experimental studies, we investigated how consumers’ knowledge about the involvement of different types of stakeholders during the innovation process changes the adoption of new products.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
