Rob Hoehn is the co-founder and CEO of IdeaScale: the largest open innovation software platform in the world. Hoehn launched crowdsourcing software as part of the open government initiative and IdeaScale’s robust portfolio now includes many other industry notables, such as EA Sports, NBC, NASA, Xerox and many others. Prior to IdeaScale, Hoehn was Vice President of Client Services at Survey Analytics.

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-07-14T13:00:18-07:00July 21st, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: alignment, evaluating ideas, government innovation, Ideation, intrapreneurship, suggestion box|

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?

Sarah Vandenberg2021-07-07T07:58:45-07:00July 7th, 2021|Categories: Podcast|Tags: Collaboration, Creativity, diversity, Ideation, innovation process, innovative places, KPI, Silicon Cape Initiative, South Africa|

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-06-08T11:20:33-07:00June 23rd, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Enabling Factors, Idea Management, Open Innovation, Support for SMEs, Training & Education|Tags: adaptation, Communication, efficiency, idea data, idea sharing, Ideation, Innovation Culture, innovation management software, transparency|

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.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-06-08T11:11:37-07:00June 16th, 2021|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: Creativity, Ideation, ideators|

How to Ensure Crowdsourcing Works for Product Innovation

Many enterprise organizations use crowdsourcing to find ideas in their blind spots - but how do you launch your first crowdsourcing challenge, and what sorts of questions do you ask? IdeaScale Crowd is hosting a webinar for first-time crowdsourcing innovators who want to engage a large group of collaborators in solving their problems.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-05-19T13:11:40-07:00May 18th, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Support for SMEs, Training & Education, Uncategorized|Tags: Crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing campaign, goal setting, idea assessment, Ideation, inspiration, LEGO|

The Three Horizons of Innovation Training

What if everyone in your organization came to work believing they could shape the destiny of your company? Learn more in this new post, and find out how it's possible with a 30-minute consult.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-05-12T15:34:45-07:00May 11th, 2021|Categories: Training & Education|Tags: Creativity, Innovation Culture, innovation services, innovation team, innovation training, opportunities|

What Are The Six Traits of Highly Innovative Organizations?

I love meeting innovators. You meet all types: some of them are blue sky thinkers, some of them are feasibility buffs, some of them are incredible networkers and presenters, and some of them are shy and fascinatingly deep thinkers.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-04-04T21:31:50-07:00April 20th, 2021|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: Employee Engagement, Innovation Leadership, innovation process, kms, knowledge management|

What Impact Did 2020 Have on Innovation?

2020 revealed our fragility and our capacity for adaptation, and what IdeaScale's 2021 State of Crowdsourced Innovation report reveals is improved innovation capability from faster implementation rates to more engaged leadership. Let's look at some trends and takeaways from this year's report.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-04-04T21:21:14-07:00April 6th, 2021|Categories: Report|Tags: adjacent innovation, crowdsourced innovation, crowdsourced innovation report, idea implementation, innovation budget, innovation report, transformational innovation|

How Do Organizations Typically Gather New Ideas?

Even the most fledgling innovation program have a research component. Innovation research guides decision making, problem statements, idea generation, solution sourcing, and several other points in the innovation lifecycle. And when it comes to research there are lots of ways to get the data that you need - but two common ways are surveys and crowdsourcing.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:36:56-07:00March 22nd, 2021|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: Crowdsourcing, surveys|

How Does an Employee-Owned Fortune 500 Company Manage Their Innovation Lab?

Graybar is a Fortune 500 corporation and one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America. They are a leader in the distribution of communications and data networking products – even if you don’t know Graybar off the top of your head, you’ve probably been in contact with their products.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:36:57-07:00March 8th, 2021|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Employee Engagement, innovation lab, innovation program, student engagement|

How Are Agile and Innovation Related?

Organizations everywhere are working to form agile cultures. What does it mean to be agile?

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:36:59-07:00February 8th, 2021|Categories: Training & Education|Tags: Agile, agile culture, continuous improvement|

What Local Government Can Do with Crowdsourced Innovation

If you look up Westminster, Colorado, you’ll find a university that looks like a castle, a bell tower intentionally made to look like Big Ben, and pictures of smart and cozy suburban homes sitting at the feet of the Rocky Mountains.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:00-07:00February 1st, 2021|Categories: Podcast|

What Do Innovation Maturity Assessments Have in Common?

Building a repeatable model for innovation is a journey, not a trophy. An innovation department builds services and competencies across multiple disciplines – from research to communications and culture. And even with a dedicated innovation department, they must cooperate seamlessly with other parts of the business in order to deliver meaningful results on an ongoing basis.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:00-07:00January 18th, 2021|Categories: Enabling Factors, Strategies, Support for SMEs, Training & Education|Tags: innovation maturity assessment, innovation roadmap, innovation success|

What Can We Learn from the Innovation Averages in 2020?

Every year, IdeaScale conducts an in-depth study of their customer trends in order to write an annual report, provide benchmarks to our clients (and ourselves), and better understand the marketplace. This data gathering and analysis takes up the better part of our first quarter and our report is generally published in March, but 2020 is a unique year for the crowdsourced innovation community (and indeed for everyone in the world).

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:01-07:00January 11th, 2021|Categories: Trend Alert|Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, innovation process, innovation workflow, pivot, Problem Solving, survey, trends|

How McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index Relates to Innovation

McKinsey's Organizational Health Index (OHI) is an exhaustive assessment of an organization’s effectiveness and its management’s performance based on an organization-wide survey. It’s a tool that numerous public and private sector organizations have leveraged in order to benchmark their company’s health, align around core areas of improvement, and improve overall organizational performance.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:01-07:00December 21st, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture, Podcast|Tags: bottom-up innovation, Collaboration, idea collection, inclusive innovation, innovation management software, innovation management solution, mckinsey organizational health index, ohi, organizational health index|