Open Innovation

Focused on working across industries, companies, departments, etc. – opposite of siloing. Crowdsourcing can fall under this goal as well, sourcing ideas from across industries, across companies, from the public, etc.

What Can We Learn from NASA About Crowdsourcing in a Pandemic?

When COVID-19 shut down the United States in 2020, everyone wanted to be a part of the solution. At NASA, the entire NASA workforce expressed their desire to help the nation combat the virus – even though most of their employees were asked to work from home.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:06-07:00November 23rd, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management|Tags: case study, communication strategy, Crowdsourcing, NASA|

What is a Virtual Innovation Lab?

The Virginia Department of Transportation created their own Virtual Innovation Lab, where they collaborate to solve problems related to remote work, engineering topics, safety, and more with the help of their entire distributed workforce. Learn more in this December 15th webinar!

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:09-07:00November 9th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, Employee Engagement, innovation lab, innovation management software, remote work, SaaS, virtual innovation lab, work from home|

The Hidden Culture Benefits of Crowdsourced Innovation

Crowdsourcing ideas has a number of different virtues: from improving the likelihood that you’ll source disruptive ideas to lowering the overall program costs of running an innovation program… but there are some other cultural benefits to a crowdsourced innovation program.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:22:02-08:00October 5th, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture, Podcast|Tags: brainstorming, Crowdsourcing, decision making, groupthink, introvert, social engagement|

Why Bother with User Innovation?

Users are a hidden ‘front end’ of innovation, highly motivated, prepared to experiment and tolerant of things not working right first time. So it makes sense to try and bring this perspective to bear.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:21:37-08:00October 1st, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Front End of Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: co-creation, collective intelligence, Crowdsourcing, free innovation, user innovation, user input|

Customer-Centric Innovation? Sure, But With Which Customers?

Today, putting customers at the heart of innovation is a no-brainer for most business managers. However, should the innovation process involve all customers or only specific segments? In this article we explore the hurdles of these initiatives and propose a method to select the most relevant customers with whom to innovate.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:21:12-08:00September 29th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Strategies|Tags: B2B, Collaboration, Customer-centric innovation, minimizing risk, technology-centric innovation, uncertainty|

7 Incentives to Increase Participation in a Crowdsourced Innovation Program

Every year, one question tops all the others that our customers might bring to us: how do I increase engagement in my innovation community? We see this question even in the most robust and activated innovation programs.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:03:25-08:00July 6th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: continuous learning, Crowdsourcing, incentive, recognition|

The Three Challenges of Crowdsourced Innovation

You have a problem to solve, and we have the crowd. IdeaScale has recently acquired Betterific, a crowdsourcing platform that engages a community of 18,000+ creative problem solvers, design thinkers, and ideators to help you come up with your next big idea. Learn more about how you can tap into this innovative community.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:50:31-08:00May 11th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: Crowdsourcing, Ideation|

The Essential Skills to Teach Intrapreneurs

At JR Simplot, a new cross-functional innovation initiative recently formed looking for ideas that would help optimize company efficiency, improve training programs, and more. And when they built this team, they realized that a big part of launching an innovation initiative was education. Learn more in this podcast.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:49:03-08:00April 20th, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture, Training & Education|Tags: Best Practices, brainstorming, business case development, design thinking, education, efficiency, employee education, Employee Engagement, employee incentives, employee training, leadership, pitch coaching, problem definition, professional development, prototyping, recognizing talent, training programs|

How Frontline Employees Drive the Change Management Process

Organizational change can be met with resistance, especially if it excludes employee input.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:45:41-08:00April 9th, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: caregivers, Change Management, Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, customer experience, customer intelligence, customer service, Employee Engagement, employee insights, frontline employees, insights, nurses, retail|

Ideation in Times of Crisis

If you’re thinking about launching a crowdsourcing campaign to respond to some of these challenges brought about by COVID-19, now is a good time. We are all learning so much right now and so quickly. And everyone wants to help, so let them.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:44:02-08:00April 6th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: coast guard, continuous improvement, coronavirus, covid-19, Creativity, crisis, crisis response, Crowdsourcing, disaster preparedness, disaster response, Ideation, social distancing|

Coronavirus Crisis Only Heightens the Need for Innovation and Co-Creation

Those of us that work in the innovation management sector need no convincing of the benefits that it can bring to businesses and government departments all over the world. Adopting an innovative culture and approach allows an organisation to survive and thrive in the highly competitive modern business world and helps prevent them from becoming irrelevant or even obsolete.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:40:12-08:00March 24th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation, Trend Alert|Tags: cash flow, co-creation, Collaboration, collaborative innovation, coronavirus, covid-19, disruption, disruptive innovation, innovative leadership, pivot, siloing, supply chain|

How NASA Leads Intrapreneurial Innovation

Not everyone knows that NASA has embedded crowdsourcing into their strategy and capabilities. But in fact, back in 2011 (after they ran a highly successful crowdsourcing pilot) NASA established the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI).

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:29:40-08:00February 19th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Organization & Culture, Podcast|Tags: case study, challenge, Collaboration, Communication, idea challenge, Ideation, innovation challenge, intrapreneur, NASA, podcast|

Landscape Monitor for Startups

Entrepreneurs deal with high levels of uncertainty; probably more than any other business. The more disruptive the startup, the higher the level of uncertainty. Will the customers buy? How do we reach them? Will we be able to sell at a profit? Will our partners do their part? Who is out there that we can learn from? Are there threats that we are unaware of?

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:29:11-08:00February 10th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Life Cycle Processes, Open Innovation, Support for SMEs, Training & Education|Tags: analogs, business model, Competition, competitive advantage, Creativity, Crowdsourcing, customer acquisition, economics, entrepreneurship, landscape canvas, landscape monitor, market structure, product delivery, referents, regulation, research, revenue model, startup, startup canvas, substitutes, uncertainty|

What Innovation Funnel Should I Use?

After a decade working in innovation, I think many of us are sick and tired of seeing a funnel on another slide at an innovation conference. Lots of ideas at the top, just a few implemented ideas at the bottom… we get the idea.

Ideascale2021-12-20T11:28:07-08:00February 3rd, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation|Tags: Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, customer experience, Employee Engagement, innovation funnel, process improvemnet, Product Development, workplace experience|

Improving Safety in Extreme Work Environments through IoT

Sustainability is a widely known concept. However, finding a balance for its three main pillars (society, economy, and environment) is not easy. Society demands that companies respect and protect the environment while generating benefit, improving the country’s economy and respecting every member of society.

Ideascale2021-12-20T11:23:34-08:00January 17th, 2020|Categories: News, Open Innovation|Tags: innovation challenge, Open Innovation, open innovation challenge|