innovation challenge

4 Things to Think About When Launching Your Innovation Program

Launching an innovation program is challenging for a number of reasons. Most of the time, champions of innovation face two main problems: 1) the general challenge of coordinating the various aspects of the innovation department, but also 2) educating the rest of the community about the value of innovation and how it will impact them. Addressing some of the main questions or challenges right off the bat paves the way for innovation success later.

Rob Hoehn2019-10-15T15:17:18-07:00July 7th, 2014|Categories: Open Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Best Practices, Communication, coordination, culture, front end of innovation, idea generation, innovation, innovation challenge, innovation lifecycle, innovation management software, team planning|

Innovating Where the Business Cares: Developing Areas of Strategic Innovation

Almost every innovation manager can recount stories of great ideas, concepts and products that people love and yet they’re never implemented. The business case stacks up and is technically feasible, but finding sponsorship and a budget seems to be impossible. As innovators, we’re often subject to ongoing commercial restrictions. The fastest way to get ideas off the ground is to ensure they’re aligned to the C-Suite agenda in both the short and longer term.

Ideascale2021-12-05T20:51:30-08:00April 7th, 2014|Categories: Strategies|Tags: budget, company culture, growth, idea implementation, innovation challenge, Innovation Strategy, innovative companies, portfolio management, strategic innovation, team diversity|

10 Prospects and Trends for Open and Collaborative Innovation

Over the last 5 years, Open Innovation has been evolving quite a lot in the ways it can be defined and implemented. Rather than proposing one more definition or describe one specific way to approach it, here is a set of trends I foresee based on the numbers of projects I have been involved in and the evolution of needs from organizations, would they be major corporations, SMEs or Public Services.

Ideascale2020-03-30T12:09:18-07:00September 2nd, 2013|Categories: Blog Archive|Tags: co-creation, collaborative innovation, idea management, innovation challenge, Innovation Culture, innovation platform, innovation success, intellectual property, meta challenge, Open Innovation, ROI, trends|

Linked Innovation: 5 Keys to Success in Open innovation Challenge Management

Open innovation crowd sourcing methods, when applied to the right problem, can effectively extend the solution provider search beyond the boundaries of an industry. This article presents the application of a targeted broadcast crowd sourcing method to identify unobvious solution providers for a German chain-drive industry consortium. The majority of solutions submitted through this method were previously unknown to the consortium. This evaluation demonstrates the power of open crowd sourcing to provide solutions from discontinuous industries and how effective crowd sourcing can be in open innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-05T17:17:34-08:00July 31st, 2013|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: case study, chemical industry, Crowdsourcing, europe, innovation challenge, innovation lifecycle, Innovation Management, innovation networks, linked innovation, local search bias, methodology, open call, Open Innovation, Product Development, R&D, report, solution provider|

Back End Commitment: Now You Have the Idea

People who sponsor collaborative innovation challenges establish a quid pro quo with the contributors and collaborators who comprise their communities. They agree to “do something” with the ideas that resonate with the community. What might “do something” entail, exactly? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins speaks to sponsor commitment on the back end of innovation, where ideas morph into tests, prototypes, and concepts.

Ideascale2020-03-30T12:08:09-07:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: back end of innovation, collaborative innovation, commitment, innovation challenge, innovation support|

The Professional Facilitator as Innovation Catalyst

“Innovate or die,” heralds the Digital Age. The wise leader, mindful of the limits of the latter, embraces the practice of collaborative innovation as a way for their organization to pursue the former. Organizations, too, have professional facilitators on staff and on call. Working as an adjunct to the human resources function, they have remained largely absent from the dialogue around the practice. Innovation happens elsewhere.

Ideascale2020-09-14T08:47:27-07:00May 28th, 2013|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Enabling Factors|Tags: Best Practices, collaborative innovation, Employee Engagement, facilitator, in-depth article, innovation, innovation architecture, innovation catalyst, innovation challenge|

Better Living through Collaborative Innovation

Organizations big and small have begun to explore the practice of collaborative innovation as a way to increase engagement and to foment a culture of innovation. Let’s say you work for such an organization. What’s the quid pro quo when you find yourself part of the crowd from which wisdom is sought? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins wrestles with questions that you may want to ask the practice sponsors and yourself.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:13:42-07:00March 19th, 2013|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, collaborative innovation, Communication, community, critical question, in-depth article, innovation challenge, Innovation Culture, quid pro quo, Teamwork|

How Can You Reuse Solutions From Other Industries?

Innovation is often more about combining what is already there than reinventing the wheel in a creative manner. In this article you will learn how to apply solutions from other industries to your problem at hand by using… metaphors. This method I am about to present is called Metaphor Safari and is based on professor Ikujiro Nonaka’s theory on knowledge management.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:13:44-07:00March 11th, 2013|Categories: Idea Management, Strategies|Tags: cross industry innovation, Crowdsourcing, defining problems, innovation challenge, knowledge transfer, metaphor safari, patterns|

A Simple Template for Choosing an Innovation Challenge

People who practice collaborative innovation envision a compelling future. They transform their communities, their organizations, and themselves by helping people realize their potential for leadership as they form and evolve ideas. Reality check: effective visionaries use pragmatic tactics to move from point A to B. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins shares a simple template that practitioners can use to help sponsors of innovation challenges choose where to begin their journey.

Ideascale2021-12-05T09:09:28-08:00November 27th, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, collaborative innovation, decision making, diversity, efficiency, growth, how to, indecision, innovation challenge, Innovation Management, Innovation Strategy, prioritization, sponsor, template|

Innovation Foundations at PSA Peugeot Citroën

In my previous article ‘Establishing the Foundations for a Balanced Innovation Portfolio’ I discussed the important role played by key innovation foundations in the success of a systemized collaborative innovation program. Even though you’re in a less than perfect position, the important step is to recognize the relative strength (or weakness) of each foundation, then put actions in place to improve each one. In this article I'm sharing the experiences of PSA Peugeot Citroën on their first ever collaborative innovation campaign.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:33:45-08:00October 22nd, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: automotive industry, business focus, Business Model Innovation, case study, collaborative innovation, company culture, foundations, innovation challenge, Innovation Management, innovation team|

Re-envisioning Client-Agency Engagement through Collaborative Innovation

The Digital Age disrupts the practices and beliefs that gird the archetypical relationship between advertising agency and client. The Procter & Gamble Companies discarded a relic of the client-agency relationship, the creative brief. They seek more authentic engagement that leads to more compelling campaigns. What possibilities do clients open when they move from exchanging information to engaging in co-creation? What role might the practice of collaborative innovation play in redefining roles between client and agency?

Ideascale2021-12-03T11:28:18-08:00July 10th, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: asking questions, case study, co-creation, collaborative engagement, collaborative innovation, Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, customer research, customer support, innovation challenge, marketing, power users, reframing questions|

Four Points to Consider as the Business Sponsor of an Ideation Challenge

Your organization holds you accountable for the profit or loss of one of its brands, channels, or regions. Maybe you oversee the business as a whole. You have an opportunity to apply collaborative innovation as a means to engage a wide swath of colleagues on resolving a critical business question with you. Should you proceed? If you do proceed, what points should you keep in mind to ensure you make productive use of your time and the time of your community members? In this article, community architect Doug Collins covers the four critical points to consider as the potential business sponsor of an ideation challenge.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:51:59-08:00June 28th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, business development, Collaboration, collaborative innovation, corporate sponsor, creative leadership, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, ideation challenge, innovation challenge, innovation challenge sponsorship, Innovation Management, innovation team, leadership, Open Innovation, sponsor, sponsoring, team roles, Teamwork|

Modeling the Resource Requirements for your Collaborative Innovation Program

The cost of doing innovation is a key factor in enterprise decision making but open innovation and collaborative innovation have a short history – so how do you go about modeling the cost of launching a collaborative or open innovation program? Doug Collins lays out the territory.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:17:04-08:00May 17th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Life Cycle Processes, Open Innovation|Tags: challenge driven innovation, collaborative innovation, community, cost of development, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, ideation challenge, innovation challenge, innovation champion, innovation costs, Innovation Management, innovation success, measuring innovation, Open Innovation, resource management, resources, supply and demand|

The Future of Innovation: GE’s Ecomagination Challenge

GE got their share of the headlines in the innovation community last month. I think it is well deserved as they gave us a very good example on how innovation is shaping up in the corporate world with their Ecomagination Challenge.

Ideascale2020-07-10T11:31:25-07:00August 23rd, 2010|Categories: Evergreen, Open Innovation|Tags: challenge, Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, eco-friendly, innovation challenge, Open Innovation, partnerships, sustainability, trends|

How to Align Innovation with Your Corporate Strategy

For any corporate innovation initiative to succeed, it is important that it is aligned with corporate strategy. Jeffrey Baumgartner shares a simple three step approach to help ensure that this happens and to avoid common pitfalls.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-01T09:01:07-08:00October 21st, 2009|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: asking questions, Communication, corporate innovation, corporate strategy, Crowdsourcing, diversity, enterprise innovation, evaluating innovation, evaluation, focus, idea generation, idea implementation, innovation buy-in, innovation challenge, Innovation Strategy, innovation tools, innovation value, management, strategy, Success, time management, top-down innovation|