It is often in the commencement of one’s career that simple mistakes are made. Whether it’s a result of inexperience, blinding enthusiasm or fearlessness doesn’t really matter, as long as the lesson learned serves you, and others, well. Gijs van Wulfen shares a constructive experience from his first innovation position.
Internal and external communities can bring real value to your organization by providing ideas and feedback for the innovation pipeline. Amy Kenly takes a look at several leading practices companies should consider when managing or participating in these communities.
In a recent SAP Community Network post Harun Asad mentioned innovation as one social strategy. In this article he explores the role of social in innovation strategy more broadly, and cites several real-world examples as well as shares some predictions for the future.
Developing and supporting the practice of collaborative innovation takes time and money. What do we assess to weigh its value? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins proposes focusing on strategic alignment of the program, relative advantage of the ideas, and engagement of the community members.
Product innovation is not simply about generating new ideas. It is a complex process, and many organizations struggle with the design and implementation of an effective innovation strategy that yields measurable results over the long-term. Sustained growth and profitability can be achieved through the integration of three critical levels: People, processes and tools.
In traditional thinking, being competitive in the global marketplace requires a significant investment in time and resources. But the reality is that any organization today can take advantage of open innovation to innovate faster and cheaper than ever before, positioning them as true competition in the industry. This article will explore the top five ways SMEs can leverage open innovation.
When conceptualizing a new idea, it is essential to direct the thinking to specific dimensions and search answers to certain questions to help evolve the idea from the initial thought through the various stages of innovation. This article suggests a framework for conceptualizing an idea and helps develop an understanding of the dimensions and questions that you need to consider.
If they want to compete successfully in the future, companies should hold off on rapid ideation and faster commercialization until they take an unflinching look at what is truly stifling breakthrough innovation. In this article, Soren Kristensen provides insight on how honest self-reflection can free you from your biggest impediment to growth.
Design empowered innovation combines the best of right and left brain thinking. It has the capacity to deliver better ideas, with more relevance, realized earlier. By focusing on individuals, moments and journeys in ethnography, insights become deeper. By embracing chaos and play in brainstorms, creative teams can explore further. By iterating and early prototyping, ideas become real and develop more rapidly.
"This company needs to be more innovative!" Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But what happens next? Because a true change in how innovative a company is must also reflect a change in the skills of employees that are related to innovation. Which, of course, begs the question: Is innovation a skill set that all employees can acquire? Can employees that are not innovative learn how to be? And, if so, what are these skills? How are improvements in them measured? In this article Dr. Mark Juszczak attempts to provide HR practitioners with some guidelines and a background into the competencies linked to innovation and the extent to which such competencies are teachable.
The most common challenges companies face as they get started with the application of social models and technologies to innovation and product development fall into five main buckets – strategy, people and culture, business processes, technology and sustainability. In this post I will take a deeper look at the typical challenges around people and culture during a social product innovation initiative, and some ideas for overcoming them.
Truly innovative companies do not aim to be innovative. Rather they relentlessly strive to follow a unique strategy, says Jeffrey Baumgartner.
A couple weeks ago I laid out the framework for the most common challenges companies face as they get started with their social product innovation initiatives. The most common challenges fall into five main buckets – strategy, people and culture, business processes, technology and sustainability. So let’s take a deeper look at developing a social product innovation strategy, the typical challenges and some ideas for overcoming them.
Consider this all too familiar scenario: Company X’s new products developed and launched with great expectations, yield disappointing results. Yet, these products continue to languish in the market, draining management attention, advertising budgets, manufacturing capacity, warehouse space and back office systems. Wouter Koetzier explores how to avoid the innovation death spiral.
Copycat innovation, the act of adapting a solution that has been used successful in another industry or profession, is a more reliable, affordable route to innovation, suggests Dr. Yew Kam Keong, Ph.D.
