The Six Pillars of Innovation Culture

Every year, IdeaScale asks our customers what their main priorities are for the coming year, and without fail one of the top two priorities is to create a culture of innovation. Every innovation thought leader, every organizational engagement specialist, every pundit or leader in transformation says that this is the secret to avoiding disruption.

How to Drive More Innovation In Your Workforce

Let’s face it, creativity separates humans from the rest of the animals. Our species has opposable thumbs and with that, it seems, the inborn drive and ability to alter our environment. No wonder the topic of innovation ability provokes such primal emotions. Yet — like speed, intelligence or artistic talent — innovation talent is NOT distributed evenly across humanity. Given this truth, what is the best approach to driving more innovation in your workforce?

Lean Start-Up and Digital Skills: Are They Enough?

If you’re like a lot of people, your company is trying to drive innovation internally, with a workforce that wasn't really hired for that. It's a tough nut to crack, and the very reason we started Swarm Vision.

Can Everyone Be Innovative?

Innovation is an integral part of many organizations today, and for good reason: it helps companies stay agile, relevant, and evolving. However, innovation is often difficult to achieve—or is even met with resistance.

Where to Start with Innovation? Begin by removing the Barriers

Surveys show that the large majority of senior executives see innovation as critical for their businesses but what if you want to make your organization more agile and innovative where should you start? You could launch a big initiative with grand statements, training classes and an ideas scheme but you tried all those last year and they fizzled out. It is better to begin with a brutally honest assessment of what is preventing innovation from happening today.

What Skills Are Rated Most Difficult When it Comes to Innovation? (The Answer Might Surprise You)

A common misconception is that innovation can’t be taught. Similar to how some people believe that artists are born, not made – innovation has often seemed to be the purview of the great thinkers, the elite, people whose creativity is given, not a matter of practice…

Transferring Innovation Skills to Newbies: Fact or Fiction?

Expert innovators know from experience how to innovate while minimizing hassle, needless tasks and wasted effort – they’ve been successful (and unsuccessful) countless times through trial and error. Using flight simulators and surgical learning tools as examples, it’s been proven that teaching veteran skills to ‘newbies’ isn’t science-fiction, especially in more ‘exact’ disciplines such as medicine and math. But is it possible to design a crash-course that teaches young and inexperienced innovators the less-definable skills, attitudes and insights necessary to ideate, champion and implement without having to go through all the awkwardness of being a rookie? We think so, and here’s why.

The Frustrated Innovation Team: What Should They Do?

Many executives talk a lot about innovation, but they don't really know how to make it happen. A corporate innovation team asks themselves: How do we "educate" our executives on innovation management and develop stronger corporate innovation capabilities together?

How Improvisation can Boost Innovation

If you have an innovative culture already in place (meaning you’re working with stuff like agile project management, design thinking, lean, etc.) perhaps it’s time you consider Applied Improvisation Training. If instead you are a static and uncommunicative company, Applied Improvisation may even work against your innovation efforts. Edoardo Binda Zane explains more.

Why Top Executives Do Not Get Innovation – and What to Do About It

Many leaders of corporate innovation efforts struggle to get the support they need from executives higher up in the organization. Top executives can be skilled at talking the talk about innovation, especially in public venues, but frequently fail to walk the walk when it comes to making key choices that determine whether an innovation project will happen or die on the vine.

The Next Level of Open Innovation: Is Your Organization Ready?

Getting started with open innovation and developing the right foundation for open innovation has been a key challenge at many companies in the last three to five years. Now, internal as well as external forces are moving these companies towards the next level of open innovation in which we go beyond just products and technology and start to explore how a more open and collaborative mindset can be applied to all more business units and functions. Think procurement and engineering as examples.

The One Skill that Innovators Forget

Most innovators cultivate traits like creative risk taking, positive reinforcement and strategic planning. However, there is another branch of innovation in which innovators still require a great deal of training.