People speak of creating the social business. What does that phrase mean? Do we sip lattes and play foosball in the break room? How does this magical entity differ from its anti-social brethren? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores the intent and possibilities that define the social business.
Social media has already fundamentally changed the way many of us live our lives or do business. In coming years its role in almost every aspect of public, private, political, commercial and community life is likely to grow; it could be seen as digital recombinant DNA, central to everything but changing and being changed, made up of millions of bits and bytes, with multiple roles, instructions and connections. This extended trend alert indicates some of the trends affecting the current development of social media, as a prelude to further discussions at a forthcoming foresight meeting in London; it does not claim to be comprehensive, but a jump off point.
A couple months 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 typical sustainability challenges and some ideas for overcoming them.
The practice of collaborative innovation starts with observation: the discipline to see and grasp the nature of the work, the end user’s environment, or the world at large. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores how people who lead their organization’s collaborative innovation practice can reinforce community members’ observational skills.
A new trend in business and product development is ‘co-creation’. By its very name it implies a collaboration between the company and some other entity. In this case it is the consumer who partners in the creation of value. The term ‘co-creation’ is not new, however, but is now receiving more attention - driven largely through the increasing use of the Internet and social media websites - as companies endeavour to differentiate themselves from the competition.
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.
Engaging end users in co-creation deepens the bonds between the organization and them. The activity can deliver economic value to all parties involved. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins highlights the critical questions that campaign teams will want to address when they pursue externally focused collaboration.
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.
The figures are clear, Emailvision’s survey shows that just 6,2% of the marketers are using social media to gain insights into customer preferences. According to a study by the Chartered Institute of Marketing only 20% of marketers use Facebook for market research. This means not fully utilizing the opportunities of social media and their data. Social media can provide an unparalled scale of real-time data, help identify unmediated consumer opinion and competitor perceptions or offer the ability to connect with those 'creative consumers' to co-create the solution with and strategically embed the outside-in perspective in the organization.
Organizations fund internal communications groups to develop and disseminate the central narrative for the group. Changes wrought by the Digital Age have usurped this group’s role as the exclusive interpreter and messenger for intra-firm information, however. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins advocates that internal communications reframe and refresh its charter by embracing the practice of collaborative innovation in order to facilitate engagement amongst staff.
This concludes the survey by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), the global community of information professionals, authored by Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Digital Business and the AIIM Task Force on Social Business and Innovation.
“Innovate or die” becomes the order of the day. People in response seek ways to innovate. Of late, many have embraced the practice of collaborative innovation, with its application of social media to sourcing crowds and ideas, and design thinking, with its structured approach to vetting hypotheses about new business opportunities. Having arrived in the organization by different routes, they exist as potential complements. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores ways to combine the practices to their mutual benefit.
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.
Product innovation is about developing and delivering the “next” product or service-to-market quickly and cost-effectively. A well-managed innovation process that meets customer demands for new and unique products and services can contribute to creating a competitive advantage and business growth. Organizations can improve their innovation processes through the use of next-generation social technologies, says Catherine Constantinides.
The Experience Economy is accelerated by the current global crisis according to Joe Pine. People don’t want more stuff, in this post-growth global economy people start questioning what they really value and that is experiences with others, loved ones, colleagues, friends, etc. There’s more demand for experiences and this will create job opportunities, moreover because commoditized services are being outsourced and offshored.
