Innovation Needs to be Social

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Yes, it is Friday. The first working week for the year is almost done.

For MINDA, Year 2011 will be a year of Innovation and Human Capital. Yes, it takes a lot to get a business to excel. However, we believe are Innovation and Human Capital will be the two pivotal factors towards that success. All our programs will focus or sprinkled with elements of Innovation and/or People.

Innovation is no longer a buzzword. It is no longer a luxury. Innovation is not a short term project. It is not a feel good marketing, branding and publicity exercise.

It is a mindset. It is a culture embedded within the psyche of the people that make up the organization. It takes a long time to do. It takes commitment. It is hard work. But, it can be done.

I met a gentlemen who told me his brother in law who works in US, the US Government gave them USD$100 million for a 5 year project to look for a cure or even a vaccination for AIDS. At the end of that 5 year, they didn’t find a cure, nor did they find a vaccination. They found something that could help in the development of the a cure. That’s it. Many of us would say this is a failed project, and the Head would be removed. Not achieving the KPI.

However, in their R&D, they discovered cures, medications and vaccinations for other terminally ill ailments. The US Government said, that’s OK. That’s what R&D is. That’s the investment towards innovation. They have the correct people with the correct mindsets to manage this.

Some 31 years ago, a wise gentlemen taught me that, organizations do not make people. It’s the people that make the organizations. Organizations do not win prizes and achievements, or even make innovations. It’s the people. Social networking (people) meets innovation and making it happen. That’s what this article is all about.
Innovation Needs to be Social
by Joe McKendrick
November 27, 2010 at 12:03 am · Filed under FASTforward'09
Innovation is often looked at as a random acts of brilliance, but there are now ways to employ technology and services to capture and channel new ideas along the right course.
Some software tools — sometimes referred to as “ideation” platforms — have emerged to try to better systemize the innovation process. The idea is that ideas can be moved through a workflow of processes — just as projects are managed by project management software — from initial design to proposal stage, refinement, and funding.
How many ideas never get off the ground, languish, or are never even voiced, since enterprises usually don’t have formal systems to capture them and hold them up for possible conversion into new products and services?
Social networking can support this process every step of the way.  There’s plenty of excitement, of course around the formulation stage, which is often crowdsourced with awards and prizes to the brightest bulb.
There are other ways social networking plays roles throughout the idea lifecycle. Forrester’s Nigel Fenwick walks through the stages of moving ideas from inception to productization, and the role of social in a new post:
1.      INVENT:  Ideation communities to propose and rank new ideas; discussion boards and wikis for exploring possibilities.
2.      VALIDATE: Blogs and discussion boards to test concepts.
3.      INCUBATE: Collaboration work groups; customer and partner communities.
4.      IMPLEMENT: Promotion through social channels such as blogs, microblogs, videos, and communities.
5.      MEASURE: Measure impact through social communities; reward idea contributors through community kudos.

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