innospivs

Barry Saunders has weighing on the comments section of the previous post with some good ideas and some hot! links!

He's also made me articulate another idea that's been running round my head. You may remember this post from a month ago where I state: Innovation = Invention + Entrepreneurship. Let me spell this out in more detail.

The issue I have with most Idea Management Systems is that they only work for really obvious ideas (often ones that meet explicit needs). The wacky ideas don't get past the first stage gate. The ideation bit (where people are encouraged to come up with & discuss ideas) is fine as far as it goes. But then you get some Stalinist committee of judges and a strict project management framework. Which may be necessary if you are spending big bucks. But more money isn't always better.

Market-based approaches are slightly better but for a proper Innovation Support System you need to recreate an entrepreneurship network inside (& even outside) your organisation:

• You need ways of encouraging your employees to notice things - esp. failures & frustrations.
  
• You need ways of linking people with needs to people who have ideas.
  
• You need ways of linking people who have ideas to people who can sell ideas to others.
  
• You need multiple sources of venture capital inside your organisation.
• You need to acknowledge & reward creative theft as much (or more) than original idea creation.
• You need to actively seek out and embrace innovations that could destroy your business model - because ultimately they will, but the edge is in changing faster than your competitors.
• You need to give simple prototypes of ideas to as diverse a range of people inside your organisation and see what the hell they do with them - because it won't be what you expect.
• You probably need to engage customers, suppliers, business partners & alumni in this process.
  

You need the irate, the dreamers, the spivs & the thieves.