IM & Innovation Tool

Turning the ‘Nos’ to Open Innovation into a Big Fat ‘Yes’

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If you are an innovator, someone trying to blaze a trail, break new ground and shake up the status quo there’s one word that you hear all the time and better get used to – No! In this insightful TopCoder Innovation Series video, Thomas Baden, Chief Information Officer for the State of Minnesota, Department of Human Services details his first journey into open innovation and the onslaught of ‘nos’ that tried to stop him in his tracks.


Baden was proposing a human services information system that could be shared across states and would save money, time and resources.  In trying to push it through he heard nothing but ‘nos’ and that included the negative reactions of his 550 members of staff.  But he persevered and eventually got the ‘yes’ he needed.

This is a great story about how to promote an open innovation agenda and succeed when everyone around you thinks you have taken leave of your senses or says: “that’s not the way we do things round here”.

Baden gives a passionate address and anyone who has ever come up against the brick wall of tradition, or the molasses of bureaucracy and arcane and labyrinthine systems will sympathize with what Baden had to deal with.

Read full article » www.ideaconnection.com/blog/2012/08…

 

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