How to Find the Idea at the Right Time

One of the things that was surprising to us at IdeaScale was that many of our customers came to us looking for idea management software not because they didn’t have enough good ideas, but because they simply needed a place for those ideas to live. How could that be the main reason?

4 Stages for Innovation Refinement

If you’re in charge of innovation, it means that you’re constantly being surprised. Not just because technology and trends are emerging that are impacting your business in new and unexpected ways, but almost every project that you’re working on continues to evolve and improve over time.

How to Connect Innovation to Institutional Learning

In November, the United States Coast Guard presented at Open Nation on their Coast Guard ideas program. They talked about how lessons learned from previous extreme weather occurrences (Sandy, etc.) still hadn’t become institutional knowledge by the 2017 hurricane season when they were so desperately needed. The reason that this hadn’t happened was that all of the methods for collecting new ideas were slow and opaque.

A Commitment to Diversity is a Commitment to Innovation

The more you allow disparate ideas to mingle and collide, the more you maximize your chances for true innovative thought to emerge. Learn all of this and more in a complimentary white paper about why innovators want to nurture workforce diversity.

The Eight Attributes of Bottom-Up Innovation Leaders

Bottom-up innovation is fueled by many ideas initiated by employees, as opposed to top-down innovation, which is fueled by a strong vision - often by the company’s founder. Bottom-up innovation leaders are entrepreneurial, supported by management’s emphasis on creativity and a can-do culture, and often share these eight attributes.

The True Value of Your Ideas

The mantra of ideas being worthless can be heard from all corners of the globe. Venture capitalists back founders and not ideas. In 2009, the entrepreneur and author Seth Godin got the nine of his alternate MBA students to come up with 111 ideas each to create 999 business concepts (Godin 2009). The point? To prove that “Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution.” But is this correct? Your gut feeling demands that your best insights are worth more than nothing, right? Right.

2021-12-07T15:33:46-08:00December 3rd, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: , , , , , , , |

The Critical Lead Time to Eruption in Brainstorming Sessions

Dr. Stephen Sweid has conducted more than a hundred structured group brainstorming sessions in recent years, as well as many one-to-one discussion sessions as a consultant and trainer. He has observed a number of common patterns related to timing and evolution of the brainstorming process.

Top 10 Eureka Moments: Shower, Sleep and Drive

Looking for new solutions, we brainstorm a lot. Getting together to generate new ideas for urgent challenges. And when it's done professionally we even get a lot of ideas. But are they our best ones? That's the question. Brainstorming is under a lot of criticism these days. Is this tool giving us the best ideas possible? Do we do it the right way?

2019-10-15T15:17:42-07:00March 3rd, 2014|Categories: Idea Management, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: , , , , , |

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 11

Part eleven of the series finds challenge participant Carlos Gutierrez embracing his role in the global economy. How might the practice of collaborative innovation help people find their way forward in the Digital Age? How might the practice give people a voice?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 10

Part ten of the series finds challenge team members Ivete Monte and Carlos Suerte comparing notes. How has the first collaborative innovation challenge from the Idea Mill Program been received in their respective regions? What reservations does each have?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 09

Part nine of the series finds our protagonist Charlie Bangbang’s collaborative innovation challenge reaching its intended audience. How might various people along the community’s value stream react? What ideas might they contribute?

New Rules for Realizing New Ideas

Once you’ve got the green light from your boss, your innovation board or financer, it’s once again up to you to deliver the concept you’ve promised them.Depending on the nature of your new concept,in the next step you will deliver a prototype, a full business case or interested business or technology partners who will join the product development team.

30 Ways to Present a New Idea

Most new ideas don’t lead to new successful products or services. Six out of seven new concepts never reach the market. Lack of support at top management is an important explanation. In my professional practice I made - and saw a lot of mistakes being made in the way innovators present their ideas.

Ten Criteria for the Perfect New Product

What a brilliant idea! That’s what a lot of people think after a new idea pops into their minds. Or it’s something someone says at the end of a wonderful ideation workshop where a team of colleagues has just brainstormed new concepts. Of course, at that very moment it looks and feels like utter brilliance. Just like adoring parents swooning over their child. But, in this instance is it really justified?