We often talk about the role of innovation in an age of constant, radical disruption, as defined by the 4th industrial revolution. Within this new environment, innovation leaders should play an essential role in helping the organization thrive and drive growth.
Creativity and societal problems have not always been closely associated. In the national dialogue, fixing these problems involves a series of concrete steps—steps designed to create concrete processes and repeatable outcomes.
In the context of business management and economics, innovation has mainly been considered as a source of profit and growth. But innovation can also have a transformative role and recently more and more innovators and entrepreneurs are not only considering the financial returns of their projects, but also the societal impacts that they might bring with them.
The list of problems that need to be solved is growing almost as fast as our solutions are. Some are concerned about the lack of food and water security, others worry about access to education and a whopping 45.2% of millennials think today’s most pressing problem is the destruction of natural resources. But with the proliferation of problems, organizations and enterprises are broadening their search for innovative solutions and many of them are looking to the crowd for ideas.
Last week Unilever announced research showing that one-third of consumers now purchase its brands based on their good social and environmental performance, but went on to suggest that brands are missing an opportunity from not promoting sustainability effectively. Getting this right could unlock a further $1trn market opportunity for sustainability innovators.
Innovation proves vital for companies across industries, but carries key importance in the technology field. Mainstream perception of the tech industry conjures illustrations of cutting edge, never-before-seen products poised to disrupt and revolutionize daily lives.
Sometimes we plan to go from point A to point B, but wind up at point C. What happens when point C turns out to be a dead end? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores the crossed signals that can occur when organizations attempt to advance their practice of collaborative innovation, but find themselves someplace less promising.
Gartner predicts that four of five large enterprises that pursue social innovation with their employees and the world at large will, over the next couple years, fail in their endeavors. Ouch. Meatloaf gave better odds. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores how you might increase the odds of gaining a coveted membership to the twenty percent club.
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.
Last week, the Dutch Financial Times reported that the Netherlands moved up to the seventh place in the yearly competitiveness index by the World Economic Forum (WEF). To close the gap with the top five, social innovation needs to be tackled. Not only raising R&D budgets, but also better innovation management and work smarter.
As companies start looking at ways to incorporate social media models and technologies into the innovation and product development process, there seem to be two very defined – and very vocal – arguments for and against. One side seems to have the opinion that social media will save the world. If everyone can just happily and openly share and co-create, life will be better and easier. The other side believes that social media is a waste of time and has no place in business, much less embedded in the sacred innovation and product development processes that many companies hope will help them stay afloat and even grow during the recession and recovery.
Social innovation advocates challenge us to make the development and improvement of modern society our primary innovation goal. This week IM spoke with Josef Hochgerner, who created the first Centre for Social Innovation world-wide (1990) and introduced a definition of social innovation which increasingly meets approval among innovation experts. Find out more about his experiences and views on innovation management.
Saul Kaplan, founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory tells IM about how he is teaming up with passionate innovators to make real and lasting change in education, health care, energy, and entrepreneurship. Read more to find out how.
We are all very familiar with traditional examples of collaboration and co-creation that produce commercial benefits for companies – Nike, P&G, Electrolux, Unilever, Frito-Lay, etc. But what about social benefits; can emerging platforms of collaboration and co-creation also produce social benefits? Can they channel the energy of everyday citizens into constructive activities that usher change in a more peaceful and civil manner than what we are witnessing across Egypt today? In my opinion, the answer is a definite yes.
Recent reports in the Harvard Business Review question the efficiency of the traditional Silicon Valley venture capital innovation funding model and more emphasis is now being placed on how to manage the innovation process in a low finance environment. In this article we look at one grass roots movement that is providing a model for creating the widest possible innovation culture, at the same time bringing this new innovation management thinking into the mainstream.
