What is it that you want to change about your business? Do you want to introduce breakthrough products or services? Game changing revenue growth? Dramatic reduction in overheads? Every business wants the same. Then what is stopping you or others in the industry from achieving this? It is the scarcity of new ideas!

A small to medium sized organization can have only a limited number of employees – say 50. Out of those 50 employees, only a handful works in R&D where new ideas and concepts originate. The rest work in several different departments, and even though they might have interesting ideas for business growth, they don’t have a platform to suggest those ideas. Enter idea management software.

In simplest terms, idea management is the management of ideas. Although the common notion is that idea management software helps gather,...

In the information age, transparency is becoming the de facto standard for business, government, institutions, and other aspects of daily life. People not only want to know where their produce is coming from, but also who is running the grocery store and the other suppliers they work with. The values a company holds and how those ideals shape the decisions they make are important to customers and employees. Technology have made it easier for individuals to crunch through large amounts of information, and now everyone is demanding transparency in leadership in order to make informed decisions.

Background on transparent leadership

Think about the world before the Internet and the dawn of the information age. Most people were too busy with their daily lives and work to care about the buying decisions of their local supermarkets, let alone the Read more...

The goal of any charity or non-profit is to see real change happen. And so, keeping overhead costs low is usually a high priority. Many charities start because certain needs are not met on the public level. Yet, as non-profits gain momentum, the intricacies of running a large organisation can slow things down. Revitalising communication and outreach tools can help non-profits increase the impact they make. So how can non- profits use innovation management tools to get creative in maximising the impact of their services? Here are a few ideas, and we’d love to hear some of yours in the comments!

Getting Immediate Feedback from the Field

Open communication can give non-profits a unique insight into the communities they serve. Charities want to help people. These people live in different countries, neighbourhoods, and communities around the world. The charity...

When people collaborate to develop ideas together, they are capable of more than the sum of their parts. These ideas evolve because a collective group put energy into them. In creative endeavours, teams collaborating often achieve a much better result than individuals.

As ideas evolve, the key to success is not superiority, but diversity. When teams bring different perspectives to idea processes, the end result is a stronger idea. Individual ideas are not complete. They need to be vocalised, discussed , and re-adjusted before one puts them into practice.

If these ideas are not exposed to a larger audience, as so many ideas were in the pre-Internet era, they will never become fully formed.

Nowadays, there are many ways to share our ideas on the Internet. Minds from all over the world are able to collaborate in a focused manner...

Social innovation is creating a new idea for positive impact. So then ,why, you might be asking, am I writing a whole (multiple part) blog post about the definition of social innovation when I could fit it in a tweet! Like all good bloggers and internet nerds, I want to give you my (unsolicited) opinion on what really makes social innovation tick. To do that I think we need more answers:

** 1) How do we get these new ideas? **

** 2) What is positive impact? **

Answers:

1) How do you get new ideas?

Good ideas, are often thought of as coming from exceptionally brilliant people with a stroke of creativity. However, we believe that everyone has great ideas, if only the right conditions are met. Here are some of those conditions:

• You have a...

In today’s world of social media, marketing is no longer a one-way monologue. Several organisations have run successful marketing campaigns that follow the crowdsourcing model. These campaigns have the advantage of making consumers feel involved and engaged. This is valuable in an era when the public is becoming desensitized to the many marketing messages they face every day.

Let’s take a look at a few companies that have successfully used crowdsourcing for marketing.

Lego Ideas

Lego Ideas, which was originally known as Lego Cuusoo, invites Lego fans from around the world to share ideas for new Lego products. Any idea that wins the support of 10,000 site members will be considered for production, and the person who suggested it will get 1 percent of the royalties.

Not only has the Lego Ideas program led to the creation of six...

From the suggestion box to complex online structures and tools, open innovation has come a long way. Henry Chesbrough coined the term open innovation back in 2003 in his book by the same name. Since then, many organisations have found success with open innovation. And with success comes the desire to analyse and define that success. So, what is the definition of open innovation?

Chesbrough originally defined open innovation as: “a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology”.

Quite the opposite to ‘closed innovation’, which assumed that the best route to innovation was to have control over the process (ie. hiring the best employees, keeping data internally, etc.)

For us and open innovation definition...

Small software companies are amongst the most innovative firms in the world. But how do they achieve, what every company longs for?

One element certainly is their cultural DNA that places individual freedoms over corporate hierarchies. At some companies like Github, the developer of the software repository platform, there are no reporting lines at all. There’s no better shot in the arm for the motivation and productivity of your employees.

But the main driver might be open innovation. These companies publish their core product, the software code their developers have put together. This is a tremendous departure from the mainstream business model that proposes to develop a product, keep its secrets secret and then lock in customers by building strong barriers to switching to the competition, such as making the device technically incompatible with other firms’ products. Then push...

One of the most effective ways to solve a problem or create a business plan is to brainstorm. Brainstorming, according to Dictionary.com, is defined as: “A conference technique of solving problems, amassing information, stimulating creative thinking, developing new ideas, etc., but unrestrained and spontaneous participation in discussion.”

In other words, a bunch of people sitting around a conference room table writing stuff down on flip charts and whiteboards, right? Wrong. As the song says, “That was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone.”

Today, thanks to technology, we are living in a world virtually (no pun intended) without limits, and that applies to brainstorming as well. With brainstorming software, participants can be anywhere in the world with an unlimited number of people participating.

Unlike a conference call where people may have difficulty hearing each other or are constantly cutting in on...

“It takes two flints to make a fire.” ― Louisa May Alcott

We talk a lot about collaboration when we talk about innovation. We can get better ideas, valuable feedback, and meaningful conversation when we are open to collaboration. But this conversation remains at the participant level. What about creating innovative partnerships to expand the reach and effectiveness of your initiative? In the groundbreaking book: “CrowdStorm” the authors outline the various partnerships for innovation to pursue to ensure success in your project. If you have got a great idea for an innovation initiative that you want to take to the next level, consider partnering with these types of organisations and individuals:

Media Partners

Finding a media partnership for innovation is a great way to boost your publicity and tap into your target markets on a low budget. Search...