Author Archives: Jake Shriar
I recently met a sales executive that has been in the innovation management industry for some time – in fact, for over nine years. During that time, he has worked for six different vendors who have implemented their solutions at a variety of organizations. He told me that “the industry has a dirty little secret – not one of the solutions implemented by the various vendors (including the more recent vendors to the scene) he had worked with had activity beyond a two-year time horizon”; and more than half were moribund within a year from launch. This kind of revelation would shock most people, but knowing what I know, it wasn’t really a surprise. It is easy for any management team inexperienced in the process of Idea & Innovation Management to be seduced by the excitement of capturing ideas and voting them up – some mechanisms appear sexier than others, … Continue reading
I recently met a sales executive that has been in the innovation management industry for some time – in fact, for over nine years. During that time, he has worked for six different vendors who have implemented their solutions at a variety of organizations. He told me that “the industry has a dirty little secret – not one of the solutions implemented by the various vendors (including the more recent vendors to the scene) he had worked with had activity beyond a two-year time horizon”; and more than half were moribund within a year from launch. This kind of revelation would shock most people, but knowing what I know, it wasn’t really a surprise. It is easy for any management team inexperienced in the process of Idea & Innovation Management to be seduced by the excitement of capturing ideas and voting them up – some mechanisms appear sexier than others, … Continue reading
I was watching the most recent Mastercard commercial the other day, and it really got me thinking. Innovation really goes hand in hand with entrepreneurship. The tagline in the commercial is “for those who never stop pursuing their dreams, there’s Mastercard”. If we want to encourage innovation, then we should be encouraging entrepreneurship. It all starts with education. President Obama has been really trying to promote innovation in America, but hasn’t quite laid out a plan to get this going. I am telling him now that he should be funding entrepreneurship classes in schools, ideally at all levels, not just college. Have entrepreneurs come in to classrooms and answer questions, or give advice to students. That is how we can achieve true innovation in America. Let’s mould the children to start thinking more entrepreneurially. This can also work at a company level. One client who I have consulted, who will … Continue reading
In the last few years, innovation has become increasingly important, with the rise of outsourcing, and companies being forced to become tighter due to the global recession. People understand that they need to be innovative, they’re just not sure how or where to start. Start at the top. If the CEO, and the other executives don’t believe in innovation, and don’t promote innovation, it will never happen. It needs to trickle down from the top. The important thing is, to create a culture that fosters innovation within the workplace. Purina is a great example of a company that fosters innovation properly. They have created an innovation team, made up of employees from different departments across the organization, specifically dedicated to innovation. It is clear that senior management is serious about fostering innovation at Purina, and ultimately I think they will be rewarded for their efforts, through increased revenue/profit. Google is … Continue reading
Collecting ideas is the easy part, believe me. If you launch an idea generation campaign, whether it be internal or external, you will receive some creative, brilliant ideas. Internal stakeholders or external customers have the answers that you’re looking for. You need to believe that good ideas will come, and start collecting. The real problem comes with idea management. A few years ago, Dell launched a campaign to collect ideas and suggestions from their customers. The response was overwhelming, but their big problem was they weren’t prepared to handle all of the requests. The campaign backfired, and customers were left to feel ignored and that their thoughts didn’t matter. This is why the role of an idea champion is so important. Most companies out there will pitch the fact that with software, you can sit back and let the crowd build up ideas and respond to requests, etc… This is … Continue reading
A few months ago, Nissan North America launched a marketing campaign called “Innovation for All”, that has since proved to be a very effective campaign. The campaign was intended to highlight some of the major innovations that Nissan has implemented over the years. Being in the innovation space, this marketing campaign excites me, as it highlights the importance of innovations at the enterprise level; a trend that I think will continue to grow as collaboration and crowd sourcing become more popular. Several companies have already been practicing innovation for quite some time, but again I think this theme will become more mainstream in the near future. Nissan’s campaign features five television spots that highlight some of the more significant innovations out of Nissan, like their brake override technology. The first ad spot to be released was an ad that asked some very interesting questions, like “what if cars didn’t need … Continue reading
