Author Archives: James Pasmantier
How are energy companies innovating? Find out how GE, China Light & Power and others are changing the way new sustainable energy solutions are sourced, and developed, internally, and using open innovation. Continue reading
Rewards and Recognition by James Pasmantier As we have discussed in previous posts, proper campaign design (targeted- vs. broad-spectrum) and building awareness are crucial to the success of any innovation program. But even if your program is well-planned and well-publicized, if your employees aren’t engaged it’s likely to fail. But generating workplace engagement can be difficult. Business thinker Gary Hamel cites a Towers Perrin study that discovered only one-fifth of employees are truly engaged in their work—meaning they’re fully invested and would “go the extra mile” for their employer. The rest ranged from disengaged (38%) to indifferent (41%). This feeling of detachment, and especially the sense of not having a voice in the company, is also a large factor in why employees leave their jobs. However, there are a number of different ways to motivate and engage your employees. The two most common methods are reward and recognition. While often … Continue reading
As GE launches its second phase of the highly successful Ecomagination Challenge, the concept of open innovation is becoming more and more mainstream. For this challenge, GE is asking for ideas to Power Your Home. Just as its name suggests, open innovation is an unrestricted concept adaptable to many applications and paradigms. From internal efficiency building to external calls for improved goods and services, when the core values of open innovation are maintained, like fostering an open dialogue and interaction amongst community users, it can be leveraged in so many creative ways. Running an open innovation contest is no small task and every aspect must be considered. There are seven main areas to address and when handled properly they can lead to a very successful campaign. 1. Open the dialogue and invite all to join. External marketing is a crucial ingredient to getting the word out on the concept, the … Continue reading
Innovation management is a requisite step toward the positive growth of any organization. Recently, the focus has been on a specific part of innovation management being dramatically affected by the much buzzed about ‘social revolution’. Yes, the seemingly rigid, straightforward, top-down traditional Project Management process may be in the midst of a major transformation- due in part to major evolutions in the software that helps facilitate this process. Every day, the social revolution touches almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Standard practice now seems to be that one must either read comments on Amazon or a group forum, post a tweet, join a LinkedIn discussion and tap friends on Facebook before buying a product online. Social is not going away. Businesses are starting to realize that in order to maintain competitive advantage they need to figure out not only what ‘social’ means, but how to effectively leverage … Continue reading
We’ve covered features, and the spectrum of innovation initiatives in our previous posts, so now let’s touch on a topic central to successful idea or innovation challenges- marketing. Properly implemented, marketing will ensure a robust social community is developed and most importantly, sustained. It’s important to define and understand the target audience of an individual campaign or idea generating initiative before beginning any marketing effort. In general, campaigns will be either internal, employee-facing campaigns, or externally-facing to customers, targeted groups, or the general public. Used internally, campaigns leverage the collective wisdom of employees to drive innovation. This can happen among small, cross-functional, groups, entire departments, or company-wide. Marketing a campaign to an internal audience should be targeted, utilizing existing channels of communication such as intranet portals and direct email communications. Take into account the role and functions of employees to determine the most effective means of communication—the marketing approach for … Continue reading
When considering launching an innovation campaign, there are many options and features to consider. To narrow it down, let’s consider two basic types of campaigns- targeted vs. broad spectrum. First let’s start by defining our terms. A targeted campaign is topic specific and will often have a defined time period with a predetermined start and end date, while broad spectrum campaign are very general in terms of topic focus, and again, often, but not always, are on-going with no specific timeline. Targeted or broad, campaigns can have various audiences, i.e. employees, customers, the general public. In the case of a targeted campaign, participants are asked to submit ideas on a specific initiative, question, or business challenge. “We are seeking to cut shipping costs by at least 25%,” for instance. On the other hand, one could setup a campaign with a much broader topic, or multiple broad …
