Interview – Adrian Gostick of “The Carrot Principle”I had the opportunity to interview Adrian Gostick, one of the co-authors of “The Carrot Principle” about the importance of recognition to successful innovation efforts.Because innovation comes most often from engaged employees, recognition is key to moving employees from marking time to making innovation.My book review of “The Carrot Principle” can be found here.Here is the text from the interview:1. Do you feel that companies should incentivize innovation?Absolutely. We studied 200,000-people for The Carrot Principle, and a simple truth we found in that data is that people do more of that which is rewarded. If you want great customer service, you find, reward and publicize people who go above and beyond in serving your customers. If you want innovative products, service and solutions, you reward that behavior. It’s a no-brainer, but rare is the organization that actually puts this in place in a … Continue reading →

I had the opportunity to interview Charlie Brown of Ashoka’s Changemakers at the incentive2innovate conference this week at the United Nations in New York City. You can see the video interview here:Ashoka’s Changemakers is a community of action where people can collaborate on solutions. The community provides the platform for people to attack projects one idea at a time as they attempt to solve the world’s most pressing social problems. The goal of the community is to create a community of people willing to share solutions that have value as is or that can be built upon to create leverage beyond the benefits created by the original contributor.Community members talk about issues, share stories, mentor, advise, and encourage each other in group forums. Ashoka’s Changemakers also partner with other foundations to offer challenges to the community.Their mantra is “Everyone is a Changemaker.”What do you think?Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

I had the privilege of interviewing Dean Kamen of DEKA Research and FIRST fame at the incentive2innovate conference this week at the United Nations in New York City. You can find the video of our conversation here:I was pleasantly surprised that Dean Kamen draws the same distinction between invention and innovation that I do. We had a great conversation about the challenges of taking a technological invention and overcoming cultural resistance to achieve a true innovation. Dean Kamen spoke about how really important technology inventions take twenty years or longer to be accepted by society. We also spoke about the importance of efforts like FIRST and of making math and science fun and mysterious for kids, and about how the pace of technological invention is speeding up but potentially the ability and willingness of people to absorb it is slowing down.Please check out the video and let me know what … Continue reading →

I had the opportunity to interview Neil Blakesley of BT Americas at the incentive2innovate conference this week at the United Nations in New York City. You can see the video interview here:Here are the questions I asked him:What do you see as the most exciting innovation in telecommunications to reach businesses in the next 12-18 months?What have been some of the greatest successes that BT has had outside of the UK and how did innovation play a role?What do you feel is unique about BT’s approach to collaboration and innovation?Do you feel that incentives have a real impact in stimulating innovation?The biggest takeaway for me was that even if you design the greatest approach to internal or external open innovation ever seen by mankind, it will still be important to try and keep it fresh for people so that participation can be sustained.What do you think?Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

I had the opportunity to interview InnoCentive founder Dr. Alpheus Bingham, PdD and InnoCentive CEO Dwayne Spradlin at the incentive2innovate conference this week at the United Nations in New York City. You can see the video interview here:Here are the questions I asked them:In your view – What are the greatest strengths of the open innovation movement?Do you feel that open innovation will face its own s-curve of declining interest and decreasing submission quality over time?Where do you think the greatest opportunities lie for open innovation in the future?Open innovation is a fascinating topic, and it will be interesting to see whether or not companies are able to adapt to expanding innovation beyond their own payroll. Doing so will require companies to master a new competency, and potentially organizations that do not adapt to the new potential of partnering to innovate will be disrupted by new entrants who do. What … Continue reading →

I had the opportunity to meet with BrightIdea co-founder and COO Vincent Carbone on May 7, 2009. We had a fascinating conversation about the last ten years of innovation, and the history and future vision of Brightidea.Brightidea was founded by Matthew Greeley and Vincent Carbone in 1999. Matt was interested in evolution and the shift from physical to mental evolution and he was very interested in exploring how mental evolution could be accelerated. There was a belief that by getting people to more openly share ideas, groups of people could create better ideas.Brightidea started as an openidea exchange at brightidea.com with a broad set of topics that people could contribute ideas to – the structure being modeled loosely on the DMOZ project. The original model was advertising-supported. Individuals from all around the world submitted ideas on any topic of their choice, and then other members of the brightidea.com community voted … Continue reading →