By Ian Smith

‘Yes’, there’s broad consensus that a holistic approach (incorporating Direction/Intent, Execution/Delivery, Collaboration/KM & People/Organization) is the best way to innovate, and ‘No’, there’s broad agreement that there is no one way to drive innovation (bottom up, top down, a mixture etc – it all depends on the company) but one interesting question remains….can every company innovate successfully? Is Innovation based on ‘Nature’ or ‘Nurture’?

Essentially, is an enterprises ability to innovate based on innate or inherited qualities (i.e. is it fixed) or is it based on various experiences and influences (i.e. can it be changed or learnt)?

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By Ron Shulkin

When your company embraces innovation it will also cut costs, your quality will improve, and it will be a safer work environment.

One Keystone Decision (like embracing innovation as a corporate mandate) can effect every other part of your organization. A commitment to Innovation can turn into all sorts of successes everywhere. That Keystone for Innovation is held up by all your other efforts, while providing stability for the corporate structure at the same time.

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By Ron Shulkin

Here’s a scenario worth thinking about. Let’s say you deploy your internal social network. And it’s a huge success. Everyone is posting information. You ask for ideas and you get them. But now you’re faced with a dilemma….How do you pull all that information together? How do you surface the best ideas?

The problem is too much information. Just the opposite of where you started. You have too many ideas to manually sift through all of them. Many of them are similar but you wonder how you’re going to match those similar ideas together.

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By Ron Shulkin

You may not know it yet, but you want an idea management social network in your organization. If you don’t have one, you may only get an electronic suggestion box, which is really no better than a static list of ideas. And that’s not going to do anyone any good.

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Collaborative Idea Management Systems are mini experiments looking into human behaviors that result in out of the box thinking. They’re not just electronic suggestion boxes.

When you get a bunch of smart people posting ideas and then invite others to comment, you invite chaos and disruption. If you’re lucky, the serendipitous discovery of great (breakthrough, revenue producing, cost saving) ideas pop up. 

Collaborative Ideation is a little like the show Survivor: When you log into the dialog about ideas you get to see who prospers, who gets double crossed, and who gets voted off the island.

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By Ron shulkin

Connect and Develop is the new black (R&D alone costs more, is slower and is sooo last year).

There is a blessing to the new world of collaborative innovation. Instead of spending heaps of money on research to get new products or the solution to problems and obstacles, industry has the ability to use Web 2.0 technologies to connect with those who have the answers. Just by asking every smart person in the company, the ability to connect to an answer is enabled. Or by asking the rest of the world (e.g. “open innovation”) months or years of research time can be short circuited and new products can be fast-tracked into development.

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By Ron shulkin

This blog entry is about why it is important to collaborate across your company’s disciplines and divisions while having the support and encouragement of your management. The topic is innovation, why it is important for everyone to come up with new ideas to keep any given company’s product offerings fresh, new and cutting edge. And how great ideas are the result of a collaboration of diverse people.

It doesn’t do anyone any good to “preach to the choir”. In my little group, I’m sure we all agree our ideas and our way of doing things are just great. After all, we all have similar backgrounds, work on the same topics and produce similar results. But to be successful, you need your ideas to get “viral” and leave your immediate sphere.

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By Ron Shulkin

Thinking about getting an idea management system? Here’s your feature/function check list.
Of course you should still poll your user community and get their feedback to see what they need. But after you’re done, I bet you a nickel you’ll end up with a list like this one.
Print it out and check off the items during your demonstrations.

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By Ron Shulkin

With the new patent law, now more than ever you need an automated collaborative system for ideas.

The new patent reform law has many ramifications and I want to look at one of them. At its essence the “America Invents Act” has one critical attribute: Instead of awarding patents to those with “first to invent” status, it is based on “first to file” for their patent. Just like Ken Jennings vs. the IBM computer on Jeopardy, the computer can hit the button faster than is humanly possible.

It’s true the America Invents Act purports to shave time off the patent approval, juggling 750,000 patent applications with a 4% increase in filings, from the current three year wait to a guaranteed 12 month turnaround. But the new law will likely force inventors to build a patent portfolio rather than relying on a single patent. Ergo the patent lawyers will have to file several times to keep first-filing status at each stage of enablement of a company’s good idea.

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