Social Media for Innovation Brings More Questions than Answers
The use of social media services and tools in innovation efforts bring more questions than answers. This was concluded after a session I led on the open innovation meets social media intersection.
Interestingly enough, only 1 out of 17 participants, who were a mix of corporate and university people believed that the use of social media for innovation was highly overhyped. So it is not really the why that is being questioned; it is the how.
We lack good cases especially on how B2B companies use social media for innovation. The cases we discussed/liked at the session were IBM’s Innovation Jam, Psion’s Ingenuity Working, LEGO Cuusoo and GE’s Ecomagination Challenge.
I have no doubt other cases will surface in the coming years as companies begin to experiment even more with this intersection, but right now it is difficult to find good cases. Let me know if you have something to share : – )
I like to use the Discovery – Incubation – Acceleration model as developed by the Radical Innovation Group to discuss the progress of innovation projects. If we use this to estimate the current value of using social media for innovation projects, I think it looks like this:
Discovery: HIGH value as companies can use social media tools and services to get input and insights for their projects. Think crowdsourcing and communities that deliver interactions and conversations. Since knowledge – and especially the combination of knowledge from different sources – is key to make innovation happen, a tool such as LinkedIn is also useful to identify people who can contribute to innovation efforts. The search function in LinkedIn is pretty powerful once you get above 150-200 contacts.
Incubation: This is where innovation really happens and here the value of social media is LOW. The reason is that this is more about creating an infrastructure to make virtual collaboration happen and as such the current social media tools and services seem to be complementary, but not core.
However, as this is very much about the innovation engine of a company, social media can be used to brand and promote the corporate innovation capabilities. This is becoming increasingly important as companies fight to become the preferred innovation partner within their industries. Here the value of social media is HIGH.
Acceleration: HIGH value as this is about using social media to promote the innovation outcomes. This is more of a marketing function and social media is already an established force for this.
I think it is just fine that we accept that there are more questions than answers to this intersection. Now, we “just” have to explore the why’s and how’s and your insights are highly appreciated for this.
Hi Stefan,
Regarding B2B case studies, this news video came out recently showcasing AT&T's use of social innovation. A customer service rep submitted an idea in "The Innovation Pipeline" or "TIP" (powered by Spigit) about offering a Drive Mode function to cell phones (similar to airplane mode). The app is now available for download in the AT&T app store.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/29166368/inde…
I slightly disagree with your synopsis here. It seems that social media is always linked with the notion of crowdsourcing, and how a firm can gain the input of customers in the innovation process. Thus, social media is also frequently linked to the front end of innovation.
Yet, companies are incorporating social media in a variety of ways. More and more they are using social media tools to form and bridge connections within the firm … and then taking those connections and crossing organizational boundaries. Firms can connect to one another using social medial, which would create an importance within the innovation process itself (not merely ideation).
Firms within alliances, or simply related through a network, may find valuable knowledge and experience though social medial that can enable product development. Companies can use social media tools to foster relationships between firms/individuals who are in midst of a codevelopment process. And, these tools can be used to build a connective capacity between organizations. Creating relationships that may not be called upon for an immediate need, but that are out there to keep options open should an opportunity arise.
I believe one of the reasons companies are confused about social media and how to put it best to use is because they believe it has limits. So far, I dont believe those limits have been seen!
I couldn't agree more. There are so many examples of using social media for idea generation (especially via crowd sourcing) and using social media to promote an implemented innovation. But development of ideas (which you have called incubation) does not seem to rely heavily on social media despite several social tools that should help — social tagging, social bookmarking, and wikis, for example. I believe that IBM and MITRE can provide some case studies for this, but there aren't many companies that are using these technologies proactively for innovation incubation.
Hi Stefan,
Cards on the table, I have project management skills in my portfolio, and near on thirty years fascination and devotion with innovation. May I make the following observations:
Discovery: the early conversation still needs framing, still needs structure, still needs leadership vision. Random discussion may unearth issues that need to be tackled, but the true creative and design element needed is to have a strong feel for what the solution looks like, and architecturally or structurally to have a plan to get from A to B.
Incubation: successful projects rely fundamentally on top class communication. Social media has a key role to play here internally, as well as externally, since it offers unparalleled visibility of the detailed creative, design and construction process. Better visibility of the decision making means fewer mistakes, better learning for project participants, faster growth and innovation both immediately and in the future.
Acceleration: will only take place if the proposed product and its features have been thoroughly market tested before the project incepts. What is the need or desire? How might that need or desire develop? Any business is only as good as it's product range, no matter how good the hands that are nurturing it.
In my view, the sooner corporates move across to social media run projects the sooner they will reap the benefits. Yes there are lessons about how to engage the wider workforce, those not at the leading edge who don't get it, and view social media purely as a toy or a chat room, when instead they could see a potential for well-run, effective and rolling business meetings.
Not everyone will see the substantial business potential straight away, but organisational learning cannot commence until the first iterations are rolled out. Leading edge has to become mainstream, and only then will those at the trailing edge of innovation feel marginalised because they are not involved. In the last twenty years we have seen this most with mobile phones, which are now ubiquitous.
The adoption of social media within business fits very well in the nature of learning. We tell our kids about learning through trial and error all the time, social media is no different. What is interesting is that the transparency of social media starts to bring a renewed focus on our ability to learn, particularly through exploration, and then to our ability to share that learning with others. A college education today seems a better investment than ever before.
I have acouple of cases to share – I find that you are right though – the main learning is that you can get people to participate in generating ideas quite easily – but getting the ideas to the right group of people in the organization, taking action – and actually making something from the ideas is far from done deal.
I did consulting on a municipality here in DK who did 70% of their new plan with 700 ideas from citizens on a platform we build for them in my current consultancy. It only worked because there were dedicated ressources inside the organisation to handle ideas and make sure they were known in other parts of the organization.
Another former client of mine is Danske Bank (danish bank) who are doing interesting work with innovation with customers through a Facebook App that makes it easy for them to involve customers in building banking apps for iPad and iPhone. Again I think the reason this could work is that they involve developers in the bank from beginning to end. The people who will bring the ideas to fullfilment are part of the process – and feel responsible for the ideas.
In my experience incubation in crowdsourcing only ever happens if someone in the organisation who needs the innovation is involved and takes ownership – and as you are highlighting under acceleration social media is still very often considered a marketing tool and treated as such.
(ohh and I think there might be a bug in your comment-system? It says my name is to long or to short -I can't have more than 20 characters in my name – why would you want to limit that?)