Driving Engagement for Idea Generation
During a couple of sessions at the Front End of Innovation conference in Copenhagen, I got to wonder what drives engagement for online idea generation.
Well, too often companies focus more on the technology than looking at ways in which they can engage contributors initially and especially in the longer term.
It is more important to get inside the heads of the potential contributors and here I really like an equation given by Frank Hatzack, Novozymes.
Intellectually Compelling + Emotionally Engaging = Mobilization
I got to think what is most important and whether this changes from industry to industry. My conclusion is that they are equally important.
Companies with a strong R&D focus might lean more towards intellectual stimulation compared to a fast moving consumer goods company, but I think most if not all innovation professionals really like both the intellectual challenge as well as emotional engagement.
What do you think of this?
You can also find some inspiration in this blog post, Passing the Mental Check on Innovation Challenges, in which Colin Nelson from Hype Innovation shares a good slide on the topic.
These two blog posts might also be of interest to you:
How to Use Yammer to Drive Innovation – this post looks at how to use awareness, facilitated content and user-driven content to build engagement on Yammer or other online platforms.
5 Key Elements for Making Communities Work – my advice focuses on need, value, people, communication and persistence.
Dear Stefan
From our perspective at Venture Spirit, Frank Hatzack and you are spot on here. In final events organized at the end of our innovation projects, employees typically claim they contributed their expertise and time because they were asked to address real-life challenges (= intellectually stimulating) in an exciting gaming environment (= emotional engagement).
I like this too. Intellectually compelling is a good headline for the rational / logical forces that engage us, especially if the innovation clearly solves a problem or gives us compelling reasons to believe a claim. I also like emotionally engaging, as it speaks to the heart. Another element to the equation which I have seen is about aspiration or value driven choices = "what it says about you". This is increasingly evident where people display what they are choosing or using. Having said that, to keep the equation simple, you could argue that it comes under the subset of emotionally engaging.