6 Easy Steps to Become An Influencer

by Stefan Lindegaard

This is a short, practical post that helps you become an influencer within a couple of months. The advice can be used for almost any industry and it will not cost you any money. It will cost you time and I acknowledge that in many situations time is more valuable than money, but I am sure this will be worth your efforts and time spent.

#1 – Identify Your Focus Areas. What are the key topics of interest to you and the people and companies in your industry? My own key topics are “open innovation” and “social media”. I spent lots of time tracking this and especially the intersection between this.

#2 – Create a Twitter Account. Twitter is your key tool for becoming...

Open innovation and social media are inseparable. Seed now to reap future benefits!

by Stefan Lindegaard

The title of this blog post is one of the three key messages I give at my talks / sessions on open innovation for big and small companies.

Below you can read a few insights on the intersection of open innovation and social media as I present them at my sessions. I find this to be a very interesting topic and I have just begun working on a new book. Check this blog post: A Book Idea: Open Innovation Meets Social Media

You can also read more about my session and download a document with the other two key messages here: Three Key Messages on Open Innovation

Key Message #3: Open innovation and social media are inseparable. Seed now to reap...

What’s Next With P&G’s Connect + Develop Site?

by Stefan Lindegaard

The pace of evolution on the intersection between open innovation and social media is astonishing and companies need to pay lots of attention to where things are headed.

P&G and their Connect+Develop initiative is rightfully considered one of the best examples of open innovation implementation and I especially like their “behind the scenes” efforts and how they and constantly try to improve their efforts.

Despite their good work, I think P&G’s Connect+Develop site (and sites of other companies) need to evolve into next generation sites that include more community features. Three companies give us an idea of what direction things are headed although they are still in their earlier phases themselves.

GE and their Ecomagination challenge showcases lots of...

5 Key Elements for Making Communities Work

by Stefan Lindegaard

When I give talks on the intersection of open innovation and social media, I often get into discussions on what it takes to make a community work.

This also happened when I met with the participants of the HYPE User Community, which is a group of corporate innovation people using HYPE innovation products and services. By the way, HYPE seems to be doing a great job : – )

I have some experience on making communities work as I have witnessed several initiatives and by running my own groups and networks in both the virtual and physical world. I would argue that the below 5 elements are key to success.

1. “Need”. Many community owners or initiators take it for given...

Open Innovation Meets Social Media

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here are some of my thoughts and ideas on the intersection of open innovation and social media as I presented them in Sao Paulo on June 2.

You can find other good reads on this intersection in these links:

Social Media Tools and Open Innovation: An Overview – includes more links

8 Pointers for Building Corporate and Personal Strategies for Social Media

A Road Map on Social Media Tools and Open Innovation

Book a Workshop with Lindegaard on Social Media Tools and Open Innovation

Let me know if you can share other good insights on this.

8 Pointers for Building Corporate and Personal Strategies for Social Media

by Stefan Lindegaard

Not so long ago, I hosted an event together with Cheryl Perkins of InnovationEdge. The purpose was to bring together a group of innovation leaders and discuss social media and how to use this for innovation.

It was a great session and we were able to extract several interesting insights on how corporate people view and approach social media. These insights were useful in helping the participants start building corporate and personal strategies for their use of social media. I am sure they can also bring some inspiration to your thoughts on this and thus we want to share this overview of insights:

1. The group defined two aspects of social media:

• Communication of relevant messages
• Collaboration including sharing of...

Social Media Tools: How Do We Deal With the Information Overload?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I just read an interesting article in USA Today, Social Media Users Grapple With Information Overload. It addresses the hardship of keeping up with a constant barrage of tweets, texts, blogs and instant messages.

The concerns are real enough. However, social media tools will be key for making innovation happen in the future so we need to find ways of coping with this.

My advice is quite simple:

Reason: Find out what you want to get out of the tools. Is it to gain or share insights or both? If you put some thought into this, you are better prepared when you look into the many options.

Focus: Once you know what you would like to get out of social media tools, you...

A Road Map on Social Media Tools and Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

What actions should an innovation unit take on the intersection of social media and open innovation? This is a question that I hear more often and it would be great to have a discussion on this.

I recently wrote a piece on the three circles for open innovation in which I argue that corporate innovation units should not only focus their efforts on the open innovation ecosystem in which open innovation actually happens. They should also focus on the thought leadership aspect, which happens in the innovation community and the interactions that can take place with customers and consumers.

Having this in mind, I suggest that companies should strive to become the preferred partner of choice within their innovation ecosystems. This status can...

Three Circles for Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

The more I work on the intersection of social media tools and open innovation, it becomes clearer to me that companies need a multi-target approach on efforts in this intersection.

One reason is that most open innovation efforts lie in three different circles. There is often a significant overlap, but we still need to look at each of them separately. These circles are:

The innovation community: Here we have thought leaders, academics, consultants, service providers and corporate voices on innovation. This community can bring credibility to the innovation capabilities of a company and this credibility can turn out to be very important in the next circle, the innovation ecosystem.

The innovation ecosystem: This is the most important circle for companies serious about open innovation as...

What Is Your Online Influence?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Chris Thoen, Managing Director for P&G Connect+Develop has a score of 39 and he is a Specialist. Todd Boone, a key driver of Psion’s open innovation initiative has a score of 28 and he is an Explorer. Jan Bosch, Head of Open Innovation at Intuit is also an Explorer with a score of 11.

I learned this when I visited Klout, a service that allows you to measure the online influence of yourself and others.

Klout says that your business needs influencers and that you need to find and engage these influencers in order for them to become evangelists for your brand and your initiatives.

The need for this might still be in the early stages, but...