How To Leverage Collaborative Innovation
Every now and then I read an article like this one in Forbes that touts the virtues of looking outside the walls of your company for innovation. There is a whole section in Mavericks at Work devoted to this, and the concept was, in fact, a partial inspiration for the name of this blog. I’m an outwardly focused individual, and naturally seek opportunities to collaborate and increase my knowledge. Similarly, organizations can seek the same opportunities for all kinds of situations - new products, new business solutions, new technologies, new perspectives on old problems.
Collaborating externally for innovation can take several forms:
- By focusing internally on your core competencies, and conducting a Pareto Principle analysis, you can determine what can be directly farmed out to others. If you decide, for instance, that your well-established brand is your core focus, you can farm out things like manufacturing and distribution which may lay outside your core.
- By establishing a network of collaborative partners you can become ‘more than the sum of your parts.’ As we’ve discussed before, networking is one of the areas of innovation that is hard-wired for effectiveness.
- By utilizing some of the principles championed by Proctor and Gamble and others, you can host totally open sourced projects. Tell the world what you want and let the creativity of others compete for the best solutions.
A simple example of the latter can be found at 99Designs, an innovative concept that connects website owners with graphics designers. You simply tell the world what you want, set the amount you’re willing to pay, and select the winning design from the contributions of designers all around the world.
Proctor and Gamble has been running its Connect + Develop website for several years and now outsources innovation efforts for nearly 50 percent of their products. They tell the world what they’re looking for and let the world submit ideas.
There are even companies that serves as an ‘innovation broker’ for innovative partnering opportunities - like NineSigma, who connects their clients with a vast network of experts in all fields of science, technology and business.
External Opportunities, Internal Challenges
If all these collaborative opportunities promising rapid problem solving and nearly friction-free innovation exist, why doesn’t every company take advantage of them? Two main reasons:
- “Not Invented Here” syndrome - if the idea doesn’t come from within, it’s not trusted. This reasoning is nearly omnipresent in older, well-established institutions.
- “Outsourcing” perception - a simple misrepresentation of collaborative networking: “we’re outsourcing innovation because we’re not creative enough to come up with good ideas ourselves.”
Organizational character plays a major role here. Companies most open to collaborating with “outsiders” have an external focus - or, in OCI/Myers-Briggs terms, tend to be extraverted. Extraverted organizations have open boundaries, accept collaborative opportunities readily, turn outside for guidance, and seek assistance with problems. Introverted organizations, on the other hand, trust internal guidance and tend to ‘circle the wagons’ when there’s a problem. For them, the answers can always be found within.
Even amongst externally focused organizations there is a wide range of what might be considered ‘acceptable’ ideas. Those organizations that prefer sensing will look for concrete, incremental solutions backed by lots of data, or proven processes that improve the ’structure.’ Intuitive organizations, on the other hand, look for big-picture, transformational change opportunities, and will accept theoretical over proven solutions.
To become a collaborative organization, look outward. Look for opportunities to network, look for collaborative partners that can enhance your products or services. If you have a problem to solve and want a fresh perspective, consider using a company like NineSigma to broker solutions. Better yet, set up a collaborative website like Connect + Develop and start making connections with the external world.
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4 Responses to “How To Leverage Collaborative Innovation”
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How To Leverage Collaborative Innovation…
Some companies collaborate better than others. Find out why, and discover different ways to focus externally for collaborative opportunities….
This same principle applies to small enterprises and solopreneurs. As a Master Coach, I find that nudging a client to network outward isn’t as easy as it sounds. Thanks for a good article.
Maggie
Wow - thanks for a fantastic post! What a great job of outlining some of the key challenges facing managers who choose to look outside their organization to leverage crowds. Innovation has to be viewed in a very different light in the age of the Internet and there are companies like ours which hope to help users tap into large networks of talented individuals.
crowdSPRING is a marketplace for buyers and providers of creative services. On cS a buyer posts a project, describes what it is they are looking for, names the price they will pay, and sets a length of time for the project to run. In turn, creatives from around the world submit actual work for the buyer to choose from. At the end of the project, the buyer chooses the work they like best. crowdSPRING handles file uploads, ratings and feedback, and worldwide payment to the winning creative.
It’s not just the P&Gs of the world that can leverage talent worldwide. We are trying hard to make it accessible to the small and mid-size business market through our model.
Thanks again,
Mike
Hello Mike,
I am a sort of newbie since I have started working on collaborative innovation here in Italy since a couple of months and I have a question about creative commonplaces: how creatives going to have some control on buyer’s decision process?
A creative could ask himself “what about if I provide creative input not selected but yet useful to the buyer?”
That is a point in your business model that is not sound to me.
Thanks,
Luca