InnovationCreation

This last Friday I met up with people at the Master of Business Online in Indianapolis. Several of the speakers were very engaging and had great stories to tell: Pat Coyle (Sports Marketing 2.0), Douglas (not Doug) Karr (The Marketing Technology Blog), and Ryan Hupfer (indymojo.com).

Labels: social intelligence, social networks, social science

OLPC News is tapping into tools to build a community and spread the word on all things OLPC. This is a great example of simple tools pulling together people to bring focus to a need, issue, or product.

Some of the tools include:

• Six Apart blog
• Frapper map
• YouTube videos

Other "tool" being used are really good old fashioned social skills. They talk about a poular topic that they are very interested in and leverage their personal network to get participation and news.

Labels: information, innovation tool, social intelligence, social networks, social science

I normally an not one to jump into new technology right away but in this case this is very relevant to what I am trying to do: build community in a very niche area. So I tested out one example of Google's Open Social framework, Shelfari. The app is basic, it allows me to find my favorite books and share those titles / covers through as many social network sites as I want.

Smartly, Shelfari also has a Facebook widget that taps into my Shelfari data. This means I do not have to use just Facebook to update my book list and my list, even when updated in Facebook, is shared out to the other social network sites I choose.

A good quick brief on Open Social and its implications can be heard on Chris Penn's and John Wall's Marketing Over Coffee podcast, episode from 8 Nov 2007.

Labels: innovation, social intelligence, social networks, social science

I want to provide a perspective on change and innovation, as a follow up to the post Innovation leadership model.

One of the companies I have been working with on creating an innovation environment has kicked off an innovation game plan with an innovation assessment, a several day work shop, and then the formation of several teams to tackle some innovation projects.

While they have been happy with the kick start of their innovation efforts, they have not been satisfied with the initial innovation project teams' progress. "They have money, each team has a manager, and still they are not going anywhere" said my contact person. When I asked further, the issue seems to be one of being dragged back to doing execution of things of their "day" job.

This as the "97%" trap; all their main time (97% of their time) of the project team members in the organization is about execution. While the project teams all believe the innovation projects are important to move forward, their management and senior leadership agree with the projects' need/importance, and they have money(!), the need to get "things done now" creeps back in. Habit of the past is strong!

The project team members are being pulled: they continue to get the message "execution first, get products today finished and work on the innovation project in addition" (implied: in your "free time") => leadership is talking the talk but not walking the talk (either not enough walk or they are doing the walk in a way that is not being recognized by the staff).

I want to chat with you about the leadership model: How does one implement what is advocated in the leadership model? What can help move management and leadership from the walk to the talk?

Interestingly, I am reading Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life that talks about this very thing. The book's topic is: to really change requires one to relate to the people (build a new relationship with the staff), repeat (learn, practice, and master), and then reframe thru practice and learning, reframe the point of view and / or approach to create a new way to operate.

Labels: book, innovation, innovation tool, model, social science, thinking

Kindergarteners and complexity? Huh? what are you talking about?

Today I went on a picnic with my son's kindergarten class; great day out for it! After eating we played freeze tag. Imagine: 30 5+ year olds with 5 adults as "it", trying to tag all the kids. And the kids, not quite freezing, running to unfreeze other kids.

Scatter is a working model of complexity theory and social science in action! The digital version of this is at the NetLogo model library. Scatter is not quite freeze tag, but it gets the point across. Turning model into freeze tag is your home work:)

Labels: agent based model, complexity, logo, social science