Product Innovation: A Moment of Genius or A Collision of Hunches?

Submitted by Jeanne Bradford on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 4:43pm

In Steven Johnson’s recently published book, Where Good Ideas Come From, he offers a keen historical insight that the most significant driver of technological innovation and creativity came from increased connectivity – connected minds.  Contrary to innovation folklore, significant innovation does not typically result from a single moment of genius.   But in fact, is the “collision” of hunches of many individuals that occurs once they discover a space to share their hunches and allow them to mingle, incubate and form.

So, what’s a modern application to this historical perspective?  Social Product Development

Johnson does make the argument that while the Internet creates more distraction having a created an “always on, always connected, multi-tasking” environment, it has also created the space where minds can share and collaborate that will lead to the next level of innovation.

Technology companies can use Johnson’s insight to gain greater wins in their own innovation efforts.  By creating a space, through the use of social networks, companies can harness the power of the global talent pool to connect the best minds and allow ideas to mingle, incubate and form.  There already exist good examples of companies that are embracing social networks to taken innovation in their companies to the next level -   IBM Jams, Cisco’s iPrize,  and Netflix’s Prize  - all examples of breaking outside the traditional methods of innovation to reach beyond the resources within a single organization.   There also exists numerous social platform tools, like Spigit, BrightIdea, and Communispace, that provide a customizable framework, data monitoring and analytics, and community management support to allow companies to implement a social product development strategy that complements their tradition process.

Innovation is all about connecting the best ideas of individuals to create something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Technology companies that are not embracing the collective creative are missing the boat.  Your competition is doing it – and you should be too.

Comments

by Erin Schumpert - 03/21/2011 - 10:08pm

I couldn't agree more, Jeann,

I couldn't agree more, Jeann, and thank you for the mention :)There are a number of industry leaders who are doing a great job of creating engaging employee and customer idea communities, and we are starting to see more companies follow in their footsteps. Telecom leader AT&T, for example, has over 300,000 employees and has a set of ideas that are set to be announced later this year in their 2011 product line. BusinessWeek wrote an article that features AT&T and their use of Spigit's purpose-built crowdsourcing solution. Read more here:   http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2010/tc2010097_904409.htm  Other companies such as AAA, Overstock.com and Comcast are also doing some amazing things when it comes to innovation.   BusinessWeek also recently featured Spigit in a video where Cisco discusses their quest with Spigit to find its next big business ideas from employees and outsiders alike. You can watch the video here: http://feedroom.businessweek.com/?fr_story=c16a8ecdc55c12d00795f89d4dfee184a05293eb&chan=technology_special+report+–+ceo+guide+to+collective+intelligence_special+report:+ceo+guide+to+collective+intelligence   Some very exciting things happening in the corporate innovation space. And this is only the beginning, as I believe that the next 3-5 years will be truly transformative with regard to the roles of idea management, crowdsourcing and social-co-creation in the enterprise. Thanks.Erin Schumpert,www.spigit.com  

by Erin Schumpert - 03/21/2011 - 10:10pm

Jeanne, my apologies for the

Jeanne, my apologies for the mispelled name. My comment posted before intended to hit "submit".Thanks again,Erin

by Brian Glover of Accept360 - 03/10/2011 - 7:09pm

I couldn't agree more… the

I couldn't agree more… the result is a greater number of well-developed ideas to choose between for implementation, and generally gathered faster than many other means. I frequently talk to customers, however, who say they have too many good ideas and the challenge is to focus on the right ones. It's worth mentioning that when you add collaborative prioritization to this process, you also get the collective wisdom of what's most important.When it comes to choosing between product ideas, there are many other factors to consider and you need a decision model that takes into account your business strategy, target segments, cost of production, etc., but engaging stakeholders in the ideation and prioritization process helps you develop and screen the best ideas to move forward (and reveals the ones you must reluctantly let go). And, if you continue to engage them throughout the concept design and development of the product, you'll avoid straying from customer needs during implementation and have a small army of brand advocates who are excited to use (and share!) a new product they helped create.