TakingAIIM

Innovation: Perspective Matters, But Many Simply Lack Vision

Recently both BusinessWeek and Fast Company published their respective 50 most innovative companies
list.  I have “mashedup” both lists in the chart below and edited the lists a bit. (Where there is overlap I indicate the difference in ranking order between lists.)  There was much to garner from these lists, beyond the corporate rankings individually.

Read on and get the list.

Context is King and ECM-based BI is the Keys to the Kingdom

Yesterday I tweeted (@carlfrappaolo) about a Boston Globe article on ECM search company, Endeca. I was going to let it go at that, but then this morning, serendipitously I heard a story on NPR about the dramatically changing world of television watching and the impact that is having on the services provided by Nielsen. ECM is at the foundation of great new opportunities and challenges for organizations. Read on

Enterprise 2.0 San Francisco - ER Sums it Up

Last week, like hundreds of others, I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. In this blog post I provide an overall impression of the conference, that in-turn lends insight into the state of the Enterprise 2.0 market in general. After attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last June, I blogged that for me, the show came down to an acronym – CIT, which stood for Culture, Innovation and Twitter. This time the conference is summed up in an even shorter acronym – ER. No I am not referring to the popular use of ER as in Emergency Room, inferring that the show needs resuscitation – FAR FROM IT.

Read on ...

IT meets KM meets E2.0 meets Innovation in the Boston Subway

Yesterday I was preparing for an Innovation Management training session I will be doing later this week. The sponsor, after reviewing my credentials asked “How you make the leap from information and knowledge management to coaching/developing innovation
skills?  … Your background seems to be IT.”

I provided what I hope was not too lengthy a response. In essence it stated that I view Innovation management as a fully ingrained component of KM, and IT as a strategic facilitator of both. Its interesting, but to many friends, family and colleagues my background appears disjointed. To me it is completely synergistic and intertwined.

Well, this morning I saw an article that pulled it all together. (read on and access the article.)

Innovation is Not Serendipity or Discovery

Last Friday's cover of the Boston Metro proclaimed “ How recession is forcing creativity in entertainment.”  It’s an interesting article on how the current economy mixed with the advent of Web 2.0 is affecting the entertainment industry, but the title held a different appeal for me. Serendipitously, I am working on IAI’s soon to be released whitepaper on Innovation Management. The whitepaper includes the results of a 180 respondent survey on how innovation is managed in the enterprise. 

In line with today’s headline, it came as no surprise that 70% of those surveyed felt that the current economic conditions increased the perceived need for innovation in their organization. As is the case with much of the market research work we do however, the interesting findings came from cross-correlation and analysis across questions and responses. Despite “heightened need”, most organizations aren’t doing anything proactive about accelerating and nurturing innovation. While 68% stated their organization believed that innovation should be managed as a corporate asset and process, only 49% have put in place any formal process to manage innovation. Similarly, only 49% have any form of executive management presiding over innovation.  More shockingly, perhaps is the fact that 46% of the organizations do not specifically reward innovation.

Innovation is not serendipity or discovery.  You cannot wait for it to happen to you.  It is a process that you have to nurture and manage as a major asset.

IAI will publish a whitepaper that details all the findings of the study later this month, and hold a webinar to discuss findings on Thursday, October 29 at 2pm ET (-5 GMT),  in which we will discuss the findings of the survey. To pre-order a copy of the whitepaper and/or register for the webinar go to the registration page.  There is no charge for the whitepaper, as it was partially underwritten by DiCOR, Imaginatik, Brightidea and Spigit.

You can also learn more about how we train organizations to proactively manage their innovation.

Collaboration - If It Were Easy We Would all do it (Well)

I have said it before, as have many others, Enterprise 2.0 is not just about technology. As I have commented on, this was a common theme at this year's Enterprise 2.0 conference. Indeed, if web-based collaboration were only about the technology, then any organization with even a modest IT budget would be doing it and doing it well.  But this is not the case.

As stated over and over,  its not about the technology - its about culture.  But perhaps we stuff far too many issues into that "box" labeled culture.  What exactly does it mean when we say Enterprise 2.0 is mostly about culture?

As you might expect it means many things. Culture is not only fundamental to but a multi-faceted aspect of Enterprise 2.0 execution. This post focuses on one of the aspects of culture - the basic approach used by a community to collaborate (e.g. networking, communication style, establishing trust and knowledge exchange). This aspect of culture is particularly relevant to Enterprise 2.0, because, as I have blogged about before, one of the primary end games of Enterprise 2.0 is collaboration. Thus, like Enterprise 2.0, collaboration is not just about technology.  If it were, we would all be doing it  - well. While Enterprise 2.0 technology can facilitate and support collaboration, the underlying collaborative environment has to be managed.  The degree of management is partially dependent on other aspects of culture - but I digress.  Back to collaboration itself.

One of the things we have to realize is that there are many ways to collaborate. Even if you are fortunate enough to have a supportive culture in place, you must determine what needs to be shared through collaboration, and what the goal or focus of the collaborative effort is.

We at Innovation Architected, believe that there are three basic types of collaboration (Interpersonal, content, and procedural), and 5 basic models or goals (COP/I, content, process, project and goal-oriented).  I provided a web-based lecture on this several months ago, sponsored by Google. You can view that presentation here.

Collaborate to Compete

View more documents from Carl Frappaolo.

These ideas are further discussed in a great article in the December Harvard Business Review entitled, "Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You?."  You can download a free copy of the article.  One of my favorite insights in the article is the strong case it makes that collaboration can occur in a closed environment, in spite of the  "open transparency" mantra of Enterprise 2.0 zealots. The article addresses the need for incentives to attract collaborators - another favorite topic of mine, one steeped in the Knowledge Management best practices.

In another Harvard Business School paper,  best practices in orchestrating and managing collaboration in an outsourced, or extended enterprise setting are provided. The bottom line of this article, for me anyway, is that collaboration needs to be deliberately designed and managed in order to maximize effectiveness and the value of the outcome. 

In my own work as a knowledge management and innovation management consultant,  I know that there is not only corporate culture to consider, but also the personal approaches or personality types of the individuals in the community, to creative problem solving. Yes, there are many different personality types or inclinations to collaboration and innovation. One is not better than another, they are just different.  In fact, the different approaches are symbiotic and complementary. Best practices in innovation management indicate that as part of the management of collaboration you should ensure that a range of "collaboration personalities" are deliberately brought together to achieve higher quality output.

So while it is nice to think that Enterpirse 2.0 and collaboration are all about viral and organic growth, research and experience indicate that there is ample room for some control and management of the processes and systems used, as well as teh knowledge and content captured in the process. In deed we have built entire practices around services for innovation management, effective collaboration and knowledge management.

Managing Innovation - How do you do it?

 As I blogged about in my summation of the
Enterprise 2.0 summit, innovation was a popular term being tossed around at the conference.  New web-based social networks provide new, wider, leaner and more agile environments in which to collaborate, group think and brainstorm, leading to innovation.

But there is (obviously?) more to innovation than simply being able to collaborate, just as there is more to collaboration than providing a forum in which it can occur. Innovation and collaboration are tricky.  A study published by the Harvard Business School in 2007 found that most organizations who attempt collaborative innovation all too often get it wrong.

That is why, building on our extensive experience with Enterprise 2.0 and Knowledge Management, we at Information Architected, Inc. have extended our services into Innovation Management. 

BUT - the purpose of this post is not to announce the new line of services, but to ask for your insights in a SHORT survey.

What is the state of innovation management in your organization? Even if you are not sure what the term means, or believe it is something your organization has not undertaken - we would like to hear from you. It should only take no more than 10 minutes of your time.  We will share the results with all survey participants.

So, how about a little collaboration on your part? Share your opinion, take the survey and we will all be the wiser for it. 

Innovation - It's the Little Things that Count

Whats the greatest invention of all time. Come on - you know the answer. Universally it is used as the benchmark against which all new inventions are compared. "It's the greatest thing since ..." 

Find out this and read on

Enterprise 2.0 – It all came down to CIT

Last week the annual Enterprise 2.0 Conference was once again held in my home town, Boston. Of course I attended. How could I not; hot topic, personal and professional interest, and the show was within walking distance from Information Architected headquarters.

Like thousands of my colleagues, I came, I saw, I commented. 

So, why has it taken me so long to blog about it? Well, in addition to the usual – “I have been busy” excuses (truthful as they are), I also am learning how to balance microblogging and blogging. My more prolific than usual use of Twitter while at the conference kept the burning need to post an entire blog entry at bay. I am beginning to learn the complementary nature between Twitter and blogging. But more on that later.

Let me start by stating that some excellent commentary and insights have already been posted via Twitter. If you missed them you can retrieve them via the tag #e2conf. Additionally, there have been some very insightful blog posts form friends and colleagues such as Larry Hawes, Doug Cornelius, Oliver Marks , Stowe Boyd, Ron Miller and Bill Ives.

So the purpose of this post is not to rehash the comments I made in Twitter, or to restate (most) of what has already been documented in the blogs I listed above. Here, I share a very high level summation of the event.  I have pondered in retrospect what it all came down to, for me and can summarize it in an acronym – CTI.

CTI? - read on

KM, Collaboration, Web 2.0 - Call It What You Will - It Still Comes Down to Business Strategy Says The Economist

In a recent article in The Economist, the promise of collaboration was highlighted through several real world examples. Companies such as Apple, through coordinated and deliberate collaboration drive innovation and increase profits, market share and brand recognition. But the article also points out the challenges of collaboration, and the risks associated with it.  Huh - risks?  That's right - risks. Too often marketeers from software and services companies flood the market with the promise of collaboration - whether it is called that or knowledge management, innovation management, enterprise 2.0, web 2.0, or of course the "elephant in the room" SharePoint. Sure collaboration is GREAT - so just "do it" with the help of "my" product or integration service and you will reap all the benefits.

What the hype leaves out, the article does not.  The article offers a balanced look at collaboration as the business mantra du jour, through a practical, bottom-line eye. (I guess that is why it was in The Economist and not ComputerWorld.)

My favorite quote from the article: "But dismantling internal barriers to co-operation is a tricky business that requires much more than smart software. "  Tricky business - indeed.  More than smart software - of yeah. In fact ignoring this fact was nearly the demise of the KM movement.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, collaboration (aka knowledge management, innovation management, enterprise 2.0) done right requires a carefully developed  strategy that coordinates and aligns fundamental business goals and objectives, corporate culture, business processes and technology. Get that wrong, and I do not care how good your technology implementation is, your initiative will fail.

The article points out that by focusing on collaboration as the ultimate goal, other business opportunities are potentially missed, and/or the cost (read money spent on achieving collaboration) outweigh the benefits received.  In these cases the business goals and objectives were ignored - rendering the collaboration strategy out of whack.

The article also points out: "These informal networks, and software platforms such as Lockheed’s Unity project, can help lay the ground for more collaboration. But they cannot resolve deeper problems, such as resistance to change at the top."  How true - a perfect example of a collaboration strategy that does not take into account corporate culture.  I recall one organization I worked with for whom this was a major issue.  After under going an intensive review by yours truly, a proposed KM strategy was presented.  The implementation plan indicated that corporate culture was a major impediment to KM/collaboration, and needed to be addressed first and foremost. Despite all the internal marketing to the contrary, members of the organization harbored a basic distrust of each other.  Worth was (informally) measured by what you knew and others did not. More importantly, workers were not blind to the fact that despite the corporate call for collaboration, the 4 VPs were nonetheless adversarial and vied for the CEOs attention and budget. Bottom line in this case, you can build and fund this KM project all you want - I am not going to collaborate without trepidation. When this was pointed out, management took it "under advisement".  They went ahead and funded an elaborate technology approach to expertise location and collaboration. The KM project died, and the blame was placed on the technology.

Whats funny is that the story I just shared took place over 10 years ago. Will we ever learn?  We place new labels on the issue (it's not KM anymore, now its collaboration), new products emerge (SharePoint: "it does everything"), and all too often forget the lessons of the past. We believe that the "new focus" and/or the new product will deliver on the promise without requiring any strategy.

Sure, when technology comes into the mix, you need a technology strategy (i.e. do I implement collaboration in SaaS? If I use SharePoint do I embrace all six pillars of functionality?).  But - you also need a business strategy - a carefully thought out orchestration across business goals and objectives, corporate culture, processes and technology.