A few weeks ago I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.
One of the standout presentations was by Gentry Underwood of IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm.
During his presentation, Gentry defined three key principles for creating innovation at an organization. Here’s my take on them.
3 Principles for Creating Innovation
- Empower people, not ideas. Ideas come and go. They’re cheap. They don’t always fit your organization, your workforce or your current business strategy. The people who generate those ideas, though… they’re priceless.
- Create a platform that brings people together. Historically, this might have meant things like brainstorming rooms and dedicated “innovation spaces.” In an increasingly global and dispersed workforce, it often means some sort of social media tool.
- Facilitate and reward participation. More specifically, remove every single microscopic barrier to entry. The biggest problem with creating an innovative culture is adoption, usually because managers don’t support it or it’s integrated into other aspects of a person’s job.
Image by herzogbr
One of the ongoing themes at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was the power of social media to drive collaboration and community at organizations.
My Take: Social media is just a tool.
It doesn’t create collaboration. It doesn’t create community. It just helps facilitate it.
People create those things. Social media tools simply amplify and enable your culture.
If you want more collaboration and community, social media can definitely help. But you need to make sure you’re creating a culture that supports those things first.
What do you think?
A few weeks ago I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.
One of the standout presentations was by Gentry Underwood of IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm.
In his presentation, Gentry spoke about the concept of Design Thinking. According to Gentry, Design Thinking is the overlap of business need, technological ability, and a user’s needs and desires.
Far too often in HR, we ignore our two most important markets – the business and the people who user our products.
Let’s fix that.
If you want to connect in person, I’ll be at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston in two weeks.
The conference runs from June 14 to 17. Tickets are pretty pricey, but I picked up a free Expo Pass using this code: CNRNEB14 CNRMEB21. Not sure if it’s good anymore, but worth a shot, right?
If you’re going, let me know in the comments, or hit me up on twitter. I’d love to connect!
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