All too often, what is labeled as Open Innovation winds up being a glorified version of an idea free-for-all. A new rush of un-bridled ideas feeding into the same clogged channels choking their advancement. Open innovation can only work when it’s about process.
- Collaborative idea building takes advantage of diversity, discrete labor and on-demand expertise – that’s open
- Flexible processing enables dynamic workflows, contextual status changes and custom tasking – that too is open
By creating an Innovation environment that enables ideas to move in the path of least resistance enables folks to rally around the process organically. Support the whole with a technology that enables the action-ability while covering the natural bases that automation was ideally created for…and what do you get? An innovation process that can not only co-exist with your other corporate activities but one that can actually flourish within them.
This atmosphere can quickly become infectious, or as the management and new-media pundits like to call viral. Dollars are the kings of metrics and until these speak, your process isn’t worth a lick – when running a business with stockholders, that’s priority Number One. The interesting thing that occurs along the way, almost innocuously at first, is the socialization of a process that begins to shape a culture of collaboration. The dollars are the battle, but the culture is the war. And to conquer competition, you need real Open Innovation.