Last Tuesday Wichert van Engelen from ING presented a book he and his people wrote. It is titled “ideeën genoeg” (which translates to “enough ideas”).

In his interesting and entertaining presentation he stated that they chose not to implement idea management because they focus on radical innovation with the promise of significant revenues. In their opinion idea management is more suited for incremental innovation. Furthermore, it fragments energy to many diverse ideas, ideas are never completely new, and there are ownership issues.

Lately one of our clients, that did implement idea management, told us they aim for 5 ideas that deliver over 100 million Euros and were rethinking the added value of idea management in this pursuit.

I cannot see why idea management could be in the way of getting the radical ideas. Furthermore, most arguments against idea management can be lead back to unsuccessful experiences and In many organizations there just is not enough commitment to the process to make it successful.

Insufficient commitment results in a decline in the number of ideas and more importantly a decline in the quality of the ideas. This result then convinces management that idea management does not work.

We saw this happen in the old days with the idea boxes in the cantina and it happens today with highly advanced web-based idea management platforms.

Successful idea management needs attention and hard work!

I’m planning to write about using idea management as a change catalyst to move toward a more innovative organization. And of course I’m interested to further discuss why the big radical innovation cannot come from idea management. Your comments and insights would be most valuable.

A few days ago I wrote about the fact that wikis are actually changing knowledge management for the better. Here’s another example.

Today I was lead to a blog that reports on an interesting initiative ShareIdeas.org.

ShareIdeas.org is an online community and a wiki for sharing ideas on how to use mobile communications for social and environmental benefits.

ShareIdeas.org was created with support from Nokia and Vodafone, but belongs to the growing global network of individuals and organizations that use this virtual gathering place to communicate – and collaborate.

The idea for ShareIdeas.org came from Ndidi Nwuneli, founder and CEO of LEAP Africa, a Nigerian NGO dedicated to nurturing a new generation of African leaders.

“Groups like ours would really benefit from a resource that shows us how to use mobile technology to carry out our work more effectively,” said Ndidi at a Nokia stakeholder event of NGO and corporate leaders.

ShareIdeas.org was created in response to Ndidi’s request.

Subjects vary from reporting Child Rights Violations to Mobile Learning.

Deze week viel de IKEA keukengids op de mat. Mijn oog viel op een stikker op de kaft. De stikker roept je op je keuken te zetten op Designyourownlife. De mooiste keuken krijgt 5000 Euro (te besteden bij IKEA).

Is Ikea aan het Crowdsourcen?

Ik moest meteen aan LEGO denken waar mensen online hun bouwwerken kunnen maken en deze vervolgens ook kunnen bestellen. De ontwerpen worden allemaal op de site getoond en je kan ze allemaal bestellen. De populaire modellen worden vervolgens ook in productie genomen en in winkels verkocht.

Zou IKEA de creativiteit van haar klanten proberen aan te spreken? De enige vraag die bij me op kwam, was dat het wellicht slimmer zou zijn ontwerpen op de site te laten zetten en het gewonnen geld aan een keuken te besteden. Op die manier zorg je er meteen voor dat de winnaars ook bij jou de keuken kopen en niet bij de concurrent.

Na een bezoek aan de site lijkt het echter over een ordinaire beauty contest te gaan waar je fotootjes upload waarop gestemd kan worden.

IKEA, volgens mij moet het Lego-concept ook voor jullie kunnen werken en niet alleen voor keukens!

Guy Kawasaki published an interview on his blog with Scott Berkun, author of “The Myths of Innovation“. In ten questions he gives an interesting summary of his book.

I think the following quote is interesting:

1. Question: Why do innovators face such rejection and negativity? Answer: It’s human nature—we protect ourselves from change. We like to think we’re progressive, but every wave of innovation has been much slower than we’re told. The telegraph, the telephone, the PC, and the internet all took decades to develop from ideas into things ordinary people used. As a species we’re threatened by change and it takes a long time to convince people to change their behavior, or part with their money.

Organizations are also threatened by change; far too often they can not deal with these changes and fail to benefit from the opportunities that arise from them. It’s in their nature to hold on to the profits that ‘business as usual’ brings. Is your organization ready to embrace change? Are you able to see the potential of ideas that at first seem to threatening? Do you give innovators the space they need and deserve?

3M is the text book case of an innovative company. They prided themselves on drawing at least 1/3 of their sales from products released in the past five years. It was official company policy that employees could use 15% of their time to pursue their own projects.

However, some said that the company had become unwieldy, erratic, and sluggish. So they hired McNerney, a Jack Welch disciple, to straighten the company out.

On the news of his hiring stocks soared 20%. He axed 8000 (11%) employees and cut 22% of capital expenditure in his first year. McNerney also introduced the Six Sigma program and drove it through the company. The result was years of increased sales and profits.

However, today the percentage of sales from newly developed products dropped below 25% percent and there is not enough innovation.

After 4,5 years McNerney left to pursue a new challenge at Boeing. The new CEO, George Buckly, is now facing the challenge to manage the tension between innovation and efficiency. The same challenge that is bedeviling CEO’s everywhere.

Many workers say they are happy that focus is shifting from profitability and process discipline to growth and innovation.

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