innovation

AndreaMeyer

I've been writing on a new group blog,

http://CollaborativeInnovation.org, along with @Renee_Hopkins, DrewCM, @JillBrainLogic, @DanKeldsen, @DScofield, @fgossieaux and @ElitheChef.

We've been talking about collaborative innovation on that blog, and I thought it would be interesting to add KM into the discussion, because I see it as a playing a vital role that hasn't gotten much airtime yet.

For our purposes, "collaboration" is simply "co-laboring, sharing, creating something new together."

One of the interesting studies I've seen recently was done by Baseline in 2010, which found that companies who link KM and collaboration initiatives have much greater success rates in reaching their KM goals.

(Source:
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Business-Intelligence/Knowledge-Management-and-Collaboration-Create-Knowledge-Sharing-513230/)

Some of the questions that I can see us discussing on #KMersChat on Nov. 15 are:

Q1:  What role does KM play in collaborative innovation?

Q2: Are there different KM needs at different points of the innovation cycle (e.g., R&D, product launch, early adoption, growth, maintenance, obsolescence)?

Q3: Which internal and external groups have you seen collaborate (e.g., engineering, manufacturing, marketing, sales, legal, suppliers, customers)?

Q4:  What are some ways to include ideas from customers or suppliers

knowledgetank

Numerous interesting books on knowledge management, innovation and learning in organizations have been written over the years. During this chat we want to explore these books.

At the same time we'll take a creative turn by talking about lessons and topics you would write if you'd publish a book on knowledge management yourself.

1. What is your favorite knowledge management (or related fields) book? Why? 
2. What are key lessons you have learned from reading books on knowledge management (or related fields)?
3. Suppose you would write a book on knowledge management yourself, what would be a good tile? Or motto?
4. What would it be about? Which aspect of knowledge management (or related fields) would you elaborate? Why?
5. What would by the most important lesson(s) you want to get across to the readers of your book? How would you end it?

ant0_0n

Innovation, a keyword for some knowledge management professionals, sometimes leads to IT-led knowledge management initiatives. Those sometimes underestimate the importance of face-to-face interaction for sharing tacit knowledge. Even vice versa, there is a lot of crossing between these fields.

To position KM and Innovation more clearly seems difficult as in our organisation we are innovating continuously and I would like to see whether other KMers have experience with this. to do so i have prepared the following questions:

• How is innovation positioned within your organisation and within the KM department?
• Do you as a knowledge manager know of or use Innovation Management Techniques
• Has anyone any guidelines on innovation that they use, that they may share?
• Has anyone written about this or have any interesting articles?

BrainBoltz

From defining the purpose of a brainstorm session to capturing and developing the ideas, there are steps you can take at every stage to maximize your creative output. However, since no two brainstorms are identical, there are a variety of pathways to achieve an ideal brainstorm. What methods of success have you used to successfully generate ideas? 

Question #1: What steps do you take to prepare for a brainstorm session?

Question #2: How much emphasis do you place on assembling the right mix of personalities?

Question #3: How do you empower and inspire your brainstorm participants to maximize idea generation?

Question #4: What filters do you use to select ideas for further development?

swanwick

Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool to gain insights from a broad range of contributors. Many websites now have crowdsourced type feedback mechanisms that allow interested users to publicly contribute feature ideas and rate the ideas of others.

Many retail businesses are asking their customers what type of products they would like (eg. Starbucks and Dell). Others are offering up prizes for accomplishing some task that is helpful to the business. (eg. Netflix prize for improving their recommendation engine.

Q1: What does crowdsourcing mean to you?
Q2: What are the strengths and weaknesses/pitfalls of crowdsourcing?
Q3: What examples have you heard about or seen/delivered in your own business? Good Tools?
Q4: What will crowdsourcing become? More widespread? Different in some way?

Renee_Innosight

Chat Thursday at 12pm ET This is the #innochat version of the chat. Use #innochat to listen and contribute. See the link below for more details. http://innochat.ning.com/forum/topics/joint-chats-w-kmers-april-6

Q1: How do you take the learnings from innovation and diffuse them through the organization?

JohnReaves

Chat is April 6 at 12pm ET

KMers is pretty new to the scene.  There are other chats that have been around for a much larger portion of Twitter's own existence.  Of those that started early, not all have endured (full list: http://bit.ly/ChatSched).  Those that are still going strong are doing so thanks to a loyal and avid community.

One of those successful chats is #innochat.  We are proud to be partnering with them for a #chatmixer on April 6 and April 8.  April 6 will be the above topic on our (#KMers) hashtag and April 8 will be a similar topic on their (#innochat) hashtag.  It is highly encouraged for the members of each community to attend the others' chat.

There's a strong general feeling in the two communities that innovation and KM have a lot in common in terms of vision, goals and methodologies, and it seems valuable to explore those similarities in a more explicit way. At the same time, it's clear they should generally support each other within an organization ... but are there specific practices or projects which can better leverage the synergies?

Q1: What KM principles are similar to innovation best practices? How are they different? Q2: What information needs to be managed in order to increase innovation? Are ideas the same as information, and do they need to be treated separately? Q3: Organizationally, how should KM and innovation work together? Where do they come together within the community or decision-making structure (formal or informal), and are there any barriers that need to be overcome?

cdn

Modern organizations need a new, collaborative, value-driven approach to Innovation, which is challenging traditional views. It appears that the “Knowledge Management side of Innovation” is not fully exploited. Closer synergy between Knowledge and Innovation practices would certainly benefit the innovation process.

 Questions for this chat session:
- What could Open Innovation learn from KM?
- Which KM practices are applicable in an Open Innovation environment?
- What constraints are imposed by Open Innovation?