October was all about innovation management here on Conspire. As we plunge headfirst into November’s theme, allow us to take a quick look back at some of our favorite articles from this last month. From innovation management myths to gamification practices, types, insights, and approaches, we dug deep into what innovation management means, what it doesn’t, and how it will transform the future of business.
What is Innovation Management?
Bringing a more precise, strategic process to something that often falls victim to ambiguity is only logical, but that doesn’t make it simple. If it did, the need for repeatable execution wouldn’t still be there. Somehow, a foundation would’ve grown organically from us noticing an obvious pattern, the same way that we’ve done with stuff like baking cookies — in a nutshell, ingredients + temperature = deliciousness.
4 Myths About Innovation Management Software
In the grand scheme of things, we could talk about the importance of innovation strategy, the need to develop repeatable processes, and the effect company culture has on innovation until we’re blue in the face. And maybe we will. But none of those topics fully address how to turn your current practices around, which is really the most vital thing to figure out. And, if the answer is implementing innovation software — which we think is a great idea — first we need to take a look at some of the misconceptions that seem to be floating around about it.
Here are 4 myths about innovation management software that are just downright wrong.
Innovation Breakdown: 4 Types and Approaches to Innovating for Business
As if innovation weren’t tricky enough, the blanket term does nothing to help wannabe-innovators determine which approach they should be taking to improve innovation in their own organization. Below are 4 types of innovation, along with some explanations and examples that can help you unravel the best method for your business.
The Science of Innovation: A Quick Q&A with Lisa Purvis on Initiatives and Hypotheses
Repeatable innovation isn’t something that just happens on its own — establishing a process to bring the best ideas to market depends on research, data, and the examination of various strategies. In this series, we discuss the science of innovation with our experienced internal Data Scientists, who will walk us through their innovation hypotheses, findings, and unexpected discoveries.
In this Q&A with Mindjet Data Scientist Lisa Purvis, we chatted about a few key data initiatives her team is putting in place for Mindjet. Below are the hypotheses her team formed about various aspects of innovation from looking at global data across customers, and the results and implications that are driving our products and innovation forward.
Innovation Gamified: A Lesson from the XBox Generation
With the seemingly endless possibilities that virtual worlds present, gaming aficionados are no strangers to crowdsourcing, mechanizing ideation and innovation, and the pressures of a perpetually changing market. It’s because of the video game industry’s organic expertise in this arena that more and more companies are turning to the ‘gamification’ of other processes, like innovation and marketing.
Gamifcation is a fancy way of saying that we’re taking the things people expect from games — points systems, scoring, level graduation — and applying them to business processes and customer interactions, in order to increase engagement. But what’s the point?