Why social innovation platforms are destined to fail within organisational boundaries?
Story byEric Bun
Eric is a business innovation consultant at a large management consulting firm in the Netherlands. He helps organizations defining their web(show all)Eric is a business innovation consultant at a large management consulting firm in the Netherlands. He helps organizations defining their web and e-business strategies, deploying social innovation and aligning business innovation to strategic objectives. Eric is graduated at the TU Delft on the subject of managing Communities of Practice in 2007. He has interest in deploying new (e-)businesses and is happy to be involved in relating topics such as co-creation, brand hijacking, e-marketing and innovation strategies.
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Everybody entrepreneur
Three reasons why to focus on the social aspects and build a platform later on. First of all, is your organizational culture really that innovative? What kind of people do you recruit and employ? Are they open and willing to show entrepreneurship. Is entrepreneurship something that you call important, or is innovation something that is really deep-rooted in the whole corporate culture?Nedapis a good example of an organization that embeds innovation in the whole corporate culture. People in their company are really encouraged to show entrepreneurship. Nedap even does not use any grades for their employees and each employee is simply, yet clearly, called ‘entrepreneur’. Even the business cards don’t show any degree and just simply state the name and ‘entrepreneur’.
Start rewarding
Rewarding mechanisms are also still underexposed in most organizations. However, people simply won’t come up with new innovations if they know they probably don’t get any reward for it. They might do it for the first time, but certainly not for the second time. Unfortunately, most organization experience difficulties with redefining their embedded archaic metrics upon employees are rewarded. I do recommend a combination of short and long term metrics. Short term metrics focus on the added value on the short term, for instance in existing projects. Long term metrics focus on the result of innovation in the long run and measure the effect on business revenues. After all, only innovative organizations are able to increase business revenues year after year.
We really have to incorporate social issues in order to make social innovation work!
