At the E2.0 Forum in Milan (June 9-10, 2010), I had a chance speak about innovation. Specifically, on the latest advances in leveraging communities to advance innovation.
The title of my keynote was: “3 Cs of Innovation 2.0 – Crowdsourcing, Competition, Collaboration”. The presentation is provided below:
Key points from the presentation are below.
Innovation
Definitions of innovation are quite varied. For this presentation, here is the definition of innovation:
Innovation: A change in a product offering, service, business model or operations which meaningfully improves the experience of a large number of stakeholders.
The presentation also highlights the migration from Innovation 1.0 to Innovation 2.0.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing can also have a number of flavors. Here’s the definition used in this presentation:
Crowdsourcing: Soliciting the ideas, knowledge, experiences and judgment of a large, diverse group of people to solve a problem.
The presentation emphasizes the importance of diversity. Not diversity in the ethnic sense. But the sense used by James Surowiecki: cognitive and heuristic diversity.
The importance of goal-setting is emphasized, which is a contrast with typical Enterprise 2.0 initiatives.
Competition
Competition has many meanings, both explicit and implicit. The presentation discusses two views on competition:
System competition: Process of determining how a finite resource will be allocated among a set of alternatives.
Individual competition: Actions taken to advance in a given endeavor, satisfying one’s internal need to excel.
The presentation includes a discussion of soft vs. hard competition, and the concept of paragone. Paragone was a type of rivalry among artists in the Renaissance that propelled amazing amounts of creativity.
The subject of game mechanics is also examined in the light of competition.
Collaboration
Collaboration is a critical element of innovation. The sense of the word used in this presentatio is:
Collaboration: Building toward a defined outcome through the interactions and input of multiple people.
There is a new type of collaboration afforded by crowdsourcing. It relies on people’s individual interests, and lives on their specific passions. It doesn’t replace traditional collaboration, but is a vital new source for energizing innovation efforts.
Innovation requires two types of collaboration: emergent and structured. Emergent for the finding and surfacing of good ideas. Structured for determining which ones becomes innovation projects.
(Cross-posted @ the Spigit Blog)
