Intranet Management Software Blog

Business Cases, Collaboration Platforms and Innovation.

A  recent very good Cisco post on the next generation collaborative enterprise mentioned - amongst a great deal of interesting thoughts  on collaboration platforms and how they will change the way companies work - that ‘Priorities are set by clusters of experts that make decisions’. A comment on the post asked then asked the perfectly reasonable question : “how does the framework ensure these priorities are in line with the business goals?”

We getting similar thoughts from our customers, as we begin to show Innovate, the Claromentis 6.0 Innovation application. This relates to a previous post here where we were discussing the implications of collaboration platforms directly conflicting with the discipline of more controlled communication channels.

It seems to me that one possible way these different business structures can coexist is based on the difference between fostering creativity and enabling innovation. Or as Claromentis has described it the  ‘shout, collaborate, execute’ journey.

Creativity and Innovation are two very different things, and sometimes it seems to me that confusion in discussing the impact of Corporate Social Networking results from not being clear about which of these is actually being discussed.

In the well known quote from Theodore Levitt “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”

In essence creativity uses divergent thinking to create ideas that then feed into innovation. Innovation is the implementation of those ideas – putting them into action.

Collaboration platforms can really help to foster creativity by putting like minded people from different perspectives or locations in touch and so break down silos both internally and externally.

However when it comes to taking those creative ideas and executing to produce innovation – in a corporate space this will  in general terms require expenditure. Depending on the maturity of the company and the scale of the projects – these will generally need business cases – and these always set out the rational for where the project will generate value within a more traditional and documented vision of the business objectives.

So it seems to me that the next generation enterprise will be able to impose some control not by constraining the way collaboration platforms are used to innovate – but by managing the process that selects which ideas these platforms generate are turned into real projects.

The ideas and decisions made within fast moving collaboration platforms can be prioritised and set within more formal and longer term management goals – and indeed over time help to change these goals - by the continued discipline of business cases being required in practical terms to actually execute on an idea – to move from collaboration to the very much harder task of innovation.

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Social Networking vs Traditional Channels

At a meeting today we showed the designs for the new Innovate Corporate social networking application to a very significant client and the reaction was in my view extremely interesting.

The design was clearly great, the functionality of corporate social networking was absolutely acknowledged and the whole idea of bringing this out as a central application of Claromentis 6.0 – with all the new Ajax emphasis and other aspects is appreciated.

The main concern was one that we at Claromentis are going to have to thoroughly understand and plan for. “If Innovate is this easy, and employees really embrace it – what will happen to existing more corporate channels?”

This is a very valid concern in certain types of organisations. They focus considerable effort on consistent messaging and adherence to standards and quality initiatives – then along we come with a great way for all staff to cut through everything and just collaborate with each other to escalate whatever idea they find fascinating – providing an attractive and immediately responsive environment with content, resources and information that we have designed from the ground up to facilitate breaking through all barriers.

So Innovate is designed to cut through everything and foster idea creation through to innovation. But companies put up barriers and control systems for valid reasons.

If collaboration platform vendors like Claromentis facilitate tearing down walls to encourage participation, and that turns out to be exactly what employees want to embrace – as I could clearly see everyone in the room knew they would - it is dynamic, expressive and well designed - how will we then help our clients to maintain a balance between innovative cooperation and logical adherence to methodologies and approaches that have kept the business centered in its value proposition as defined by the management team and many years of experience?

Of course we would argue that complacence and standards are dangerous for any company in a fast moving world, where successful innovation can change the game in a remarkably short time.  Our job is to provide superior collaboration platforms.

But I do think it is true that free expression using corporate social networking must have a clear space and not simply be allowed to run riot with existing internal communications and controlled documents. This is going to be a very exciting space – as a result of the meeting today we decided that innovate will from the first release support a plug-in environment to allow hooks and behaviors relevant to each client. We will really enjoy working with our clients as they learn to create a balance between established practices and innovation.

Our client today actually maintains our nuclear submarine fleet – as one of its many business areas - and personally I would like to think that the relevant staff aren’t being encouraged by Claromentis corporate networking to just have a quick play this evening with a new idea to quickly see if it works…

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