1. Why Innovate?
Getting to Point B
How & why to get past the assumptions, understand the
benefits, and become “innovative”
2. Session description
(from LavaCon program)
• ―Maybe you are like us, and have been mandated by those-
on-high to ―innovate‖. Maybe you‘ve subscribed to the myth
that innovation is good for its own sake. Or maybe you‘ve got
disgruntled customers.
• What does it mean to ‗innovate‘? How can it help you get
from your current state to a better one? Can a department
that is already resource- and budget crunched carry out true
innovation? How does innovation align with and support
overall department or corporate strategy? What are the real
benefits of innovation?
• Hear how one team is using social/digital media (among other
enabling technologies) in a corporate context to support the
stages of baseline analysis, market/ customer study, strategic
process analysis, team visioning, and finally innovation.‖
3. Today‘s session will cover…
• About us
– Point A: Where we are
– Point B: Where we want to be
• (Re)Definitions
– Defining ―innovation‖
– Redefining ―social media‖
• Getting there
• On the road
5. Who we are
Jim Smith Vivian Aschwanden
• Technical Communicator, • Technical Communicator,
20+ yrs, including— 13 yrs, including—
– 7 at IBM – 7 at Leitch/Harris Broadcasting;
– 11 at Platform Computing 3 as group leader
– 2 as Manager of ID/UX – 6 at Platform Computing
Team at Platform • Project Manager (CAPM)
• Starting PhD in Linguistics – 3 yrs
at University of Toronto • vaschwan@platform.com
• jsmith@platform.com
5
6. What we do
• Information development at Platform
Computing:
– Plan, design, write, deliver user
documentation for all Platform software
products
– Participate fully in all phases for product
development from initial product requirements
to user experience design to packaging
delivery
7. Point A – Where we are
Jim’s Perspective Viv’s Perspective
• Mature, creative team • Strong (but complacent)
• Resource constraints senior team with
keep team at capacity untapped potential
with project work • Inconsistent, immature
• Not enough time to processes
contact customers • No singular vision
• Goals: • Goal:
– Improve efficiencies, – Improve processes to
performance, & customer better manage doc projects
satisfaction and improve quality
8. Point B – Where we want to be
• Take better advantage of team‘s maturity
and capabilities to meet goals
• The end of our journey will be ―some kind of
innovation‖ by ―some method or definition‖
– For example, a new technology to help advance
our processes, free up resources
• Expect to use collaborative tools, social
media, and other enabling technologies to
get there
10. Defining ―innovation‖
• New ideas and concepts that create value
• Value/benefit could be financial, but also
social, environmental, etc.
• Can be incremental or radical
• Common types of innovation:
– Product/service innovation
– Process innovation
– Marketing innovation
– Business model innovation
11. Why innovate?
• Avoid ―The Twelve Death Signs‖1 –
resuscitate with innovation!
• Grow your personnel, dept, company
before resuscitation is required!
– ―There are two ways to grow: … either
through mergers and acquisitions or through
innovation‖2
1 http://innovationwiki.brighton.ac.uk/index.php/The_Twelve_Death_Signs
2 "The New Organisation - A survey of the company", The Economist, p.8, January 21st 2006
13. How innovative are you? 4
Incremental Innovation Radical Innovation
Exploits existing technology Explores new technology
Low uncertainty High uncertainty
Focuses on cost or feature Focuses on processes, products or
improvements in existing products or services with unprecedented
services, processes, marketing or performance features
business model
Improves competitiveness within Creates a dramatic change that
current markets or industries transforms existing markets or
industries, or creates new ones
4 http://www.innovationtoolbox.com.au/why-innovate/innovation-can-be-incremental-or-radical
14. Redefining ―social media‖
• Collaborative, real-time communication
tools that are frequently web-based
• We prefer ―communicative and
collaborative media‖
15. Why collaborate?
• Collaborate to:
– Improve processes
– Reduce constraints keeping team at capacity
– Find more time to connect with customers
– Envision & define stable set of processes
– Re-energize & innovate team
• Result of collaboration:
– Encourage innovation through the use of
collaborative tools
16. Burning question
• How can collaborative tools, social
mediums, and other enabling technologies
help you to innovate?
18. Enabling technologies
• Business tools we use that fit our definition
– Wikis, SharePoint
– LiveMeeting
– Google Documents
– Skype
– eSupport Knowledge Base
– Community websites (HPCCommunity.org)
– CMS workflows
– Facebook
– Twitter
19. Real examples
• LiveMeeting
– Used for remote install and config assistance
between field engineers/support/sales and our
customers
• Eclipse
– Rree downloadable window into development
team repository – used for collaborative content
editing
• Twitter
– Product uses portlets within status dashboard;
Twitter message board included so users can
communicate in real-time with admins
20. Real examples (con‘t)
• Free & shareable Google documents great for
– Estimates
– Schedules
– Brainstorming documents
– Flow charting
– Reviews
– Remote meetings
– …any collaborative work
22. Achieving our goals
• How can we use social media and other
enabling technologies to perform…
– Baseline analysis
– Market & customer studies
– Process analysis
– Team visioning
23. Process analysis & team
visioning
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Checkpoint Phase 4 Phase 5
Identify basic Align with corp Create Assess Discover gaps, ways to Implement
ID process & dept goals support pkgs process meet other corp improvements &
objectives & innovate innovation opps
June/July Sept Oct December February Mar/Apr
24. Are we there yet?
• Questions:
– How do we know we've innovated?
– Is simply doing something different "innovation―?
– Can social media help to innovate?
– Do we need collaboration to innovate?
• Our answer:
– Starting with the small seeds these social media
tools give to us, and through collaboration and
the resulting generation of new ideas, innovation
springs forth naturally
