The impact of social media on innovation culture

1. soCiAL MeDiA
The impact of
social media on
innovation culture BY ANDREW TAN
soCial Media efforts around Branding, no matter where they originate within the
Marketing and CoMMuniCation-related organisation, and social media platforms can
aCtivities have Been pretty well- assist in this because they allow individuals
doCuMented and one of the reasons for this to follow people of interest, groups of interest
is because social media feels like a natural and even topics/themes of interest. This allows
extension to these activities. But how about opportunity recognisers to be alerted instantly
innovation-related activities? Does social media when an idea gets posted by a person or group
have a space to play in this area? I believe it they follow or if it gets labelled with a topic/
does. In this short article we will take a look at theme they follow.
how social media plays an important part in
supporting an internal culture that is conducive o’Connor and McDermott also highlighted the
for innovation. fact that projects which are radical in nature
usually take a longer time to develop and
The Impact of Social Media very often, different people will fill the various
on the Human Side of Radical roles needed to push the projects forward at
different times. The problem with this is the lack
Innovation of continuity within those roles and a lack of
Let us first examine how social media aids connectivity across many of them. Continuity
the human element necessary for radical is critical in these roles as people accumulate
innovation. In ‘The Human Side of Radical an understanding of the opportunity paths
Innovation’, Gina Colarelli o’Connor and that have been previously pursued, as they
Christopher M. McDermott share the outcome accumulate a vast network of contacts within
of a six-year longitudinal field study of the company, and as they accumulate expertise
twelve radical innovation projects in ten in judging opportunities of this magnitude.
large established companies. In that study, However, as critical as this is, organisations
they focused on the specific people-related still often lack not only ways to capture these
factors that advanced radical innovation in cumulative experiences but also mechanisms
large established companies. Out of the four for transferring them from one generation
observations, we would like to highlight two in to the next. Once again, a social media
this article because we feel social media impacts platform can help plug this hole. Imagine that
these in profound ways. instead of using emails as the main means of
communication and sharing, employees use
the first is the multiplicity of roles required to social media or social technology platform.
successfully implement radical innovation. By using social media or social technology
o’Connor and McDermott introduced the platform, this means that all communications,
role of the opportunity recogniser that was information that has been shared and also
not presented before in prior research. The networks made, will be stored in a database and
opportunity recogniser is the person who makes can always be accessible compared to if they sat
the link between the technical discovery and in someone’s inbox.
the commercial application that ultimately
motivates senior management to invest in a The second observation is that radical
project. In 10 out of the 12 cases they studied, innovation thrives on informal networks, both
the person who generated the initial idea internal and external to the company. Few
was not the same person as the opportunity will disagree with the Dunbar number of 150,
recogniser. With this, we can see the importance which represents the upper limit to the number
of connecting opportunity recognisers to ideas of strong social connections we can maintain
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2. at any point in time. However with the advent inefficient2. For example, Peter Drucker stated
of social media, there is a growing sense that the following:
Social media these networks have enhanced our capability to We are witnessing what may be the death
has been able have a larger number of weak ties, even though
the Dunbar number might still hold true for
of the large organisation…. the flagships
of the last forty years, institutions like
to help us do strong ties. Weak ties contribute to innovation General Motors, ITT and DuPont, have
this because as Martin Ruef pointed out because it “… basically outlived their usefulness … I think
on one hand, [allows] for more experimentation in combining
ideas from disparate sources...1”.
they’re past their peaks. there’s very little
flexibility there, very little creativity … you
it has enabled know, elephants don’t do well in confined
all of us to be Besides that, social media helps us to also form spaces…. The model organisation of
broadcasters serendipitous connections—another important
element when it comes to innovation. Social
tomorrow is the symphony orchestra. Have
you ever witnessed the performance of a
and on the other media has been able to help us do this because late Mahler symphony with 1,000 people
hand, it has on one hand, it has enabled all of us to be on stage? Now if you tried our normal
given us the broadcasters and to freely tap into these streams
us the capability
on the other hand, it has given organisation, you’d have the chief executive
conductor, six chief operating conductors,
capability to of broadcasted ideas and information. Another and about twenty-two department
freely tap into way to see it is that ideas, information or even conductors. Instead of which you’ll have
these streams collaboration opportunities that we seek are
only 140 characters away.
only one conductor3.
of broadcasted It has been 21 years since Peter Drucker said
ideas and Impact of Social Media on this. In fact, popular management literature
information. Organisational Structures has actually been pro-decentralisation since
the late 1980’s, and as early as the 1990s,
The second way social media is impacting some had already predicted the extinction of
innovation culture is from an organisational big bureaucratic hierarchies4. Nevertheless,
structure perspective. Many current professional these slumbering giants still persist today and
books and papers on organisation design, according to Parker, they are “…becoming
leadership and general management that more pervasive though camouflaged through
touch on the topic of organisation structures are colonising other forms of language”5.
proponents of the decentralised organisation
and have relegated the centralised organisation According to Leavitt, hierarchies persist until
as a relic of the today because of two reasons6. the first reason
past and as is psychological in nature. Hierarchy gives one
a social identity card and helps one maintain
the illusion of significance and security
because of our achievement-oriented society.
However this paradigm is starting to shift if
it has not already. This is due to the advent
of social technologies and the widespread
adoption of social media that has given
rise to a society that is starting to place
ever more importance on an individual’s
social standing in a networked-socialised
society. A reflection of this is the varying
degree of obsession that each of us have
on the number of friends we have on
Facebook, the number of followers we
have on Twitter, our Quora rank, Klout
score, etc. Even those who claim to be
above the numbers game and do not
care for such trivial matters still cannot
say unequivocally that having more
followers or a higher Klout score does not
bring them any satisfaction. This obsession
on numbers, rank and score is our initial
concept of how we can obtain social capital
or social influence and is sure to evolve. So
although physiologically we might still have
the social identification need that comes with
hierarchy, what is starting to change is that this
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3. soCiAL MeDiA
need is no longer housed within organisational Conclusion
charts but instead is contained within the What has been laid out here is just the tip (Endnotes)
socially-networked society that social media is of the iceberg on how social media impacts 1. http://www.businesswire.
helping create. This socially-networked society the innovation culture of an organisation. com/portal/site/google/
bears little resemblance to the hierarchies Nevertheless, I believe without a doubt that index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_
found in organisations because it is more open, social media can make a difference in this view &newsId=2004011400
operates at a grassroots level, bottom-up and self- regard. Therefore, organisations interested 5785&newsLang=en
organising in nature. in building a culture of innovation should
investigate ways to leverage on social 2. Leavitt, H. J. (2005). Top
The second reason Leavitt gives to explain why media not only as a tool to facilitate in Down: Why Hierarchies
hierarchies are needed is pragmatic in nature, the building of an innovation culture, but Are Here to Stay and How
since hierarchies enable organisations to cope even possibly as a change agent to push the to Manage Them More
with complexity and helps it to simplify things culture forward. Because in the end what Effectively . Boston: Harvard
through conformity. This is not surprising is probably more important is not so much Business School Press.
because hierarchies are created to help in finding ways to incorporate the tools of
organisations cope with the complexity that social media in different areas of innovation 3. Bennis, W. (1989). Why
comes from activities that drive economies of but to adopt the spirit of social media that Leaders Can’t Lead. San
scale. However, hierarchies are not really suited embraces accessibility, transparency and Francisco: Jossey-Bass
to handle an environment that is changing at openness. Publishers.
an ever-increasing pace. Neither does it thrive
in an environment where industry leadership 4. Gantman, E. R. (2005). ‘Book
can change overnight and where competitive About the author Review: Thomas W. Malone,
advantage erodes more rapidly than ever The Future of Work: How the
before. A case in point is the recent closure of Andrew has worked New Order of Business Will
Flip that not so long ago was the rising star in at the sharp end of Shape Your Organization,
the video camera industry, even leading Cisco innovation for more Your Management Style,
to buy the business for uSD590 million in 2009. than a decade now and Your Life, Top Down:
Therefore, what organisations need now is no in the US, Asia and Why Hierarchies Are Here
longer simplification through conformity but Europe that saw him to Stay and How to Manage
more the ability to be flexible and adaptable. as a designer, manager, Them More Effectively.’
This can be achieved by organisations adopting consultant and Organization Studies, 1258-
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more network-like, bottom-up, even tending innovation themes from
towards self-organising, where employees and technology innovation to organisation design 5. Parker, Martin (2002).
customers are positioned in a more participatory innovation. He began his career as a designer Against Management:
manner. One of the reasons why these strategies and architect for next generation high speed Organization in the
and principles will allow organisations to be interconnect technology and in the process Age of Managerialism.
more flexible and adaptable is because decisions secured several patents. This followed Massachusetts: Blackwell
can be made in a more decentralised manner with a stint as the Asia Pacific Innovation Publishers Inc.
which has been shown by studies to be much Delivery Manager for Intel which gave him
more effective in turbulent environments. An the opportunity to manage the operational 6. Leavitt, H. J. (2005). Top
example of one such study is by Brynjolfsson aspects of innovation projects within the Asia Down: Why Hierarchies
and Hitt which found that organisations that Pacific region. In that position, he was called Are Here to Stay and How
had more decentralised decision-making were on to build a team of diverse individuals and to Manage Them More
significantly more likely to have higher market to embed an innovation culture within this Effectively . Boston: Harvard
valuations compared to organisations that made team from the very beginning. While there Business School Press.
decisions in a more traditional way7. he was also intimately involved with various
internal endeavours that helped inculcate 7. Brynjolfsson, E., & Hitt,
Although hierarchies are still more common innovation into Intel’s culture. Next, he co- L. M. (2000). ‘Beyond
than not, I believe this is about to change in founded a boutique innovation consultancy Computation: Information
a very drastic way. This is not only because that helped small- and medium-sized Technology, Organizational
organisations that fail to adapt will cease to businesses in South East Asia to transform Transformation and Business
exist but also because the transaction cost of their cultures and build capabilities to create Performance.’ Journal of
coordination has collapsed, making it more their own innovation teams that were able Economic Perspectives , 14
possible than ever to have structures that are to innovate systematically and routinely. (4), 23-48.
more networked and decentralised in nature as Most recently he moved to London and has
pointed out by Shirky8. Social technologies have had the opportunity to work with some of 8. Shirky, C. (2008). Here
aided in this respect and on top of that social the world’s leading innovation organisations Comes Everybody: How
media has created a socially-networked society such as IDEO, NESTA and Samsung while Change Happens When
that is starting to get a grip on how to function in concurrently completing his second Masters, People Come Together.
a network-type environment. this time in Innovation Management. London: Penguin Books.
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