Easing in to Open Innovation – getting cozy with the crowd

Claudia Moore on August 6, 2009 in Best Practices

Business researchers remain baffled on the “not just yet” phenomena of enterprise declaring the desire to embrace social technology when surveyed, but making no progress a year later. For many the concern is being thrust into a conversation where the crowd will hurl insults about how their products or services or policies fall short. So how can an enterprise dip a toe in and get started on the path to open innovation? Here are some ideas.

Monitor the crowd in conversation

First step – see what people are saying. People are talking about your brand whether you like it or not. Get out into that big, open world and eavesdrop on what people think about you.

This may prove much less painful than a trip to the dentist. You might find out people are saying great things. If they aren’t, you now have the opportunity to hear it, and improve in the direction the crowd wants.

Useful tools: Google alerts, Collecta, Radian6

Host your community – Invite the crowd in

Bring the discussion to you. You’ve learned that people have things to say about you, now create a community and evolve the one way chatter into a live interaction between you and the people who care about you.

Being the roof over the community provides an easy-to-find destination for dialogue on your brand, including for potential new customers. Hosting this dialogue gives your employees opportunity to hear from the crowd first hand, and gives you the means to amplify the positives about you and share how you are fixing the negatives.

Useful tools: Forums, Blogs, Ning

Pilot Open Innovation – Trust the crowd to contribute on one business need

Ask the crowd to help you. You’ve got the crowd interacting with you, now ask for their ideas to solve a problem or suggest how you can perform better. Add crowdsourcing capabilities to your community site, and invite the crowd to submit, discuss, refine and rank solutions that can pay off big for you.

You’re not handing over the reigns for your whole business, you can start off small! Ask the crowd to suggest refinements to a product you know isn’t selling well. Ask for research breakthroughs to problems stumping your internal team. Get suggestions on what service would make your crowd happy if you know that what you are doing has them grumbling. You know… it’s like talking to the spouse. That grumbling can be a gift if you have the courage to ask “how would you like it to work?”

Useful tools: Salesforce, IdeaScale, Chaordix