Why Innovate?

Getting to Point B

How & why to get past the assumptions, understand the

benefits, and become “innovative”

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.‖

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

ABOUT US

Part 1

Who we are

Jim Smith

• Technical Communicator, 20+ yrs, including—

– 7 at IBM

– 11 at Platform Computing

– 2 as Manager of ID/UX Team at Platform

• Starting PhD in Linguistics at University of Toronto

• jsmith@platform.com

Vivian Aschwanden

• Technical Communicator, 13 yrs, including—

– 7 at Leitch/Harris Broadcasting; 3 as group leader

– 6 at Platform Computing

• Project Manager (CAPM)

– 3 yrs

• vaschwan@platform.com

5

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

Point A – Where we are

Jim’s Perspective

• Mature, creative team

• Resource constraints keep team at capacity with project work

• Not enough time to contact customers

• Goals:

– Improve efficiencies, performance, & customer satisfaction

Viv’s Perspective

• Strong (but complacent) senior team with untapped potential

• Inconsistent, immature processes

• No singular vision

• Goal:

– Improve processes to better manage doc projects and improve quality

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

(RE)DEFINITIONS

Part 2

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

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_Signs2 "The New Organisation - A survey of the company", The Economist, p.8, January 21st 2006

Benefits of innovation3

• Promote higher customer satisfaction

• Increase productivity

• Improve delivery reliability

• Improve quality conformance

• Improve customer relations, and

• Reduce costs

3http://innovationwiki.brighton.ac.uk/index.php/Continuous_Improvement:_Lessons_and_Challenges

How innovative are you?4

Incremental Innovation Radical Innovation

Exploits existing technology Explores new technology

Low uncertainty High uncertainty

Focuses on cost or feature improvements in existing products or services, processes, marketing or business model

Focuses on processes, products or services with unprecedented performance features

Improves competitiveness within current markets or industries

Creates a dramatic change that transforms existing markets or industries, or creates new ones

4 http://www.innovationtoolbox.com.au/why-innovate/innovation-can-be-incremental-or-radical

Redefining ―social media‖

• Collaborative, real-time communication tools that are frequently web-based

• We prefer ―communicative and collaborative media‖

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

Burning question

• How can collaborative tools, social mediums, and other enabling technologies help you to innovate?

GETTING THERE

Part 3

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

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

Real examples (con‘t)

• Free & shareable Google documents great for

– Estimates

– Schedules

– Brainstorming documents

– Flow charting

– Reviews

– Remote meetings

– …any collaborative work

ON THE ROAD

Part 4

Achieving our goals

• How can we use social media and other enabling technologies to perform…

– Baseline analysis

– Market & customer studies

– Process analysis

– Team visioning

Process analysis & team visioning

Phase 1

June/July

Identify basic ID process

Checkpoint

December

Assess process

Phase 3

Oct

Create support pkgs

Phase 4

February

Discover gaps, ways to meet other corpobjectives & innovate

Phase 5

Mar/Apr

Implement improvements & innovation opps

Phase 2

Sept

Align with corp & dept goals

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

Thank you!

• Jim – jsmith@platform.com

• Vivian – vaschwan@platform.com