A Simple Program to 

HARVEST IDEAS 

&Foster Innovationhttp://marcbinkleymarketing.blogspot.com/

The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

Many corporate structures are designed to have ideas and direction flow down a communication pyramid.

In this business model, ideas are limited to the number of people in the top positions.

...but who is the majority?

Perhaps they have ideas?

Focus Groups are great for Customer Feedback.

what does your own staff think?how do they share their ideas?

Examples of Idea Harvestinghttp://geoffreywebb.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/how-do-you-harvest-great-ideas/

• IBM currently has 73 people with their feet up on their desks. They’re the IBM Fellows. They got there by coming up with exceptional ideas and are charged with coming up with more – under one condition: Freedom. Freedom from deadlines, committees and all the usual constraints of corporate approval. Since the program’s inception in 1962, IBM fellows have invented some of the most useful – and profitable – technologies in the industry.

• Atlassian,  an Australian software company, believes that great ideas can come from anywhere. Unlike IBM, who focuses efforts only on idea specialists, Atlassian gives everyone the opportunity to generate amazing ideas. Once a quarter, they tell their developers, “For the next 24 hours, go work on whatever you want, any way you want, with whomever you want.” These days of freedom have produced more new ideas and profitable ventures than any other program or system they’ve tried.

• Google takes it all one step further. Like Atlassian they want to harness the creativity of their entire workforce, but they want to do it all year round. Google has a policy called Innovation Time Off, where they encourage their engineers to spend twenty percent of their work time on projects that interest them. Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense are just some of the services that originated from these independent endeavors.

1. Soil - Provide context of the issue & share your vision with your team 2. Seed - Pose a Question3. Water - brainstorm all options4. Prune - aggregate related ideas, discard non-applicable ones5. Blossom - collaborate with the team to fine tune, test and rollout the idea

System To Harvest Ideas

How?

• Round table type discussion• a leader should initiate the conversation,

keep the discussion on track and on time• it takes practice to get this system working

smoothly• be open all ideas & outcomes• the more you practice, the easier it gets• have a scribe to take notes on a whiteboard

or flipchart

Why?

• motivate employees• empower people• train innovation• be more competitive• inspire positive change• collaborate• peer recognition