IBM Jams for innovation (Phase 2)
Today, at 10 am U.S. Eastern Time phase 2 of the IBM Innovation Jam starts. Phase 1 was held from 24-27 July over a 72 hours time period. At least the 300,000+ IBM’ers (but including the familiy members, partners and other selected companies the group of potential participants is over one million) have shared their thoughts and ideas on four innovation areas (transportation, health, environment, and finance & commerce). Keeping the 1% rule in mind we can assume that at least tens of thousands people actively participated in shaping what will be the next focal points for the Innovator’s Innovator, alias Big Blue
I really enjoyed watching the developments during the first phase of the Innovation Jam, and in particular was interested in some critical success factors. I noted some down as result of the first phase:
- Don’t be afraid of hierarchy. Everyone is equal in the Jam
- Adequate time span to let the ideas develop from air-balloons to viable business solutions
- Easy to use technology platform to support the discussions
- Active senior management Involvement
- Topics of relevance for business strategy
During the last month some teams of IBM surely did not get holiday…. they have been analyzing all the comments and discussions from phase 1. Let’s see today how this evolved in ideas that will be refined in Phase 2!
October 5th, 2006 15:07
[…] Using the crowd to bring in knowledge on current trends and future developments is nothing new anymore. In an earlier post i wrote about how companies can learn from customers and in another also about IBM using its employees (and some customers) to get ideas for new innovations in their global innovation jam. […]