Voices of Influence

Marketers are always looking for "innovative" ways to communicate products and services, and there may be more options to do that today than ever before. But what if your product is "innovation" itself?

Here, Ketchum Partner and Chief Innovation Officer Karen Strauss talks about the effects of social media tools on marketing communications, and Lance Pressl, co-founder of Chicago-based InnovateNow, answers questions about the challenges of promoting regional innovation.

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Innovation in Communication: The Net Effect

"In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that . . . the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium -- that is, of any extension of ourselves -- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology."

Thus begins the seminal work of Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, in which he proclaimed more than four decades ago, "The medium is the message." A literal interpretation of McLuhan’s statement is that he was simply observing that the medium or channel colors the information it delivers. But McLuhan, a prophet in seeing how technology affects relationships, also had a larger "message" that is particularly relevant today: Every new medium exerts profound effects on society and how we interact. While he didn’t say it explicitly, McLuhan may as well have coined the term "social media" back in the ‘60s.

Now, thanks to accessible and scalable publishing techniques, media finally fulfills its potential as a conduit for robust social discourse. If the medium really is the message, then consumer-generated media tell us consumers as content producers love to connect and be heard. They are readily exploiting social networks, digital videos, blogs, podcasts, wikis, mobile phone photography, and open source software to share and collaborate – while creating new media outlets as they go. And they are using new media to publicly support or skewer brands and institutions at an escalating pace.

What then, in this climate, are the innovative communications techniques available to companies and brands that have stories to tell and messages to sell?

"Consumer-fortified media" – compelling content reinforced by consumer comments and posts – is key. Among social news Web sites, Digg exemplifies this. For a story to appear on Digg’s front page, it must be among the most "dugg" from those submitted and voted upon by contributors. Content must earn notice or risk getting "buried." Brand stories have terrific potential to gain traction, provided consumers like how they’re told. For professional communicators, the creative challenge is predicting what will catch on.

But crystal ball gazing isn’t entirely necessary. Brand marketers can discover ways to connect with their audiences simply by trolling the Internet for memes and news occurrences that are already generating traction, then linking their brand stories to what people find interesting. For example, Kodak recently seized on a paparazzi photo of a failed attempt by a young boy to hand a rose to actress Megan Fox at a movie premiere. Kodak, a Ketchum client, offered a reward to anyone who could identify the boy so the company could broker a second try. That media announcement generated more buzz and chatter than most carefully calculated campaigns, yet cost very little to showcase the power of a photograph to change lives.

Similarly, spotting the demise of traditional arcade games, Stride, also a Ketchum client, recently tapped into gamer sentiment by offering to save one arcade from shuttering. The company handed the decision of which arcade to save over to male gamers, who could play an online game to earn points for their favorite arcade. Consumer response was clear: In two days, some 92,100,575 points were donated by gamers, earning positive attention from top gaming outlets and praise from cynical gaming forums, with comments like "Upon reading this tidbit . . . Stride became my gum of choice." Gamers – a key gum-chewing target – liked being part of the story, so it worked.

Giving consumers a voice is hardly limited to creative brand campaigns. When online shoe retailer Zappos announced its sale to Amazon recently, CEO Tony Hsieh shared the news on his blog (http://blogs.zappos.com/ceoletter), forsaking a traditional press release. In blog-speak that featured quips like "I personally prefer the headline Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree," Hsieh demystified the transaction and invited a freewheeling conversation about it among customers and employees of both companies, ushering in an innovative, new age of M&A communications.

In no small way, social media forces companies to relinquish control and take "innovative" risks. This is just the kind of change McLuhan predicted. But as with all risk taking, the experiment doesn’t always work perfectly. For instance, Skittles, a candy brand, recently changed its home page to a Twitter feed of anyone who tweeted anything with "skittles" in it, abdicating control of the Web page. Once word got out that anyone could get on the home page by typing "skittles" in a tweet, more than a few inappropriate links and some offensive language appeared. Despite some embarrassment, marketing experts praised Skittles for experimenting with social media to engage consumers in the brand.

Communication innovators are experimenters, and the Internet is their lab. Because outcomes on the Internet are impossible to predict, innovators must do things to learn what they should do. So, in the words of McLuhan, the medium is the message, and the message is to experiment – a lot.

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An Interview with Lance Pressl, Co-Founder of InnovateNow

Lance Pressl is president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Foundation and one of the co-founders of InnovateNow, a public-private partnership that brings together business, labor, government, academia and private citizens to promote innovation in the city of Chicago and the surrounding region. Formed in 2006, InnovateNow has become a leader in promoting innovation for regional economies. Last year, for example, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez acknowledged the initiative at the 2008 National Summit on American Competitiveness.

Naturally, InnovateNow uses innovative communication tools to spread its messages and to facilitate its charge. It has a presence on social networking sites Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Ammado, and GrowthCluster. It posts podcasts on its Web site, and it recently successfully used InnoCentive, an open innovation marketplace of more than 180,000 Internet users, to solicit ideas for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from autos by increasing public transportation ridership in Chicago (making Chicago the first major metropolitan area to post a challenge in InnoCentive's eight-year history). Still, even with all those tools, effectively promoting innovation is no easy job.

Pressl recently sat down with Perspectives to talk about the challenges of talking up innovation.

Perspectives: What is the purpose of InnovateNow and why is it important to the regional economy?

Pressl: The ultimate goal of InnovateNow is to transform the Chicago region – essentially from Madison, Wis., east to South Bend, Ind., and south to Champaign/Urbana, Ill. – into a global center of innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. We see this as the only way to build a sustainable growth economy, and our region definitely needs that.

For Chicago and much of the Midwest, economic development used to be about chasing after smoke stacks – enticing manufacturing plants to build and stay here. That isn't going to do it for us anymore. We're now in a new knowledge economy that is all about developing and retaining the best talent in the world. We are going to compete in the global marketplace on our ideas, not on the widgets we produce. Yet, while several of our schools and universities (including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the Illinois Math and Science Academy) educate some of the brightest talent in the world, many of these individuals leave the area after earning their degrees. In some cases, international students are required to return to their home countries, but in many others, the Midwest is simply losing talent to the East Coast or the West Coast. They are looking for greater opportunities to turn their ideas into real business innovations and solutions, and they don't believe they can find the critical mass here.

Many area business and government leaders understand the need for talent in driving innovation, but we also still have a long way to go to change the mindset of some people.

Perspectives: Where did the idea for InnovateNow originate?

Pressl: Initially, the state of Illinois was pursuing a regional innovation and workforce development grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to develop a comprehensive plan for regional economic growth. So we began studying innovation ideas from around the world and talking to area business leaders about the importance of innovation. We didn't get the grant, but after all of our research and discussions, we knew we had to develop the plan anyway. That brought together the Chamber of Commerce, World Business Chicago and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, and InnovateNow was launched at the Chicagoland Innovation Summit in October 2006.

Perspectives: What do you see as the measure for whether an idea is truly innovative?

Pressl: Innovation is an evolving discipline, but one constant is that an innovative idea has to produce value.

Perspectives: What do you think are the keys to communicating or marketing innovative ideas? Or do they basically sell themselves?

Pressl: No matter what kind of innovation you’re communicating, the first question to consider is "Who is the audience?" Then you must tailor your communication approach to appeal to that audience.

For InnovateNow, a key audience is the business community, and an important part of what we are communicating is that companies – both within and across industries – must collaborate in a new way and fully leverage existing assets to create the most innovative solutions to solve their business problems and remain competitive. That is not the traditional approach most business executives have been accustomed to, so in that sense, the very idea of what we're trying to do is innovative itself. One key to communicating this is simply addressing the inherent challenges.

For instance, we're challenged by the word "innovation" itself. It has been used so much that it has lost some meaning. It also has been so closely associated with high tech that people think only technology companies can innovate. We realized from the outset that if a food company like Kraft or other non-tech Chicago-area companies can't be seen as innovative, we're in trouble. So our approach is to use the word and then define it. We see innovation as not just developing and implementing new ideas for business models, processes, products and services, but also filtering out the best ideas to create customer value and drive revenue growth.

For communicating the ideas of InnovateNow, another key – which is a learning from a National Governors Association report on communicating the importance of innovation – is to not use negative or dire language. Rather than positioning our messages in terms of the region falling behind or lagging other areas, we talk about the possibilities so people can visualize them. Our partnerships with other organizations that are known for innovation, such as Wired NextFest, also communicate to various communities that we are serious about innovation.

Finally, an especially significant key to communicating innovation is to show rather than tell. For instance, we've engaged Second City, Chicago's famed improvisational theater, to show companies how performance can spur innovation. And when the Chamber used InnoCentive to solicit ideas to help the city's public transportation achieve one billion rides per year, we received numerous ideas from around the world. That demonstrated the power of crowdsourcing and open innovation, key ideas that InnovateNow is trying to promote.

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Viewpoints

What does it take for a company to be innovative? And what tools are needed to promote and facilitate innovation within an organization? In this installment of "Viewpoints," Ralf Langen, head of Change & Transformation for Pleon, a new unit of Ketchum formed from Ketchum's recent merger with Pleon, now the largest PR firm in Europe, discusses vital elements of an innovative culture. And Daniel Dworkin, a consultant for Ketchum’s employee engagement firm, Stromberg Consulting, reviews a few social media tools that can help organizations filter through great ideas.

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Inspiring Innovation: Engaging Employees Through Entrepreneurialism, Idea Fandom and Epistemaphilia

How big companies and large organizations can better manage their innovation processes – and ultimately turn novel ideas into commercial success – is probably one of the most widely researched and written-about topics in management literature today. One clear conclusion is that a certain organizational culture is essential.

How does a company build such a culture? At least three core ingredients are required: entrepreneurialism, idea fandom, and epistemaphilia.

The first is fairly simple – entrepreneurs offer innovative solutions to frequently unrecognized problems. In fact, distinguished management guru Peter Drucker notes that "innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship." Innovative companies need entrepreneurs and a consistent culture of entrepreneurialism that supports those who innovate.

Understanding Fandom

“Highly engaged employees, who are at the core of innovation power, have a strikingly strong resemblance to self-organized groups that have long been marginalized and stigmatized: fans.”

The second ingredient, idea fandom, is best illustrated through companies that have it. They include IBM (with its world-famous collaborative innovation approach), and Linux (with its forceful open source development)¹. What do these two best-practice examples have in common?

They show that it is in the interstices of the human network – rather than in the minds of a few wunderkinder – that most real innovations are born. They also illustrate a deeply researched phenomenon of employee engagement: Engaged employees, as Gallup² and others show, are people who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward. Highly engaged employees typically forget about time and space, they focus on current challenges even when they are not directly involved, they invest free time and invite others in – being "emotionally contagious" and passionate about things they feel need to be done.

Described like that, highly engaged employees, who are at the core of innovation power, have a strikingly strong resemblance to self-organized groups that have long been marginalized and stigmatized: fans. Now, thanks to Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the school’s Comparative Media Studies program, we have a new definition of fandom. Jenkins describes it as being about self-organizing groups focused on the collective production, debate and circulation of meaning.

Real fandom, then, is not only about identification with and a devotion to "your" topic – be it Star Trek, Beauty and the Beast, ER, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is also about a unique attitude and willingness when it comes to knowledge of all kinds. This is where the second and third ingredients for innovative cultures are linked. Professor Jenkins calls this attitude "epistemaphilia" – which he says is "not simply a pleasure in knowing but a pleasure in exchanging knowledge."

Aiding the Exchange of Knowledge

Very much like fans discussing the subtleties of character relationships or technical features important for narrative development, rich knowledge environments within corporations are essential to bringing innovation forward. Also like fans distributed around the world with only a few chances to regularly meet in person (Trekkies typically meet at fan conventions), innovation communities within large organizations need to interact and share ideas based on full transparency of one's own identity, the personal reputation as an expert in certain categories and the full trust that the problem or issue that is raised is a real need around a real case.

How does this trusted exchange of ideas best happen?

Epistemaphilia, like any cultural attitude based on love and devotion, needs a framework. To promote the exchange of knowledge, a shared pool of knowledge or information that is available to all members is needed as basis. And as a "breathing" function, universally available tools for moving knowledge around are essential.

The knowledge pool has to be more than a limited section of the company intranet, but rather a knowledge sphere that connects proprietary knowledge with the collective intelligence of the Web, and with the web of partnerships and alliances. And the tools for moving knowledge around need to be jams and jamming activities, where knowledge is connected and further enriched with social grain.

Combined with blogs and bloggers as navigators through knowledge fields, as well as wikis and Wikipedians acting as supporters and archivers, epistemaphilia can be a powerful practice to boost innovation.

1. For the innovation practices at Linux, see the landmark article by Philip Evans and Bob Wolf, "Collaboration Rules," in Harvard Business Review July/August 2005.
2. Gallup Management Journal: "Gallup Study – Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation", Oct 12 2006; "Development Dimensions International, Employee Engagement – The Key to Realizing Competitive Advantage," 2007, www.ddiworld.com; Sabine Stecher, "Why Engagement Matters?", in J.Klewes / R. Langen (eds.); "Change 2.0 – Beyond Organizational Transformation," Heidelberg 2008 (Springer)

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Tools for Making Crowdsourcing Actionable

Crowdsourcing – tapping the latent wisdom of the masses – can be an important method for stirring innovation. But despite its theoretical appeal, many-to-one communication often is viewed as realistically untenable.

A number of social media applications are challenging that convention. These technologies enable organizations to sift through limitless ideas and questions to determine what really resonates with their employees and customers. Here’s a brief overview of the best of the crowdsourcing technology that’s currently available.

Google Moderator

Google Moderator enables users to submit and rank ideas or questions they think should be addressed by the "powers that be." This allows leaders to tackle those topics the general population believes are most important. But a potential downside is that Google Moderator-hosted forums may be susceptible to hijacking by vocal fringe groups that can coordinate repeated voting for their group's cause. Google moderator is a free service –– all you have to do is sign up for a Gmail account and log in at moderator.appspot.com.

All Our Ideas

All Our Ideas, the brainchild of Princeton professor Matthew Salganik, presents users with a series of comparisons and asks them to choose which of two options they prefer. It then notes users’ preferences and presents two new options to be judged. Participants can also suggest new ideas to be pitted against those previously loaded into the system. Ideas float to the top of the priority list based on how many votes they receive. All ideas are evaluated at one point or another, and individuals have to vote without seeing what others have chosen (which may prevent the kind of groupthink and "popularity snowballs" that can occur with some of the other applications like Google Moderator). The result is a natural metric that can be interpreted by everyone (e.g., Idea X beat the relevant pool of other ideas 80 percent of the time). All Our Ideas is based on open source software, enabling organizations to redesign their own comparison sites to serve unique business needs. With a recent grant from Google, All Our Ideas continues to flesh out its design. In true open source spirit, the service is free.

Kindling

Kindling is a collaboration generator that facilitates opportunities for employees to share ideas more effectively. Like Google Moderator, the site offers a system to suggest or vote on the strength of various peer-generated ideas (i.e., new products or services, innovative processes, or strategic shifts). Popular ideas bubble up to the top, enabling easy prioritization. Unpopular ideas are slowly phased out of the system. Individuals are prevented from exorbitantly voting on their favorite ideas, ensuring that votes retain their significance. Employees can also sign up to work on addressing a suggested project, so Kindling also functions as a task manager. Kindling charges a flat rate of $5 per user, per month, but also offers nonprofits and educational organizations a flat rate of $99.

Ideablob

Ideablob was created by Advanta, one of the nation's largest credit card issuers, to incubate creative small business projects. Participants post their best start-up ideas on the Ideablob site and registered community members can both comment on ideas they like (or don't like) and vote for those they think should be awarded a monthly $10,000 prize. The idea that receives the most votes wins, and lucky entrepreneurs collect a bit of seed money to get the ball rolling on budding business plans. Past winners have included both for-profit and nonprofit groups. Even those who don't win receive feedback on how to enhance their ideas from a group of peers across the globe.

Kluster

Kluster enables organizations to "borrow" ideas their customers and fans suggest. Kluster community members respond to the requests that businesses post – a new product, a different brand, a creative theme for an event – in some cases in exchange for cash prizes, in others simply for the joy of creative collaboration. Kluster users may bet on the likelihood of sponsor organizations choosing the ideas they like best with digital poker chips referred to as "watts." Those who submit winning ideas receive at least 20 percent of the prize offered by sponsor companies. Users who bet on winning ideas earn more watts while those who bet incorrectly lose them. Kluster makes money by collecting 15 percent of rewards offered on specific projects and charging a fee for quality placement of projects on the Web site.

The key determinant when distinguishing among crowdsourcing technologies is whether you seek the input of internal or external audiences. While each of these applications is based on the same idea of an "open call" for ideas or feedback, some are better suited for employees and others for the public at large. In both cases, users should be aware of the risks associated with this type of voluntary feedback collection: The "squeakiest wheels" are those whose voices will be heard the loudest – but loud does not necessarily equal brilliant.

A version of this article previously appeared on The Huffington Post Web site.

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Innovation Stories

Stories about innovation run the gamut from new products to new processes, but the main characters in any innovation story are people and ideas. So, to help us tell a few of the many stories of innovation, here, we showcase some innovative communications ideas that have helped gain attention for Ketchum clients, and we talk to three people who are known for being innovators in their fields.

Meet Kaptain Clairvoyant

Three Interviews

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Innovation Stories

Three Interviews

The potential for innovation exists in every industry. And it is driven by people who can visualize doing something in a new and more effective way – which often runs counter to the way things typically have been done in their fields. To capture a glimpse of what drives innovative people in various industries and of how they communicate their ideas, Perspectives turned to recognized innovators in three fields: healthcare, design and education. We posed three questions to each of them.

Here are brief descriptions of what earned each person a reputation as an innovator, along with their responses to our questions.

Ruth C. Browne, MPP, MPH, ScD

Innovator in Urban Healthcare
New York, N.Y.

Ruth C. Browne is CEO of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, a nonprofit health education organization founded by the late tennis legend Arthur Ashe. Since 1992, Dr. Browne has led the organization to develop programs that provide healthcare information to underserved urban communities by partnering with such unlikely venues as hair salons, barbershops, Laundromats, and tattoo parlors and body piercing salons. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health to train hairstylists and barbers to talk to their clients about breast, prostate and cardiovascular health. She also is an associate professor in the College of Health Related Professions and the College of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Preventive Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to your industry, and how did the idea originate?

Browne: I believe innovation is about raising the level of discussion and thinking about healthcare from a multidisciplinary approach. The Arthur Ashe Institute was founded on the idea of addressing healthcare from a grassroots perspective; that is what Arthur Ashe wanted. So, our innovation has been in trying to take advantage of community assets, such as hair salons, tattoo and body piercing artists and Laundromats, to deliver healthcare information. Since 1996, we have worked with more than 250 hair salons and barbershops in Brooklyn to train stylists to help educate their clients on health issues such as diabetes, asthma, smoking, cancer and nutrition. We also have done pilot programs in tattoo shops and Laundromats. While the traditional model of asking people to come to a health fair has not worked, through these programs, we have been able to reach large numbers of people in a short period of time.

Our effort in working with nontraditional venues comes from a belief that if we can engage people who are in the community, they are going to be there even when we aren’t. It also came from looking at earlier health education efforts in nontraditional places, including salons that targeted African-Americans. Part of our innovation has been to take it beyond a few places and to saturate multiple community venues with health information and to keep the efforts going for longer than a decade.

Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others and, especially, to the business world?

Browne: The Arthur Ashe name helps. If we’re talking to anyone over the age of 30, they probably know who he is, so they’re interested. It definitely helps when we approach health institutions about partnerships. As for communicating the idea to stylists and barbers, we started by mapping the community to see what assets (i.e., salons and other locations) existed, then we approached them.

Communicating the idea to the people we were asking to deliver health information was not always easy. For tattoo salons, specifically, we had to get over their thinking we wanted to come there to talk about unsanitary conditions. Once they understood why we were really there, they soon realized that it could help their business. The fact that we were there talking about health topics implied that getting a tattoo at their salons was safe.

Today, we also communicate the idea through videos of other salon owners and stylists talking about their experiences and through articles that share other examples of how the program works.

Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?

Browne: A major element has been constantly having a new infusion of people who have been impacted. As I mentioned earlier, innovation is about raising the level of discussion, improving interventions and taking a multidisciplinary approach. That brings us new ideas from different perspectives. For instance, the hairstylists we have worked with have offered their own ideas for recruiting their peers to the program. We were able to recruit famed African-American stylist John Atchison to work with us early on, and he came up with the idea to give away spots in his haircutting classes, valued at $800, as an incentive for stylists to join the effort. That quickly brought in dozens of stylists to go through the training to be able to talk to their clients about proactively managing their health.

Larry Chen

Designer of an Award-Winning Solar-Powered Electric Bicycle
Taichung, Taiwan

Larry Chen loves airplanes and is an aeronautical engineer by training, but he is noted for his bicycle designs. Chen designed a solar-powered electric bike that was awarded the top prize in 2008 in the 12th annual International Bicycle Design Competition. His design, aimed at people who bike to work, uses a solar chip that provides 25 minutes of ride time and recharges the battery during an eight-hour work day. This year, Chen took second prize in the same competition for his “Anytime” folding bike design, which features a removable power pack. Chen is manager of T-One Design, a small Taiwanese company that designs bicycle accessories. Earlier this year, Fast Company magazine named him to its list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.”

Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to business, and how did the idea originate?

Chen: My most innovative contribution so far is my design of “Sunny Day,” which was awarded the grand prize at the 12th International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC). This competition is all about innovative design concepts. My concept leads a new way of using free energy for commuting transportation while we are facing the energy crisis.

Using solar energy to power a bicycle is not a new idea, but my idea is to use solar energy to charge the battery while the bike is not being used. This is perfect for commuters since they only use their bikes 10-20 minutes a day and leave the vehicle for eight hours. This idea was from the mobility expert who proclaimed the new concept of electric vehicle -- a small battery just enough for daily use, which the user has to charge every day by plug, with the weight reduced and the energy saved. Whenever people see this bike, their first reaction is to doubt the capacity of the solar panel because, so far, people still have the old way of thinking that a vehicle needs to be ready for use all the time. But they forgot that most of the time, you are not using it. This concept really woke me up and changed my thinking. Some solar panel makers in Taiwan have started to work with bicycle makers on this design, and I hope we can see it on the market in the near future.

Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others, especially to the business world?

Chen: There are many ways to communicate the idea to others in the present age, but the most effective way has been through the competition. The IBDC was held by the Cycling and Health Tech Industry R&D Center and sponsored by the Department of Industrial Technology, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan). This is a worldwide design competition. It attracted 9,652 designers from 86 countries in 13 consecutive years, so it is well known in the bicycle business. I‘ve attended this competition since 2000, and I failed six times before I got the grand prize in 2008. Once I got the award, it was easy to communicate the idea. I’m using the power of online media to communicate my idea, but I don’t have my own personal blog or use Twitter – I don’t have time for that. Because the idea was certified by the competition, there are many commentaries on Web sites or blogs by people who follow the bicycle design industry.

Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?

Chen: I would like to say dissatisfaction with reality. I’m not a person who is easily satisfied. I’m the one who always complains – this is my nature. I’m a negative person, but I know how to use this negative power. Dissatisfaction is a huge power that drives me to think about the solution, and I believe there is always a better solution. I also believe that dissatisfaction is the most important element of evolution in human history.

Shai Reshef

Education Entrepreneur
Israel

Shai Reshef is an entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the international education market. His latest venture is the University of the People (UoPeople; UoPeople.org), the world’s first tuition-free online academic institution, which opened its virtual doors in April 2009. Reshef is founder and CEO of UoPeople. He also is currently chairman of Cramster.com, an online global study community helping hundreds of thousands of students with their homework. And he previously founded and served as chairman of the Kidum Group, the largest for-profit educational services company in Israel, which he sold to Kaplan in 2005. Between 2001 and 2004, Reshef chaired KIT eLearning, a subsidiary of Kidum, the e-learning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside of the U.S. Reshef also made Fast Company’s 2009 list of the “100 Most Creative People.”

Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to business, and how did the idea originate?

Reshef: University of the People has been my most innovative contribution. The need for improved and accessible education is an issue that unites countries, cities and states around the globe, and I believe that UoPeople has the potential to fill the jarring gap between the haves and the have-nots.

My idea for University of the People stemmed from over 20 years in for-profit education, as well as extensive international travel. As the founder of KIT, I realized that the tools for providing accessible higher education were out there, but the price was too high. Then I began working at Cramster.com and discovered the strength of online study communities. Witnessing first-hand the power of technology to advance education, I knew there was the potential to adapt these principles to create a high-quality, low-cost and global pedagogical model – so I did.

Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others, especially to the business world?

Reshef: When I established UoPeople in January this year, there were only a handful of people who knew about the initiative. Since then, however, UoPeople has gained worldwide support from prospective students, the media, organizations and individuals alike. The United Nations’ Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development has been a huge champion of this initiative since the beginning, along with our world-renowned Advisory Committee and dedicated staff members, who work tirelessly to make democratized education a reality. I am also proud to report that our first class of students, who began in September, is composed of hundreds of young, enthusiastic minds from dozens of countries.

While I am thrilled with the response to date, spreading the word about University of the People was not an easy task and the job is far from complete. UoPeople is designed for individuals in the poorest and most remote places on earth – those who are the hardest to reach. Bringing UoPeople to these populations requires extensive outreach via the media, on-the-ground organizations and local advocates.

Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?

Reshef: Creativity and innovation are often associated with the new, but I believe that these qualities can stem from the adaptation of tried and true techniques, principles and tools. UoPeople is a clear example. By applying the principles of social networking – an incredibly widespread and successful practice – to academia, we have in turn created an entirely new learning model that reaches an entirely new sect of people.

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Roundtable: Generating Creative Ideas

"Creative" and "innovative" are communication buzzwords that are closely linked. Marketers are ever searching for creative new ways to position innovative new offerings. But with so little that is genuinely "new," finding either innovative or creative ideas can be challenging – even in the best creative brainstorms.

Here, some of the most creative minds at Ketchum (including Ketchum Pleon and Zócalo Group, Ketchum's word-of-mouth marketing group) share how they generate creative ideas for clients.

Participants:

Gianni Catalfamo, Chairman, Pleon, Italy
Cynthia Chan, Senior Account Manager, Corporate and Technology Practice, Ketchum Hong Kong
Darryl Chu, Senior Flash Designer, Ketchum Digital, New York
Rosa Fernández Conde, Associate Director, Ketchum Spain, Madrid
Tera Miller, Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Ketchum Midwest, Chicago
Ryan Rasmussen, Associate, Zócalo Group, Chicago
Petra Sammer, Partner and Managing and Creative Director, Ketchum Germany, Munich
Ruth Yearley, Planning and Development Director, Ketchum Pleon, London

Perspectives: Where do you get your best ideas?

Gianni Catalfamo: Although I do carry a moleskin notepad with me at ALL times, the random idea dropping on me out of the blue is rather uncommon. I usually need pressure and focus to "push" everything else out of my mind and think freely. People I work with hate me because my creativity comes out best under these circumstances – which means at the 11th hour. A well-planned creativity session well in advance of a client deadline rarely sees me contributing in a meaningful manner.

That said, the Internet is fantastic for exposing me to torrents of fresh creativity from which I pick ideas. It is usually visual content that gets across to my left-side brain the quickest. I recall an instance where I dropped out of a management meeting because I had seen a video that suggested to me a radical change in style for my presentations and I just had to start working on it right then.

Cynthia Chan: Blogs, tweets, podcasts, music, pictures – all sorts of things inspire me. Sometimes even a cab driver or a doorman can bring on inspiration. For me, this day-to-day interaction is like collecting matches; at an appropriate moment they will come together and spark.

Darryl Chu: Ideas often manifest themselves at the least expected time and place – in transit to and from home, cooking, showering, exercising, watching TV, etc. Creativity does not flow between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. only; it flows all the time. The best ideas come from observations of our everyday routines, current events, nature and environment, and the motivation of problem solving.

Rosa Fernández Conde: There are two "moments" when I love to get ideas, and both are really different. The first one is in brainstorm meetings, anywhere, but always with people who like to create, to think positive and different, to listen to others, and to let ideas come in. The second one is when I am alone, generally at night and in silence. This gives me time to think and leaves my mind totally open to create.

Tera Miller: I believe people who absorb the widest variety of experiences have the best ideas, which come from cues in everyday life. You stash all of those cues away in the back of your mind for a rainy day (or the next brainstorm) to come along. Of course, this means you have to leave your office once in a while. Take a class, read a new book – it doesn't need to be directly related to your business to take you down a path that ultimately leads to a great business idea.

I typically get my best ideas in two very different ways. The first is through collaboration with small groups. It could be three or four people or just one other. Kicking around a creative challenge is fun for me. There's usually a lot of laughter and possibly a heated argument before you get to a great place. If you are willing to experiment and just try ideas on for size before accepting or discarding them, you'll end up in a better place.

Second, once I have a germ of an idea, I need some quiet time to let it grow. This could look like chicken scratches in the margins of a creative brief or a draft PowerPoint that I return to several times throughout the day. Expressing a concept in the form of a story, playing with different words to capture the right feeling – these are all things I do to help take a thought from clever brainstorm idea to full-blown concept.

Ryan Rasmussen: I've found the best method for catalyzing the creative process is immersion. Identify what it means to belong to a target audience by joining their online communities, learning their language – and essentially "going native." Tom Kelley, general manager at design and innovation firm IDEO, referred to this as taking on the role of the anthropologist in the creative process.

Understand the nature of the community by reading the history of its members. My favorite tool for doing this is Del.icio.us. The history of an influencer's bookmarks tells a detailed story of what factors influenced them and how those inspirations connect with one another in a narrative that unfolds across time.

We all leave a trail of digital breadcrumbs. By analyzing a small handful of these, it's possible to unearth a wealth of critical understanding that leads to some of the best ideation. When approached in this way, the best ideas aren't difficult – they're second nature.

Petra Sammer: I get my best ideas while drying my hair. I know it's a cliché, but it's true. I need the incubation time. I go home, sleep, rethink it in the shower, and dry my hair with the hair dryer. Bingo. Then it comes. This is how creativity works best for me. I think hard about it. Then I step back. Consider it "active forgetting" or whatever you want to call it. My brain plays in the background, and while I do something else, a creative idea will come. If people would have more confidence in their own creativity and in themselves, everyone would be creative.

Ruth Yearley: There is a nice quote about creativity that says: "A good idea doesn't care who has it." I extend that to "A good idea doesn't mind where it was copied from." Copied, borrowed, derived, an homage, a reference to, influenced by . . . however you put it, it's the same: A good idea simply comes from another good idea. So to have great ideas, to think creatively, to have breakthroughs in strategic thinking or surprising and exciting ideas in brainstorms, the secret is to surround yourself with as much stimulus and creativity as possible in your own life. The ideas can come from anywhere. My personal sources are television, specifically The Simpsons and, of course, the commercials; art; talk radio; and the cinema.

 

Perspectives: What do you see as the relationship between creativity and innovation?

Catalfamo: Are creativity and innovation NOT synonyms?

Just kidding – innovation, whatever the area you're looking at, requires pushing the envelope of what everyone else is doing. And this is an exercise in creativity.

Creativity, for me, is always applied to something. I do not have the gift of "artistic" creativity, but I can "see" things – metaphors, end results of processes. So my kind of creativity is inextricably linked to innovation in the way I do, say or present – or in the way I do these things for a client.

Chan: Creativity is the seed of innovation. Creativity emphasizes change – that can be either a new concept or a reinterpretation of an old concept. Innovation is more about the end result, how a concept can bring added value to end users.

That said, innovation can stimulate more creativity. Taking Twitter as an example, its founders simply had an idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group. Now, there are all sorts of creative uses for Twitter out there. For instance, a woman in Northern Ireland has attracted more than 6,000 followers by tweeting complete recipes in 140 characters. Authors release their new novels via Twitter, sentence by sentence. Someone has even figured out an application that reminds people to water their plants.

Chu: Creativity feeds innovation and vice versa. When creativity combines with technology, social trends or nature, new ideas lead to innovative concepts. This innovation then fosters new inspiration and the creativity continues in a cycle. For example, the observation of prickly burdock plants, which easily catch on to fur or clothing, inspired George de Mestral to invent Velcro, a substance to fasten materials together with a strong bond. In turn, new minds have taken this basic concept and applied it to everything from NASA equipment to common household items.

Fernández Conde: To me, creativity always needs to serve and influence innovation. A good creative idea is always different in some way from other things made or thought before and, consequently, is innovative.

Moreover, a creative idea must be executed with innovation. If not, we are probably not talking about pure creativity, but reapplication, which is also a good option in some cases, particularly if the idea can be given a different "touch."

Miller: I consider creativity to be a way of being, while innovation is a way of doing. There can be creativity without innovation, but there cannot be innovation without creativity. Creativity drives innovation.

Rasmussen: Creativity is the potential for ideation that makes every individual's ideas unique. Consequently, innovation is the result of collaboration among team members that recognizes and amplifies each of the many forms of creativity.

Sammer: Innovation is the top of the hill – striving to "invent the wheel." Creativity has a lower approach. Innovation processes are long and enduring, while creativity is sometimes at its best when it is quick and easy.

Yearley: Creativity is the lifeblood of all success because it leads to innovation and change. Innovation does not have to come from huge, massive, WOW ideas. It can be just little breakthroughs, tiny improvements that alter concepts in small but significant ways. (In fact, someone could massively improve the quality of my life by inventing a button on the mobile phone or MP3 player that would instantly wind in the earphone cord – like the button on a vacuum cleaner. It already exists elsewhere, but reapplied in a different context it could make such a difference!)

Perspectives: Are there specific characteristics or circumstances that make some clients easier to develop creative or innovative ideas for than others? What are they?

Catalfamo: This may not be politically correct, but most clients I work with say they want us to come forward with new ideas, but they can question unbridled creativity.

In my experience, openness to creativity is not a characteristic of the company, but rather of the individuals involved and their abilities build a bridge between a radically innovative concept and the marketing challenge at hand. From an agency perspective, it is our responsibility to present innovative concepts WITH the bridge.

Chan: The corporate culture matters. A lot of clients are bound by their established corporate image and find it difficult to step out of their comfort zone.

Chu: Since each client has its own personality and agenda, as an agency, we must adapt to all situations and face challenges with an open mind. One characteristic that allows creativity to flourish is trust. The client looks for creativity to take its products and goals to the next level, and the confidence from the client opens opportunities and motivations to explore and to be different, innovative and creative. It is up to us to earn that trust from clients.

Fernández Conde: Clients who encourage the development of creative or innovative ideas usually have two really important characteristics in common. First, they believe in our work. They understand it perfectly, and they know how to use our ideas. So they are comfortable taking risks when needed. Second, they trust in creativity as an effective tool for differentiation – for developing a distinctive approach to their consumers or audiences and for positioning themselves as unique in a world saturated with brand messages coming from so many vehicles and companies at the same time. These types of clients not only permit the development of creative ideas, but they also continuously demand creative ideas and even like to participate in the creative process.

Miller: Time. While we technically can turn around great ideas with a moment's notice, it is easier to be creative for clients when they give us adequate time. Clients who activate their PR teams earlier in the process end up with smarter, more innovative thinking. Those clients typically brief their PR team when they brief their ad agency, and they let PR sit in on promotion brainstorms.

It also is easier to be innovative when a client's hunger for "what's next" is paired with tolerance for risk (even a little bit). Sometimes clients will come to us with an innovative idea they've seen executed in the marketplace and say they want that kind of innovative thinking. When you look at that from a planning and execution standpoint, many months have probably passed from the first meeting when an idea was surfaced to the time we read or hear about it as an innovative marketing concept. If it sounds innovative and edgy now, think about how it must have felt in that original presentation. Edgy? Risky? Scary?

I certainly don't want clients to be careless, but when a concept feels a little risky, they should relish that feeling. They should roll around in it a little and see what their tolerance is. It could be the "next big thing" in innovative, breakthrough thinking.

Rasmussen: The better we understand our clients' mission statement and culture, the better we can provide them with creative and innovative solutions and strategies that drive meaningful results. We can all think of certain brands that come to mind as innovative, edgy, or risk-taking, and it may seem easier to brainstorm creative concepts for these clients. However, this is less an indication of any specific characteristic of a given client than it is an illustration of our understanding of that client's culture.

The best and most innovative ideas aren't necessarily the most remarkable. They're simply the most meaningful when they amplify the brand's existing mission and culture.

Sammer: I think trust and stimulation are the key words that trigger us. Clients who ask us to surprise them and who challenge, stimulate and trust us to come up with ideas beyond "the normal stuff" are very motivating.

The key is that clients who want creativity should demand it, but they also should navigate. Creativity is very often a tour into unknown country, but it should not be a blind trip. Clients who are brave enough to trust our guidance, while adding some of their own, wind up with the most creative and effective ideas.

Yearley: When creative ideas happen, it is important that they are nurtured and respected. Our most rewarding projects are for clients who understand that to recognize and champion a good idea takes a creative mindset of their own, plus an open mind and the ability to see possibility and to support it. We are lucky to have many such clients and, thus, can constantly push our creative boundaries.

Perspectives: When you're in a brainstorm or bouncing around ideas with your team, how can you tell when an idea hits the mark? Does everyone realize it at the same time?

Catalfamo: Good ideas have traction. When one gets thrown on the table, it starts bouncing from one head to another. It's like the idea has a life of its own.

Chan: To me, the objective of a brainstorm is not to "hit the mark," but to generate broad-base ideas and to stimulate creativity. The "eureka" moment usually comes after the brainstorm, when you summarize the ideas generated from the session and conceptualize them into a plan with legs.

Chu: When ideas appear to have potential either from a buildup or from a brilliant spark, people usually get excited and want to contribute more. In a brainstorming session with different personalities, opinions and backgrounds, it hits the mark when everyone can foresee or project the same positive result.

Fernández Conde: "How do you know when an idea hits the mark?" is a really difficult question to answer. It is like a special feeling, a kind of intuition. For sure, you need to have a clear picture of the briefing, the goals the idea needs to fill, and the strategy to follow, but when you hear or have THE IDEA, you feel like . . . "Got it!"

Everyone knows it at the same time, absolutely. And when this situation comes, it generates such a high level of enthusiasm among the team that people are then able to make the idea even better and bigger.

Miller: When an idea hits the mark, you can feel it like a vibration around the table. The energy in the room elevates, and people naturally pile on with ways to enhance and stretch the idea. The key is not to stop there (especially if the concept is surfaced early in the process). Keep pushing and brainstorming to find what's next.

Rasmussen: There are some ideas that light up a room the moment they are shared. They are served up with enthusiasm, bumped back and forth across the room, and then spiked down onto a page with great speed and precision. However, I think it's the ideas that receive the most prodding, mashing, and collaborative criticism that are the most effective in the end. They don't receive the immediate attention of a well-volleyed zinger. They are tended to and cultivated by a team. They are collaborations.

The next time you hear a zinger of an idea, run it around the room by asking each contributor, "And how would you make it better?" The product will be 10 times greater because of the extra attention.

Sammer: I think there are two kinds of "great ideas." The first are those that everyone in the room immediately realizes are great. That's the moment the meeting becomes really crazy. Everyone is shouting out loud, and everyone wants to jump on the idea and has something to add to it. But there is also another kind of idea – I call them "hidden champions." They are not detected immediately. Sometimes they turn up in the "forming" phase of a brainstorming, at the end when everyone is evaluating good or bad ideas. Or it may even happen after the meeting, when you as a facilitator discuss the ideas with the team. Suddenly an idea or even a thought brought up in the meeting flowers out and develops its real strength.

It's so important to stay focused and to keep listening carefully until the very end of a meeting because even the discussions after a brainstorm are so important to finding good ideas.

Yearley: When ideas are suggested in a brainstorm, it may not be obvious that they are great, but we must all keep an open mind. Sometimes we make the mistake of expecting to see fully formed ideas emerge in a brainstorm when, in fact, what we are getting are seed corns of thinking that need to be taken away and considered and nurtured into breakthrough ideas.

People have different creative skills. One such skill is the ability to see a good idea even in a raw unformed state. Individuals with this skill can see the potential for an idea to be great sooner. Other people need ideas to be more obvious. Either way, a great idea is one that works, and sometimes it is the most surprising things that do. So, it is important to keep an open mind, surround ourselves with creativity, and the ideas will come rushing in!

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Top 10 Communications Innovations of the Last Decade

New developments in technology continually change the way people communicate. Over the last 10 years, various innovations have made it easier and easier to exchange messages, pictures and videos with people around the globe. Here, in alphabetical order, is our list of the top 10 communications innovations since 1999. Take our straw poll at the end of this list to rank the top three.

1. Bluetooth – Millions of consumers use Bluetooth wireless technology to talk on their mobile phones hands-free while driving. The technology replaces cables used to connect one electronic device to another; other common uses include connecting printers to computers and speakers to stereos. While Bluetooth technically has been around since 1994, the first Bluetooth products did not appear commercially until 2000, and continued innovation has produced more uses that enable or improve communication. For instance, Bluetooth can now be used for high-speed Internet access by pairing a PC with a 3G (third-generation) mobile phone.
2. Camera phones with sharing capabilities – From video cameras to camera phones, today's imaging technology allows the average consumer to not only capture images anywhere at any time, but also to instantly share those images with friends and family . . . or the world. That has made everyday individuals on-the-spot recorders and conveyors of news and history. The innovations (and patents) behind camera phones and sharing technology existed before 1999, but the first phones with these combined abilities were not commercially available until 2001 in Japan and 2002 in North America. Video cameras with the ability to instantly upload to video sharing Web sites are even more recent.
3. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) – RSS technology allows consumers to keep up with news and information from various online sources, saving the time and effort of frequently checking multiple Web sites for updates or sifting through e-mails from each source. RSS was introduced in 1999, and today a wide range of information providers – from major news organizations to topical blogs – offer customizable RSS feeds.
4. Skype – Skype enables Internet users to make phone calls using their computers – largely for free. The core innovation behind Skype is voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, technology, which transmits voice conversations over the Internet and dates back to the mid-1990s for commercial applications. Other providers use the same technology, but Skype's affordable and easy-to-use software make it a popular option for international calling and has transformed the industry since its launch in 2003.
5. Smart phones – Smart phones date back to 1992, but some of the most innovative features, including multimedia capabilities and the ability to download third-party applications, came about during the last decade. Today's advanced smart phones combine mobile phones, music players, Internet access, and pictures and video – enabling individuals to send and receive communication through a variety of formats (from voice to video) from the palms of their hands.
6. Social networking sites – The first social networking sites go back to the 1980s, but three of the world's most popular ones – Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut – were launched in 2004. One of the most popular sites among business professionals, LinkedIn, launched in 2003. These sites have attracted millions of users around the globe by allowing people to connect online, and they each continue to innovate with new or enhanced features – from sharing of photos, videos and news links with anyone to the option to limit access to some information in individual profiles.
7. Twitter – Launched in 2006, Twitter allows users to send and read short messages over the Internet. Twitter started out as a way for individuals to send instant updates to friends and family, tweeting about where they are and what they're doing, but it is now also used by brands to communicate directly with consumers, including responding to customer service queries. Politicians and celebrities also use Twitter to connect with their fan bases and others who choose to follow them.
8. Wi-Fi – Wi-Fi technology is widely used for wireless, high-speed connection to the Internet, enabling anyone with a wireless-enabled computer or laptop to get online from any accessible hot spot. Like Bluetooth, this wireless technology has been around for longer than a decade, but practical commercial use began more recently. The term Wi-Fi was first used commercially in 1999, and the name itself is technically a trademark of the industry group that certifies products as being compatible with a specific wireless technology. Today, Wi-Fi technology is used to make numerous wireless devices – from computers to phones to digital cameras – interoperable.
9. Wikipedia – People looking for in-depth information on a given subject often turn to Wikipedia. The fact that anyone can contribute anonymously to this Web-based, free-content encyclopedia means that information is not always reliable, but it also means that entries can be added or edited instantly, often providing the most up-to-date information. Introduced in 2001, Wikipedia currently attracts about 65 million visitors each month.
10. YouTube – The YouTube video-sharing Web site launched in 2005, enabling everyday consumers to share their videos with other users around the globe. Brands, corporations and other organizations also use YouTube to share content directly with consumers – bypassing traditional media. YouTube reports that 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute.

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Street Smarts

Statistics on innovation are hard to come by, in large part because there is no universal way to measure innovation and all of its components. New product launches and spending on research and development (R&D) are one way of looking at innovation, but so are improved processes on an assembly line or new methods of gathering feedback from consumers. The nature of such metrics varies from one industry to the next, but no matter what the industry, there is no doubt that innovation is vital.

Here, we've gathered a few statistics that demonstrate both the importance and pursuit of innovation, as well as how it is perceived by consumers and corporate executives alike.

• Innovation is a significant contributor to economic growth.
• Economists calculate that approximately 50 percent of U.S. annual GDP growth is attributable to increases in innovation.
• Council on Competitiveness, “Measuring Regional Innovation: A Guidebook for Conducting Regional Innovation Assessments,” October 2005.

 

• Companies around the globe are looking for innovation everywhere.
• Ninety-one (91) percent of the top 1,000 R&D spenders among multinational companies conduct innovation activities outside of the countries where they are headquartered.
• In 2007, the top 1,000 R&D spenders spent 55 percent of their innovation dollars outside of their home countries.
• Booz & Company, “Beyond Borders: The Global Innovation 1000,” 2008

 

• Corporate executives know that many of the best ideas don’t come from company-funded research.
• Companies that profess best practices in innovation produce 44 percent of their innovations from ideas generated outside the company.
• A.T. Kearney, “Innovation Management,” 2008

• Forty (40) percent of corporate chief executive officers and other business executives named “employees” as a significant source of innovative ideas, and about 35 percent named “customers.” Fewer than 20 percent cited “internal R&D.”
• IBM, “The Global CEO Study 2006”

 

• Influential consumers expect CEOs to be innovative.
• In Brazil, 83 percent of influentials expect corporate CEOs to be a leading source of innovation and technology. That compares to these countries:
• 76 percent in India
• 71 percent in Argentina
• 66 percent in China
• 65 percent in France
• 60 percent in the U.S.
• 58 percent in Canada and Italy
• 56 percent in Germany and Spain
• 48 percent in the U.K.
• Ketchum, “Expectations and Frustrations: How the Public Perceives Corporations and CEOs,” 2007

 

• Collaboration yields innovation.
• Two-thirds of CEOs are implementing extensive innovations in their business models, and more than 40 percent are changing their enterprise models to be more collaborative.
• IBM, “The Global CEO Study 2008”

 

• Companies examine innovation from various angles.
• When it comes to tracking components of innovation, 82 percent of senior executives say their companies track profitability, 62 percent track time to market, and 61 percent track idea generation and selection.

• The Boston Consulting Group, Measuring Innovation 2007

 

• Chief innovation officers face some key challenges.
• Thirty-five (35) percent of CIOs say that getting enough of the right people with the right competencies and talent is a challenge to innovation; 30 percent cite money as a challenge; and 17 percent point to having a culture that supports change.
• Trek Consulting LLC, “Cultivating Innovation – Lessons from America’s Chief Innovation Officers,” 2006

 

Bhavana Singh, Ketchum innovation associate, contributed to this article.
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