The innovation management platform David Abrahams and I designed and built has earned Insurance Australia Group the 2009 Australian Business Award for Innovation.

Not bad for a bespoke system. Why has it pushed aside other more established and well funded innovation management platform providers, like the Salesforce and Deloitte offerings?

Well, here’s why:

  • it was custom designed for the corporate environment
  • it is truly end-to-end, being that it manages all aspects of innovation from idea initiation to idea management, reporting and as a carrier of the creative culture
  • it is easy to use for initiators and for the business – simplicity has always been my key requirement and once any aspect looked like it was going to be too difficult for participants, it was back to the pub with the butchers paper and crayons for a review and revise session over a beer or three with Dave
  • it is easy on the eye with simple and descriptive icons
  • its in built processes drive accountability in the business, so no idea gets filed away in someones desk never to see the light of day again
  • it recognises creative effort through reporting and community tools
  • the business owns the data
  • the system delivers approx 95% self sufficiency in terms of changing the look and feel and function/structure

So, nice award, now…what are the risks?

…it’s not just a system, it’s a culture

The main risk is that without the right community manager, the initial momentum and excitement will be gradually diluted. The person or team adminstering the tool are also responsible for promoting/marketing the tool, feeding back relevant information to participants and the business in always changing and interesting ways.

That person or team need to be the very visible face of the tool so that the community have a human link to the platform.

…it can be harder to keep employees interested and motivated than your customers

This is very much a self-promotion thing and if your adminsitrators are the modest, shy and retiring types…the system is doomed. Building and driving a culture of creativity across any large organisation requires energetic and motivated individuals who aren’t scared to constantly promote themselves and the system.

Customers catch fleeting glimpses of your marketing strategies, however employees are a captive audience and as such, things get familaiar, tired and staid quickly. Keeping the culture fresh….also applies to the system itself…

…keep it fresh

Another significant risk which I alluded to in the previous post, is that the business does not accept the need to fund the evolution of the system itself. In terms of web technologies, the system I designed for IAG is quite dated today and there are significant opportunities to improve user experience and back-end functions.

This is about keeping the technology aligned to what participants are experiencing in the web space outside of the work environment; with web technologies improving so quickly, it doesn’t take long for participants to make the distinction between old technologies and new. If you fall over here, you will lose your audience very quickly.

Having said all that, congrats to IAG, hope you can win again next year.