Innovation has been an important key driver of organizational renewal and its success. Not only does it tackle the issue of the ever-changing landscape of technology, but it also brings about cost-effective methods that can be integrated into workflows to maximize productivity and profits. The advent of Digital Transformation has led businesses to feel the need for collaborative innovations. The emergence of new products or services is a prerequisite for survival in a highly competitive global market that thrives on the upheaval of the old. With the adoption of mobility platforms, it has become easier for employees to generate idea banks by simply creating and sharing their stories and opinions by recording the ideas in the form of a video.

Knowledge fusion is the perfect incubator for fueling innovation. Many companies already have knowledge management systems (KM); however, these have not been developed keeping innovation in mind. These do not even succeed in their primary aim, i.e. of knowledge exchange, as they do not consider the psycho-social needs of individuals. It includes a lack of incentive for individuals to spend time with the system. Additionally, these systems lack visual feedback for the knowledge exchange that may be taking place. Even if they support cross-organizational reach, individuals are less likely to be involved if they cannot visualize whom they are interacting and sharing knowledge with, since it causes a less personalized experience.

Thus, it can be argued that the current methods of driving innovation at a workspace areholding back businesses from opportunities to tap into a much higher range of ideas and concepts that have not even been remotely considered, forget about a large scale. Currently, businesses rely on specific teams that tackle the innovation challenge. These teams work in isolation, and the knowledge circulation is internalized amongst themselves. The issue here is that by limiting the process of innovation to a single group of people, a limiting cap is put on the ideas that may be generated by it. It limits imagination and creativity while also reaffirming the fact that innovation is not something that can be forced; it can only be encouraged. It calls for the need to make it more fun and engaging, instead.

From the problems discussed above, we gain an insight into what can be improved upon to drive innovation more consistently and effectively. Video and social connection – based intelligent & playful tools provide sustainable value to users. At the same time, stimulate them to contribute their knowledge, ideas, and insights continuously and get adequate recognition for the same.

This social tool could also be used as “Open Innovation” which moves past the traditional boundaries of single-organisation innovation by involving not just the employees of an organisation but also customers and sometimes, even its competitors. While that may seem to be counter-intuitive, Open Innovation focuses on the true spirit of innovation while making sure that idea ownership, credibility, and mutual trust remains intact. This model can face current challenges better, such as the repository syndromes and passivity syndromes by fulfilling community members’ social needs in a better way.

We hypothesize that video-based social connections can have a positive impact on innovation in general, and particularly, on new product development. To test this hypothesis, at INSEAD, I was developing the InnoTube Platform[i], which is based on the latest digital trends and which makes extensive use of videos, profiling, game dynamics, agents, and network visualizations to capture the attention and involvement of community members. This platform was developed to generate three different types of value: connection value, actionable learning value, as well as entertainment and instant gratification value.

Thus, we can conclude that by targeting the major challenges of innovation, a tool tailored specifically to promote innovation, can be made. It could be very fruitful because video-based social approach, which includes asynchronous material contributions and discussions, as well as synchronous activities such as gaming and chatting, should foster their proactive participation at their leisure. It would thus result in much more productive cross-organisational networking to boost the circulation of ideas and knowledge.

Case study

Alfa Romeo, FIAT’s brand, was facing the over competitive car market with strong foreign competitors in its segments, such as BMW, Audi, Volvo, and others. Therefore, Alfa Romeo’s main objectives, specifically related to the design and development of a new car model were-

  1. To drastically reduce the design and deployment timing
  2. To create a product which can compete worldwide
  3. To create a product which reinforces Alfa Romeo’s brand core values and extends it according to the new car-specific features as well
  4. To set a new paradigm for the innovation process, from an individual-driven/department-driven one to team and group collaboration

To address these objectives, InnoTube was deployed at FIAT Group[ii]. It was used to show how such systems can be effective in new product design & development in the car industry, mainly in engaging people to redesign and refine the innovation process. The deployment was quite positive in which 35 FIAT innovators submitted 29 project-specific videos in InnoTube FIAT.

Key Takeaways
Video and social connection-based intelligent & playful tools provide sustainable value to users. At the same time, they stimulate them too – To contribute their knowledge, ideas, and insights continuously and get adequate recognition for the same.

 


[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0f-zIz6DLU

[ii] https://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2010-08-aug/aug-16-2010.html