Listening to reaction, feedback, and original ideas dotted around the blogosphere, I have learned two critical things about the ideas I have put forth in Turning Knowledge Workers into Innovation Creators paper.

Once an innovative idea is developed, it needs to be sold before it is adopted.

The process of developing buy-in and generating co-operation is inevitably difficult, especially if the idea represents a big change. There are three things to note here:

1. As Seth Godin so succinctly describes with his notion of an idea virus: The more you give away, the more it's worth. In other words, innovation creators need to actively share their innovative ideas within the organization, rather than protect them as some kind of secret. I think that one way to make this happen within an organization in to instill a culture of Reciprocal Altruism, by making sure that people get credit for their ideas, even if that credit is simply public acknowledgement.


2. A culture of sharing is critical. Peter Gloor calls the result "Collaborative Innovation Networks" or COINS. In a recent email commenting on the Turning Knowledge Workers into Innovation Creators paper, Peter said
   

   The one open issue I have is the emphasis you place on the structured blogging platform (I understand this motivates your day job). In my own work I found that a knowledge sharing culture is far more important than advanced tools. If a knowledge sharing culture is universally adopted,people will find ways to share documents on
   wikis, e-mail, etc.

   
   I'll post more in the future about why I still think that it helps to have a structured platform with well defined types of blogs, as I described in The Top 15 Requirements for Web Office. However, I completely agree with Peter Gloor's broader point that even the very best enterprise blog, wiki and Web Office will not be enough to generate a constant flow of innovation. A culture of sharing is critical prerequisite. One of the most interesting things about this insight is that it applies to everyone in a company from junior staff o senior executives.
   
   Power through information control is not compatible with a strategy of constant innovation.


3. People like things that they helped build. When marketing an idea, innovation creators need to get people to collaberate on the idea. In other words, make them feel that it is partly their idea too. I think this is one of the reasons why the Open Source movement produces innovation so very quickly. In Open Source projects, people share in the innovative process, and thus are more willing to support new ideas because they helped craft them.
   

Constant Innovation will be a radically new strategy for most companies

This floored me. I did not realize that most companies actually do not pursue innovation as a central strategy.

The economics behind constant innovation are simple and obvious. However, as the 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey, only 8% of companies focus on a strategy of developing product innovations and new technology.

Renee Hopkins Callahan's reaction to this was brilliantly succinct:

The idea that 53% of the companies surveyed believe that providing high quality prices and services is a worthwhile competitive strategy amazes me. High quality is table stakes, not a strategy. These companies, and the 20% that are competing on a low-price strategy, are the companies that are going to lose to outsourced competitors. Indeed, the survey also showed that 18% of Georgia manufacturers lost work to international outsourcing between 2002 and 2004.

Clearly, even the idea of constant innovation requires some selling.