Erik van Bekkum: ECCOP

Blogs and visual innovation.

Sat, 14 Jun 2003 16:37:34 GMT

Today I have been reading an article written by Eileen Clegg about visual learning - building knowledge, innovation and collaboration. As part of the work I am doing to drive radical innovation with communities, I think that these ideas are very powerful in the creativity (or ideation) phase. She says that:

Images can be used to elicit creative ideas from a group by tapping into the source of innovation, ideas that tend to be more holistic than linear, more intuitive than rational. Creativity is enhanced when people interact with images. Seeing is personal and draws on unconscious elements. When looking at the same image, everyone has a somewhat different interpretation of what they are seeing, based on past experiences

Though her part about visual collaboration and storytelling is equally compelling, I see a huge potential in the ideation stage when an visual application is used in combination with blogs. Blogs are an excellent tool to use within a community to drive radical innovation - and if visual images of blogs can be used to enhance creativity, there's an interesting potential.

Imagine corporate use of the feedster image engine - just showing images of blogs recently created. Now if this is mixed with the taxonomy / categorization of Google images that'd be something.

Driving innovation with communities of practice

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 23:49:57 GMT

I have started to prepare for the virtual communities 2003 meeting in London next week. Some of the work we will talk about is communities of practice and innovation - and here is how I perceive that it all comes together;

Driving innovation with communities of practice - finding the right balance.

Note - the image is actually 3-D (there is a guidance text on the bottom - left more about this). If you click on it, it'll open a new window with a full-size picture (195 kB)

(ECCOP) Measures to help CPs foster radical innovation

Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:28:41 GMT

[extract from Value Creation with Communities of Practice]

Measures to help CPs foster radical innovation

Dear friends and colleagues,

What if communities of practice could contribute not only to incremental but radical innovation? How can they be organized and supported for achieving that? If you were your company’s Director of Communities, what would be the 2 or 3 most important measures or initiatives that you would introduce to enable them?

Why are these questions important? Because radical innovation can lead to 100x or 1000x more value to business and society than what incremental innovation networks can achieve.

So, what is “radical innovation,” anyway? It is non-linear and discontinuous innovation in products, services or processes which alter some social, technical or business practice. If you want to find out more about its relationship with “communities of practice”, you may want to read our whitepaper (a .pdf file).

Your answer to the questions at the top is your entry to a free and exciting community learning experience. As some of you know, I’ve been working with Erik van Bekkum in the European Collaborative for Communities of Practice on the link between radical innovation and communities..

See the whole thread about this exciting learning expedition we have started - and comment there or email me to contribute.

Ways to diversify in innovation communities

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 18:10:54 GMT

Ways to diversify innovation communities Erik van Bekkum says in the ECCOP blog

So, three ways to introduce diversity in innovation communities

- geographical diversity (e.g. The Asia Office with The European Office)
- social diversity (e.g. bringing sales people into a business development community)
- organizational diversity (e.g. brining customers into the innovation community)

As soon as the innovation community is gearing up for radical innovation, the latter might be the key component for the transition....but as always: diversity is good in innovation communities, but control the 'patches'!

Read the complete article

The changing role of the middle managers in the knowledge-enabled organization

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 15:32:10 GMT

Self Initiation at Work. Hubert Saint-Onge says in the ECCOP blog

The person who assumes an entitlement contract with the organization where they work expects to be given what they need to perform in order to perform. They believe that the organization provides them with shelter form the big bad world. The self-intiated person on the other hand believe that only they provide security for themselves and that they do so by acquiring capabilties as a "usines of one".

As an editor of this blog I was challenged to respond to this comment and frankly I think he made a very valid point in his post. Elaborating somewhat more on the changes that current managers in the traditional organizations will face, I commented "The middle managers on the other side are traditionally gatekeepers of knowledge and information, will have to abandon their role and become networked leaders instead. New leaders and managers will be those who give most knowledge (knowledge hubs) and not the ones who controls it. Value creation as you mention will follow from that assumption."

I found an analogy (at least to some extent) with the forming of trade unions in the early 20th century. The complete post is a comment and can be read here.

Rhythm in communities

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 20:03:08 GMT

Yesterday I joined the ECCOP blog on value creation with communities of practice, which is going to be a multi-author but public blog on how to create and maintain value in CoP's. The first topic I addressed there is the continuous stress between individual and community rhythm.

The use of the high traffic area seems a simple yet constructive solution for large communities, but for medium and smaller communities (or communities with a very limited domain and therefore a high degree of specialization) this concept will not work. I would question the effect in that circumstance - perhaps it would even have a negative effect on the members! In most cases, in the end it's the coordinator(s) (whether he is global or local) with his sense of community needs and vibrance and the tools he has to change the rhythm to meed current and future demand:

Know what is relevant in the community
Know what community members are up to
Understand and convey how the community can help them continuously
Look for the tools to meet the community requirements (forum, phone, face-to-face, IM) to adjust the rhythm
Identify milestones in the rythm (regular calls, mail notifications, meetings) and work towards that point to increase the energy and momentum

It's potentially a very complex role, the coordinator. But didn't we already know that!