In a 2017 Harvard Business Review article, Anna Steinhage, Dan Cable, and Duncan Wardley talk about the impact competition can have in a workplace. They described how hosting an internal challenge can generate creative results and inspire collaboration or it can create unethical behaviors and cutthroat rivalry. The authors go on to articulate the difference between these two potential outcomes:…

From recognizing innovators, to empowering your team at every level, to developing innovation outposts, the US Coast Guard are experts in innovation and idea management. Learn more in this podcast interview. The U.S. Coast Guard is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces. As one of the country’s six armed…

Many companies find it hard to prioritize ideation. Here are five ways to break the pattern and gather a wealth of ideas for your organization. In today’s rapidly changing world, it’s easy to think that most companies are innovation factories—full of ideas for new products, services, and processes. They need to be, right? Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Most organizations…

Anyone who works in the problem definition space knows the pitfalls of hidden issues. Solving a problem is sometimes dependent on who is articulating the problem, the lens with which they view the world, and the space that they have at the table… …Which means that although many of us were aware of the myriad problems caused by the pandemic…

Every year, IdeaScale analyzes our system and customer data and releases a report on crowdsourced innovation trends and benchmarks. You can find this year’s report here, but one of the questions that we pay a lot of attention to is why people are looking to purchase an innovation management platform in the first place. Here are the top four reasons…

By: Paul Van Zandt Creative thinking and innovation don’t come naturally to everyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good at them. Sometimes, teams need practice and routine to improve their creativity skills. This article will highlight some popular innovation exercises you can conduct with your team to get your creative juices flowing. These will be a combination of workplace…

By: Ajay Bhaskar Around the world and across industries, enterprises are facing tremendous market upheaval. Transformation and disruption were the new normal well before the pandemic, but the coronavirus crisis accelerated certain trends toward innovation and digitization and led to the fundamental rewiring of old business models. Today, all businesses need to be more customer-oriented, and enterprises must learn to…

By: Rob Hoehn Government innovators face specific challenges: regulations, compliance issues, cooperation with numerous other branches of government…but they also access some of the most technical and influential trends of our time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for example, protects public health and safety related to nuclear energy and to coordinate the efforts of the nearly 3,000 employees that manage power…

By: Paul Van Zandt When innovating with your team, there are a few rules that are important regardless of the ideation session you’re conducting. In this article, we’ll outline the four golden rules of brainstorming and talk about how following them can improve your team’s innovative capabilities. Rule #1: Every Idea Matters One of the critical aspects of a successful…

By: Rob Hoehn Every year, IdeaScale asks our customers what their main priorities are for the coming year, and without fail one of the top two priorities is to create a culture of innovation. Every innovation thought leader, every organizational engagement specialist, every pundit or leader in transformation says that this is the secret to avoiding disruption. Unfortunately, as most…