Like it or not, we are all part of larger systems. As such, if we are to innovate effectively, we need to work with larger systems creatively. Our innovations need to be accepted in order for us to succeed in the larger world.
Relationship with Suppliers
Creativity and innovation cause ripples in supply chains. But can suppliers provide the right raw material? For instance, I hire adjunct instructors to teach business courses. If I create an innovative, out-of-the-box curricula that will dazzle and excite students, I need to make sure that others can teach it. There have been times when I have produced new types of course content, only to have my adjunct professors throw it out and gone back to the old way of teaching it.
Relationships with Customers
It is an art to harness the ideas of one’s customers. They can be great innovation partners. Like all people, customers are eager to be listened to. It can be done through traditional marketing research mechanisms like focus groups, surveys, interviews, and observation. It can be done through creative ethnography as discussed earlier. It can also be done through bringing customers into your meet ings at your headquarters and making them part of your teams. In doing so, you could be turning your consumers into real prosumers, producers and consumers at the same time.
Relationships with Competitors
Welcome to the brave new world: an open marketplace of ideas, innovations, and inventions. The solid line between competitors is not as solid as it used to be. The vicious competitor of the past might be the current collaborator or vital member of your supply chain now. Perhaps you do not have the resources for an innovative new research project right now, or the scope of this project is much too large for one organization. Then, creative collaboration might make sense. As I write, the financial institutions of the United States are faltering and teetering toward bankruptcy. Now is a great time for them to collaborate for solutions.
Open Source Partners
Who really has the keys to brilliance, creative breakthroughs, or the hearts and minds of customers? Ultimately, an organization does not really know where its next innovation is coming from. Through open sourcing, partners may emerge from nooks and crannies that were never envisioned by a group of 50-year-old execs in a board room. That is why organizations must stay open to possibilities in partnership and creative to new opportunities as they emerge. “We have never done that before” is no longer a valid reason in these turbulent times. Certainly, no one organization has all of the employee intellectual capital for new innovations. External human resources can be utilized for their wealth.
As the artificial barriers of competitor, supplier, customer, insider, and outsider erode, new forms of communication encourage collaboration between these agents. Collaborative software enables partners in Bangalore, Brittany, Belfast, and Biloxi to work together fluidly. New forms of social networking—Facebook, Twitter, MySpace—makes instant and continual communication the norm. Other mechanisms—conference calling, video conferencing, and Skype—create opportunities for virtual communication. All of these mechanisms make creative collaboration more accessible.