Editor’s note: The following Q&A is an extension of a webinar about external innovation hosted by Doug Williams, Director of Innovation Strategy at Planview IdeaPlace. The questions were provided by webinar attendees.
Q: When it comes to external innovation, can you provide some examples of incentives for participation? Also, can you give some examples of exchange of values?
DW: Incentives are every bit as important in an external challenge as they are in an internal challenge. Everyone invited to participate in a challenge of any kind will ask themselves this simple question: “What is in it for me?” The key difference between working with internal crowds and external crowds is that there are far fewer — if any — intrinsic rewards that you can offer to an external crowd. Internal crowds appreciate the visibility of participating in and perhaps submitting a winning idea in a crowdsourcing challenge. They appreciate the opportunity to be recognized as a top collaborator or top innovator in a public forum like a town hall meeting much more than a free sweatshirt or $50 gift card.
With external crowds, the incentive typically must come in the form of some “thing” — cash rewards or prizes are popular, but are not the only options. The opportunity to visit the sponsoring company’s headquarters and present their idea, or have the opportunity to work with a team to bring the idea to life, are two options that have a cost to the sponsor company but may have a perceived value to the recipient that is much greater. That’s where the “exchange of value” comes into play. The incentive you offer must be in line with the value of whatever it is you are asking the crowd to provide. Asking them to simply vote? Conduct a lottery to hand out SWAG to 10 random winners. Asking for a creative response to a brief, such as a video or design? Consider 10 monetary awards ranging from $5.000 for first down to $500 for 6th-10th. Asking for new product or service concepts, or technology to help solve a problem? Your reward had better include some form of licensing arrangement, or all you will hear are crickets.
F: Wie können Sie extern innovieren, ohne geistiges Eigentum preiszugeben?
DW: Der Umgang mit geistigem Eigentum (IP) ist die häufigste Frage, wenn es um externe Innovationen geht. Die gefürchtete Antwort lautet: "Es kommt darauf an". Wenn es um geistiges Eigentum geht, stellen wir in der Regel drei wichtige Fragen:
- What kinds of ideas are we looking for? Ideas may be new to the world, a feature/product enhancement, a more straightforward process, or operational improvement. When you run down that kind of continuum, the importance of IP protection starts high and diminishes as you go.
- What is the source of these ideas? Who comprises the crowd, and what are their expectations? A partner in your supply chain may have no interest in IP retention if their idea helps make a process more efficient. On the other hand, sourcing opportunities from startups will require firm IP protection in order to engage in any meaningful interactions.
- Wie entwickelt ist das geistige Eigentum? Wenn die eingereichten Ideen in etwa so lauten: "Es wäre schön, wenn Sie...", dann sollten die IP-Beschränkungen gering oder gar nicht vorhanden sein. Teilweise oder vollständig entwickelte Ideen würden eine gewisse Einigung zwischen den Parteien erfordern, mit höheren Erwartungen an den Schutz des geistigen Eigentums für diejenigen, die eine bewährte Lösung anbieten.
Other factors can also come into play.
First, an external challenge doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a challenge conducted in an open, public forum. If you choose to work with a selected private external group, then you can require agreeing to terms and conditions that include non-disclosure agreements provided by your legal department.
Zweitens können externe Wettbewerbe eine "geschlossene" Einreichung beinhalten, so dass andere externe Teilnehmer die eingereichten Ideen nicht sehen können. In diesem Szenario würde die Crowd keine Überprüfung von Ideen vornehmen oder gemeinsam an der Verbesserung von Ideen arbeiten, was zwei wichtige Aspekte der meisten offenen Herausforderungen (intern oder extern) sind. Dies gibt dem Einreicher der Idee jedoch die Gewissheit, dass sein geistiges Eigentum nicht an andere weitergegeben wird, auch wenn es den von Ihnen festgelegten Anforderungen für die Übertragung von geistigem Eigentum unterliegt. Im Allgemeinen gilt: Je strenger die IP-Anforderungen zu Gunsten des Unternehmens sind, desto unwahrscheinlicher ist es, dass Sie einen Käufer finden (siehe Diskussion über den Austausch von Werten weiter oben in diesem Beitrag).
Third, external challenges can place the burden on the external crowd to ensure that anyone submitting an idea has taken steps to protect their own IP. In its Frontier challenges, Siemens warns participants against submitting ideas or solutions that incorporate unprotected IP.
Q: What are the expectations of feedback on an external challenge?
DW: With external challenges, you are building a community. Effectively communicating with that community will make the individuals feel important and well-informed, which will encourage them to participate in future challenges. Just as with internal challenges, it is critical that you close the loop with external challenge participants by letting them know how the challenge ended. Even if your challenge process doesn’t allow you to share the winning ideas with all participants, a simple “thank you” will go a long way in showing the crowd that you valued its participation.
F: Wie effektiv sind externe Herausforderungen in einer B2B-Umgebung?
DW: As I discussed in the webinar, there are many use cases for external challenges, including B2B scenarios, such as challenges with supply chain vendors, current partners, or start-ups/entrepreneurs. How effective they are depends on how closely you follow our best practices, of course! In all seriousness, the effectiveness of any challenge hinges (1) how well you have aligned the question with the target audience; (2) how well you communicate to/with that audience, and (3) whether the exchange of value you establish is considered fair to the audience.
F: Welche Erfahrungen haben Unternehmen, die sich an externen Herausforderungen beteiligen, mit Planview IdeaPlace für interne Innovation/Ideenfindung gemacht, bevor sie externe Kampagnen gestartet haben?
DW: It is very common for our enterprise customers to run several internal challenges before launching an external challenge. In most cases, the program sponsor simply wants to ensure that the team has a chance to get familiar with the software and the crowdsourcing process before engaging in a more public arena. However, some clients face business objectives that require use of an external challenge (such as Unilever and UNHCR), so they dive right in without any prior internal campaign experience. I would note that most customers engage Planview IdeaPlace’s Services team when they run their first external challenge. We guide the process, share best practices, and transfer knowledge that our customers can then leverage to run future external challenges.
F: Wie gehen Sie mit dem Hindernis eines Unternehmens um, das sagt: "Es gehört nicht zu unseren Grundsätzen, Ideen von unseren Kunden einzuholen."
DW: That’s a pretty substantial barrier! It takes a lot of work to change a policy like that. It reminds me of one of the as defined by my friend Rowan Gibson in his book of the same name, namely “Challenge Orthodoxies.” A few questions come to mind: Why is this the policy? When was it put in place, and by whom? What are the downsides to gathering ideas from customers? What if we had an online tool we could use to solicit ideas from customers, allow them to work together to improve those ideas, and then let them help us identify the best ideas to take action on? Maybe there is a good reason for this policy. Then again, maybe there isn’t!
