The UKtech 5, organised by Computer Weekly magazine, gathered a lot of IT professionals in London, on 22nd November 2012, to discuss the topic of innovation. A fundamental message from the event was that developing countries are not going to find their way out of the economic crises without innovation, and that IT professionals can contribute to create more value for organisations and societies. Instead of focusing on technology, however, speakers have discussed more the relevance of people, processes and business innovation. For sure technological innovation enables changes, but most of the innovation will come in at the business level, through better use of the available technology.
Bryan Glick, editor-in-chief of Computer Weekly, has opened the event claiming services are to improve in the next years, as organisations embrace more social media platforms. Social media spaces such as Facebook are now very important channels for digital marketing, but the area of services has a lot more room to improve as well. Instead of using only the traditional CRM channels, customers want to be free to choose their means of communication, and social media is rising as an important channel for innovating in the area of customer relationship.
Digital innovation depends on having the right people in the right place and time. This is not exactly a new idea, but it never hurts to remind companies about what really matters. This was the message from Victor Newman, Advisory Board Member and Mentor at Social Innovation Lab Kent (SILK), and Bill Beckler, Head of Innovation at Lastminute. com. More specifically, they have preached against too much focus on processes instead of prioritising people.
This is not to say that processes are not important. However processes help only when the right people are involved. It does not matter how good the process is, without the right mix of professionals, innovation is not going to happen, argued the speakers. “We need the right mix of people, and we need to inspire these people. We need to work to unlock the potential capacity of innovation; however we also need to know when a professional is not adequate to stay in innovation teams”, says Bill Beckler.
From a broader perspective, Phil Dixon, Head of Research and Development at Betfair, has explored the relevance of building creativity in different localities when building digital solutions. Having offices in different countries has helped the company to allow more creativity to emerge. In his opinion, professionals build different solutions within their context, thus companies should be open to use the local creativity to innovate in the whole organisation. In this case, clear process of having better use of local innovation in a global scale should be put into place.
Magda Hercheui : Senior Lecturer in Project Management and Information Systems, and editor of New Media Knowledge. Researcher on social media. If you have an interesting story on digital innovation, drop me an email m.hercheui@westminster.ac.uk
