Every sector of every industry needs innovation to stay afloat, but how leaders choose to deal with that reality is an undertaking often fraught with resistance, trial and error, fear, expense, and skepticism about what will and won’t work — and all of that doesn’t even account for the many nuances specific to how a company is organized.
Thankfully, the last few years have brought innovation management processes and tools into sharp focus, providing many examples, best practices, and use cases from trailblazers in the space.
iCatalyst: The Commonwealth’s Tool
One such industry pioneer is the Innovation Office of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which uses Mindjet’s SpigitEngage software to power iCatalyst, a web-based tool that drives innovation through collaboration and crowdsourcing.
“iCatalyst engages a crowd on the cloud using a collaboration tool which emulates features of many popular social media tools. The familiar and easy-to-use interface encourages participants to interact with fellow users. These interactions, coupled with iCatalyst’s analytics, allow Commonwealth agencies to identify and execute transformative ideas from employees and other constituents,” states the summary.
Commissioner of Banks, David Cotney, showed great support for the program. “The Innovation Office’s iCatalyst tool provided the Division of Banks with a new approach to obtain staff input and collaborate on the agency’s strategic direction,” he said. “I consider the Division’s ‘Ideas Challenge’ a success — 66% of our staff participated and 29 creative ideas were generated. We look forward to using the iCatalyst tool in the future to engage with the financial industry in the Commonwealth.”
Moving Toward the Future
Validation is incredibly important for all budding efforts, especially those that business successes are contingent upon. To learn more about this exciting program, visit the project site or watch the explanatory video. If you’re interested in finding out how SpigitEngage can power your innovation program and drive collaborative ideation in your company, click here.
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