The start of the year is a great time to review and reflect on events of the last year that made an impact. With that, we'd like to share with you Brightidea's most popular blog posts of 2012. These posts not only experienced the most views, they also were 'off the charts' in terms of social sharing. So here they are once again, for your reading enjoyment.

Kraft Doubles Down on Open Innovation Learn why the Kraft Foods Collaboration Kitchen (KFCK) is a major shift in the open innovation strategy at the company.

GE’s Healthymagination Challenge Winners Announced! Winners are annouced for General Electric's (GE) open innovation challenge, Healthymagination, looking for breakthrough ideas on early detection and treatment of breast cancer.

Next Generation Innovation Emerges at HP Exclusive video on HP's InnoStream, the latest innovation management campaign driving new ideas on products and services at every level of the company using Brightidea software.

What do you think of this list, did we miss any of your favorite posts from 2012?

Inside Scoop: Shifting the Innovation Culture at ACT

At Brightidea, we often focus on large scale innovation programs at companies with thousands if not hundreds of thousands of employees. Often though, it is in smaller companies where innovation programs are tackling common problems such as sustaining employee engagement with unique creativity and resolve. One of these companies is the nonprofit organization that offers millions of education and career assessments across the country, ACT, Inc. The Innovation Team at ACT is taking a fresh approach to their innovation program through the blending of the digital social innovation platform with physical events. The result is a structured program with impressive engagement to boot.

Last year, the company hired its first Chief Innovation Officer along with staff to effectively initiate its innovation department. While the program scope covers new product innovations as well as process innovations, the overall mandate was really about spurring a cultural shift in the organization. Backed with the organizational structure, and the Brightidea-powered online platform “Bloom”, the program quickly launched a hybrid model of targeted and on-going campaigns where employees could contribute insight and solutions. The innovation team manages the on-going campaign (or the “Open Forum”) and works with department heads to structure and launch targeted campaigns. Departments must have the resources to manage a targeted campaign, and the budget and support to move ideas beyond the evaluation phase to implementation if plausible. 

An exciting feature of their program is a newly launched event series, “Bloom Out Loud”. Simply put, it’s the Bloom process, done out loud and in-person to showcase the impact the Bloom program is making on the business. Held quarterly, these fast-paced high-energy idea gatherings highlight the best ideas from the Open Forum. Remote employees were included by utilizing google hangout. Kari Stillman, who works with the Innovation Team at ACT, cited some positive feedback on the cultural effect of the event. “We received a lot of feedback saying it felt like the first time that we really showcased a culture shift for the organization…It wasn’t leadership talking to team members, it was peer-to-peer,” Stillman says.

The format for the event series is evolving, but at its core, a select group of idea submitters are chosen to present their ideas, in-person and with videos at the event. After the event two ideas move on to the next phase, which includes an ideation workshop and rapid prototyping session before presenting to the executive leadership team. Not only did this event gain traction for the innovation program as a whole (more than 250 ACT team members including senior leaders attended the first event), it is a step towards ensuring that strong ideas have the opportunity to be heard by different business units. It also allows for the community of participants to stay up-to-date on the progress of projects initiated from ideas submitted in the Open Forum.

Since the program began in June, the team has accumulated a company-wide participation rate of over 50% using Bloom, showing the focus on employee engagement has really paid off.

“Bloom Out Loud is a great way to showcase and recognize the impact team members can have by sharing an idea. It also amplifies the culture of innovation we strive to establish at ACT,” noted Stillman.

It will be exciting to see the returns this proactive program will yield in weeks, months, and years to come and no doubt ACT’s customers and employees will be reaping the benefits.

Alison Scott and Mary Nimietz [CCH, A Wolters Kluwer Business] from Brightidea on Vimeo.

This series lets you get an inside look at top global businesses and their leaders that create innovation program success.

Giving us exclusive insights about innovation at CCH, A Wolters Kluwer Business are Alison Scott, Sr. Executive Management Coordinator, and Mary Nimietz, Executive Assistant at CCH. As the leading provider of information services, CCH provides software and workflow tools for tax, accounting, legal and business professionals. Their products track, report, explain, and analyze tax and related law. CCH's leadership realizes that in order to make the processes of the company more efficient and identify new market opportunities, an effective, centralized program needed to be created to tap employees for solutions to critical business needs. The goal for CCH, in terms of innovation, is to spread the skills to innovate across the board, into different business units. Reframing the innovation culture within CCH, both Mary and Alison have exemplified their skills and drive to make innovation a reality every day at CCH.

Connect with other innovation managers like Alison and Mary today by becoming a part of the Birds of a Feather community!