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Innosfera February 2010 - Collective thinking and crowdsourcing as a source of innovation
I believe that Spanish companies are now ready... Not all, I would say about 20-30% of them
have heard of open innovation, have read about it, seen examples in competitors outside of Spain are using it...
and they are starting to call us: “Come and give us a presentation, tell us about it, what can we do for our employees, for the consumer, for our partners?”.
partners. And that's where we are, working very hard and full of enthusiasm.
I think that in general, yes. It's still very difficult, some of the questions denoted a feeling of
“sure, but I can't innovate in my job, my boss won't let me”. Well, quit your boss and start your own business.
It's true, that still happens, there's still a lot of pressure, but people are starting to innovate.
I think the result has been excellent. Within the first 48 hours, the participation objective for the entire year
they are now over 1,200 ideas. Some ideas are magnificent, and there are ideas that are already up and running.
I believe that innovation is the only resource us normal people have. Collaborative work.
The more we cooperate, the faster we will move towards innovation, and our innovation will be far more interesting.
Because now we have the Internet, we didn't really have it until now. It hadn't been made popular,
not everybody used it... we didn't have 150 million guys on twitter, 200 in Facebook,
, I don't know how many million in tuenti... Also, because now young people are here
and us old folk have always been reluctant toward innovation... now it's younger people that are in charge.
Some advice for entrepreneurs
Be ready to put up with transparency. Be ready to place decisions under the scrutiny of participants,
and admit that reward must be based on merit, and not on your position or your past history.
Many young people are coming strong, they were born with Internet and are looking for jobs
and they will give the ideas necessary to innovate to companies who, right now, are in a bit of a standstill.
It's real and it's here, and I think it's awesome, also because now we had real examples.
I mean, speaking abstractly is no use. We had examples like Banco Sabadell that I was very impressed with.
It think this is the right track, companies tend to be very closed structures,
and they have to open their minds to sharing knowledge, so I've found it very very interesting.
Who hasn't had an idea, I don't know, for your bank, without ever even writing it down, because you think
“where's this idea going to go?” Well, having somewhere where your bank or your insurance company
opens the door to you, It think that's a good thing.
Working on motivating, stimulating employees, it's produces competition between them that is healthy,
and yields ideas that will help them grow inside the company and make themselves known.
I think that it's good for companies from every point of view.
Just like Agustín Cuenca says, unless you're a genius, the best ideas are always outside.
