The Internet provides companies with a great way to reach out for new ideas. But if you use the web to gather ideas, it’s also important to think about how you ask for them, and what you’ll then do with them. Idea generation — also known as ideation — is generally the first step in an organization’s innovation process.

Two ideation process examples

The TSA’s ideation process starts with a site called the IdeaFactory. Enabled in April of 2007, the site is described as being “created to empower TSA employees to suggest and promote ideas to improve their workplace and the way TSA does business.” Employees can post, rate and comment on ideas. The IdeaFactory team goes through the ideas, and then it processes those that are best suited to the agency’s strategic goals or are especially popular.

LG’s process is much more formal. External collaborators are asked to submit a proposal for a solution related to a theme or specific issue noted on the company’s Collaborate & Innovate site. LG provides a downloadable template asking about the team proposing the solution, the stage of technology development, intellectual property issues, etc. The LG Collaborate & Innovate team then evaluates the submissions and responds within four to eight weeks (a detailed description of the process is available here).

The TSA and LG examples are ongoing practices, but ideation can also be event-focused, such as IBM’s Innovation Jams.

Event-focused ideation

IBM has been “jamming” since 2001. Innovation Jams are focused online brainstorming and collaboration sessions held around a specific topic designed to spark innovation. The process has grown, and the company now offers it as a consulting service. As an indicator of the size of this process, in 2006, $100 million was granted to the top ideas generated by 150,000 IBM employees, family members, business partners, clients (from 67 companies) and university researchers who participated in two 3-day phases, with contributions made 24 hours a day from 104 countries. (More about the Innovation Jam process.)

What makes ideation work?

Whether you use a single event or an ongoing process, the process you use to ask for ideas matters. Researchers recently had the opportunity to follow a grassroots innovation platform at Microsoft to identify design challenges and opportunities in the process. The researchers were able to track type of participation with platform, and through interviews with recent and top contributors and managers, dig deeper into participant motivations. They followed 1,491 users who made 2,211 votes, 488 comments and contributed 315 ideas around the topics of business problems in peer-to-peer advertising, identity-based system services and social computing. Overall, the researchers felt that participation was low, given that the organization had over 95,000 employees at the time.

As a result of their study, the researchers identified a variety of recommendations for increasing participation and overall value in the innovation process, but these three struck a chord with me:

• Foster meaningful participation. In the Microsoft study, only a small percentage of the corporate community participated in the pipeline. To improve participation, the researchers recommend incentives and clarification of how to balance regular work duties with contributions to the innovation process.
• Use business-relevant criteria in the voting process. Digg-style voting systems, as used in the Microsoft system, do not take business value into account, and the author’s passion for an idea may be diminished if too few votes are received. The researchers suggest that capping the number of votes a user can give, or asking users to rank ideas, can solve these problems.
• Support the process of innovation within the system. In the Microsoft example, the innovation platform is only used for a part of the idea pipeline, which means that users become unaware of the status of ideas as they move forward outside the system, leading to frustration. The platform also fosters the misconception that innovation is easy. Adopting a macro-level process of innovation in the system would allow the entire idea pipeline to be captured as it unfolds.

That last recommendation — to support the process of innovation within the system — is echoed in a comment by Edward Bevan, IBM’s vice president for technology and innovation programs, speaking about the IBM Jam process: “Idea generation is in some ways the ‘easy’ part — and darling star child — of innovation, whereas advancing, refining and building support for those ideas is the really tough part. . . .” Ideation needs follow-through to provide value.

Today’s top innovation management system vendors hope to facilitate ways of advancing, refining and building support for ideas — as well as idea generation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking with people from some of these vendors (first up, Brightidea) about how to best support innovation that comes from anywhere. Hint: It’s never just about the tool.

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While I’m not sure how much of my advice applies this week (since, according to the TSA, “Passengers should not expect to see the same thing at every airport”) I do have a few tips and loopholes to make your travel easier. Many of them revolve around food, since airport food can be unpredictable. Last weekend in the Columbus, Ohio airport, I was limited to the food that I brought with me and what was available in a single vending machine, as none of the stores in my terminal were open.

Smuggle Spreadable Food

I recently learned that peanut butter in a jar is a “liquid”. It seemed pretty solid to me, but that didn’t stop it being confiscated in the Seattle airport as possible liquid contraband. Dangerous stuff. However, if you spread peanut butter between crackers or bread it then becomes a “solid” and can be brought through security. This works for any other spreadable food: hummus, jelly, etc.

The Quart-size Bag isn’t Just for Shampoo and Lotion

This is a good way to smuggle small amounts of hummus, jelly, peanut butter, salad dressing, or any other condiments that you might want to have in the airport: You can put any liquids in the quart-size bag as long as you adhere to the 3.4 ounce per bottle limit, and you can squeeze everything into one bag.

Fitness Training

With all of the delays this holiday season, it can help to practice your running / sprinting before your trip just in case you need to make a tight connection. Last weekend, I managed to make a 5-minute connection in Minneapolis by sprinting between gates. Luckily, all of the running I’ve been doing lately helped me prepare. However, I did learn that running with a backpack containing a laptop and a couple of books while not wearing tennis shoes is way harder than my normal run. If nothing else, I got in a quick little workout combined with an adrenaline rush.

Your mileage may vary with these tips, but we wish you safe travels this holiday season from the WebWorkerDaily team.

What are your tips for making travel easier during the holiday season?

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At the risk of making your blood boil at the mere mention of the Transportation Security Administration, it’s time to step out on a limb and give the TSA credit for steps taken in recent months to reduce the natural anxiety we feel as we shuffle along in line.

The improvements are timely because the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, the most dreaded travel times of the year, are upon us.

The checkpoint process

The most recent development from the TSA is the establishment of “family lanes” at checkpoints at every U.S. airport. In many larger airports, the process goes a step further with the creation of three lanes for different types of travelers, using the same kind of diamond symbols that designate expert, intermediate and beginner ski slopes.

At the airports with all three types, the black diamond or expert lane is for those who look to a TSA agent like experienced business travelers who know the routine. Those judged to need a little more time are sent to the blue lane. Families with children and other passengers with special needs are directed to the green or beginners lane.

This appears to be speeding up the process, unless you have the experience I did at Dallas Love Field this summer on a weekday afternoon, when there were few passengers in line. With just a briefcase, I was sent to the expert lane while two family groups behind me were sent to the green lane. The families got through first while I waited for a guy in a suit to unload into five bins his two laptops, an assortment of other electronic gear, a carry-on suitcase and his jacket, belt and lace-up shoes. I’m glad I had plenty of time before my flight.

But TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis told me that in general, the family lanes “are creating a lot of efficiencies. We’re seeing greater satisfaction with the process.”

Laptop bags

Of special interest to web workers, TSA has begun to approve certain types of laptop bags that can be sent through X-ray scanners without being removed from the case. More than a dozen manufacturers are making laptop bags that should pass muster with TSA agents. You’ll find there are different styles: Some have separate cases for a laptop that detach from the rest of the bag while others let you keep all the compartments together and unfold the bag to place it on the belt.

For more detail on some of the more popular brands look at web sites of Skooba Design, Mobile Edge, Targus and Travelon Bags.

Liquids (ban) to go

One of the best possible developments involves TSA installing at checkpoints next-generation X-ray machines that will distinguish between a bottle of water in a bag and, as Davis put it, “something more sinister.” That means chemicals that could be used to create an explosive device.

TSA director Kip Hawley has said recently on his blog that by the end of next year, the agency hopes to be able to lift the rule limiting liquids to 3-ounce bottles, although they will still have to be removed from bags and placed in a bin.

The really good news, Hawley says, is that advances in technology mean all restrictions on liquids could be lifted by the end of 2010.

I’ll drink to that.

image courtesy Flick user Stephen Witherden

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