Decision making comes in many forms. One can easily see the difference between a decision that you make yourself, and a decision that must be made by a group. In the latter example, many people are not quite happy with the outcome, some even not at all, and only a few are getting the outcome [...]

Before you answer this question, we should ask ourselves what status ‘Twittering’ really is. I’d like to call it a tool to update your status. Twitter or Facebook starts with updating your status. The basic idea of a status update is to share others what you are doing, what you are thinking of, or any [...]

Most people have joined one or more social networks nowadays. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter: many people have found a way to use them to their advantage. They know how to create value out of it by participating, or even just by observation. People feel comfortable by doing that. Participating and joining discussions with their peers, known [...]

Power, creativity and controversy: these are three keywords for yielding more results from innovation communities. However, it is not just simply more power, more creativity and more controversy that a community needs… Or is it? Some time ago I was researching an employee-driven innovation community (EDI). The community was developed for the purpose of optimizing [...]

Needless to say that crowdsourcing with customers is getting big and that many companies are attempting to emulate lighthouse examples as MyStarbucksIdea and Dell Ideastorm. Obviously this is easier said than done. Many initiatives founder after the initial excitement. What makes MyStarbucksIdea work? Upon visiting the MyStarbucksIdea site you will see many ideas that have [...]

In an earlier post I introduced the term Communitize, signifying the trend where traditional company codes and structures are gradually submerged in a constant flow of community-driven exchange and collaboration, defying organizational divisions and boundaries. Communitizing enables organizations to absorb and harness the collective wisdom of their constituencies, increasing their capacity for change and innovation. [...]

In the last couple of weeks I stumbled upon the term ‘Employee engagement’ in some blogposts. The term almost sounds redundant, as one would assume employees are engaged by principle.. Research shows otherwise. Employees apparently are not engaged in their work. In 2007, a study shows that only 21% is truly engaged, implying those who [...]

All projects we undertake with our clients have one thing in common, there are multiple parties involved. Before officially launching the project to all parties, already many people from different companies are involved. When launching a project, the most important group of people are connected as well. This group is the largest, and has therefore [...]

Most co-creation projects incorporate a sophisticated website to be the basis for the mass dialogue that comes with a successful project. Although we always like to think hybrid, mixing cyber conversations with brainstorms in real life, it is definitely of great importance to employ a best-of-breed software platform. It should facilitate your project in the [...]

Communitize.. Typically a verb only a non-native speaker would invent.. Since I (more or less..) coined the term, I guess am free to choose whether communitize is an active or passive verb: Do you communitize or are you communitized? I decided on both. Communitize is something you can actively strive for or it is something [...]