“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” – Albert von Szent-Gyorgy

is NetJets. Executives fly from A to B and no one really wants to pay the business class fares. NetJets replicate the fractional ownership concept from the holiday industry and offers organisations fractional ownership in their jets. Organisations now fly business class quality, but at a fraction of the cost.”

actions organisations take to draw on external sources when they innovate. Crowdsourcing is a specific activity that entices a smorgasbord of people to engage with organisations in finding innovative solutions. NineSigma is an American organisation that has a network of more than 2 million innovators that other organisations can tap into. “But you can also utilise a more generic group of people. The Gauteng Provincial Department wrote up their innovation strategy based on input from the general public” says Maggie.

organisations sometimes still find it difficult to innovate.

are sent on creativity training, but if it is not sustained and supported throughout the

Maggie shares her views; “Many people With all the innovation tools available Open Innovation is broadly defined as

organisation, it cannot flourish. Leaders that do not consider themselves innovative must develop those skills if they are to inspire and support their teams. Organisations should make identifying creative and innovative staff part of the employment process. And make innovation part of everybody’s KPIs. It may sound old fashioned, but it works. Also, start with byte size innovation. Launching a large innovation without some experience may be very difficult and demotivating. Become experts at implementing. There should be dedicated staff and or time to do feasibility studies. I see it time and time again – human resource capacity in organisations is an issue. Innovators have risk appetites – allow people to make some mistakes. Ensure that you budget for innovation expense or that you have access to additional funding should you need it.”

South African Innovation Summit on 31 August 2011. She is presenting the newly launched “Innovation Provocation Engine”. It is an engine designed to help people think more creatively using macro elements, micro elements and some popular mechanics at the backdrop of specific challenges.

Maggie is presenting a workshop at the

20 Management Today | September 2011