 "Ringing in innovation")
Innovation isn't just a slogan. It's a prerequisite for existence in today's competitive marketplace. Not surprisingly, companies of all scales - from start-ups to big organisations - pour huge capital and concentrate on upgrading themselves. Whether it is turbulent and leads to massive changes to the marketplace or incremental - which advances a product from a competitor's offerings - innovation is a fuel in the commercial world.
For a ground breaking culture, an organisation should look at the blueprint of their spaces and how they're used to spur the kind of imaginative thinking that can crack an idea into a scalable innovation. It's not sufficient to simply find a room and call it a think tank, incubator or hackerspace. Energising the groundbreaking spirit in a business via design needs real strategies and deliberate efforts to fit all solutions.
The innovation hub terminology is used somewhat lightly, and so there is no perfect explanation. The physical incarnation of a hub is typically an open and modish co-working space; yet a hub is more than that. What makes a hub unique is that it requires a clear mission to substitute invention for endorsement of knowledge and distribution of ideas. To this end, hubs gamble on cooperative improvement and community, as well as honesty and variety.
Innovation hubs propose a variable mix of facilities and follow a diversity of business and sustainability patterns. Typically, fellows get access to co-working and desk space, office substructure, events, and the hub's exchange network. A hub would typically employ a civic manager, warden or hosts to act as agents in the grid of members and other investors, to inspire new connections, handle the office, coordinate events and usually take care of the performance of employees. The physical space would be complemented by an energetic accessible community of its members on social networking.
Hubs permit new combinations of current knowledge bases. They assemble clusters of people and direct everybody from technology experts and stockholders to artists and advocates to link varied individuals and information, which at the core of the idea of a hub. Workplaces have an open design with a linked structure, with equipments that inspire flexible functioning, no allocated work positions, and habitually a mutual dining space for casual interactions. New meetings are further enabled through networking, drinks, specialised speed dating, shared lunches and so on.
It's important these days that people meet to improve some aspect for each other. And so, innovation hubs are designed to be melting pots where people with diverse experiences and values meet. Where else would you imagine discovering business persons, inventors, investors, performers, activists, techies and journalists under one roof, fielding ideas, looking for feedback, learning and sharing influences?
The supporters of invention hubs don't identify as just any cluster of people. They see themselves as groups of like-minded persons, sharing mutual beliefs and a lifestyle. A sense of exclusiveness and community - including for new participants - does not only inspire the participants, but it also helps reduce distinctive innovation problems such as fear of failure or unwillingness to share ideas.
Dynamism is another key feature of innovation hubs, as they are always on the lookout for fresh ideas. Instead of housing quiet R&D labs, their buildings are intended to bustle with invention jams, hackathons, pitches, novelty challenges, knowledge competitions and brainwaves. The worth of such an active and dynamic approach to the process of invention dwells not only in the ideas that are shaped but also the attempt to place innovators in the limelight. Invention joins entrepreneurship in a platform meant for both, but these hubs never demand or order innovative action from the members. While seeking inventiveness and accountability, they wish to deliver a space where free enterprise can be lived and practised.
While the methods of innovation hubs cannot be merely copied and pasted by old-style organisations, some of them can be food for thought and motivate conventional invention managers. Some valuable lessons of innovation hubs that are applicable to other innovation management contexts are:
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Community is a tool for motivation and encourages innovation. Strive to propagate a philosophy of community and exception, which the staff are pleased to be a part of. Emphasise on your community's hard work with a shared intention.
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Prompting meetings of heterogeneous minds brings innovative outcomes. Think of heterogeneity when hiring your staff and choosing your dealers. But no one can be forced to go out and encounter others, so build networks that are relaxed and appropriate
- Dynamising innovation works better with a bottom-up approach. How often have you contributed in a brainstorming session or a fun creativity game lacking in vivacity, with participants forced to think out of the box? Let people come up with thoughts on proceedings to increase your structural innovation. Let the staff themselves systematise these. You will then ensure high employee participation.
Ritu Mehrotra
Vice-president, global growth, Zomato
