During November I lectured for many many digital professionals. Every time Apple came up it was as an exception, that in several areas of “digital”. Same thing wherever I went: London, Stockholm or Paris. But think about it the other way – what if every company had a way and a soul as Apple have, as Jobs infused it over the years and made it root.

How would the worlds companies look and how would their corporate headquarters look around the world? As Apples new campus is evolving – celebrating design and natures splendor together in a beautiful presence. Obviously – the apples won’t  fall far from their trees at this campus in Cupertino, CA…

See for yourself.

Anders Bjers

Produced for Axtalk by Anders Bjers

/ Anders Bjers

The possibilities of information and marketing offer no guaranteed boost for communicating innovations. From ideas internally at a company and in the process, up to the marketing of finished products, services or other offerings, there is more to it than using modern megaphones.

It is not clear that new tools like social media, advertising, PR people, journalists or marketers are up to the task of communicating innovations in such a way that other people understand and embrace great new opportunities instantly or easily.

So what is affecting our decision making?

Several articles have recently dealt with different aspects of language for how we perceive the world. It’s not new but in the context of innovations – it is exciting. The significance of metaphors is striking. Not in terms of how advertising, social media and marketing are designed but how people convey innovations for and among each other in order to innovate and drive innovation to success.

Author James Geary writes in his new book “The I is an Other” about how we use metaphors in everyday life without thinking about it. The sports metaphors are obvious. ”The ball sailed over the net like a swallow”; “He sank like a stone”. In the financial context stock prices are likened to human mood swings: “stock market opened sour”, “price increased by comet speed.” The power of metaphors cannot be mistaken. President Obama’s slogan “Fired up – ready to go” is a powerful sample of metaphors that literally made a change. Metaphors help us understand complex contexts with multiple senses and provide insights that would otherwise take more time and effort to bridge with more actual words. Complex sciences need poetry and metaphors as powertools to bridge knowledge and understanding.

Recently Senior Researcher James Wilson wrote in the Harvard Business Review about Language of Innovation and the importance of using metaphors in the language to describe innovations and during innovation processes. Wilson and his team at Babson Executive Education found that people described new technological innovations and why they were successful or failures in certain ways.

They found that people with no real facts were describing innovations with three different kinds of linguistic tools.

• Metaphors – replace facts with figurative descriptive terms, words and sentences.

• Exaggerations – driving the language with focus on its impact, not facts.

• Revisionist rhetoric – simplified, inaccurate and self-fulfilling descriptions designed to support someones own arguments and experiences.

Wilson’s team came up with some rules of thumb that successful communication of ideas and innovations should use.

- Use metaphors to support with facts – not to replace facts with metaphors. Understand how and when the metaphors used in presentations, internal / external communications.

- When there is a good idea but no clear evidence that supports the idea – start out by making prototypes and experiments. Many people start talking about the idea but then lose power and motivation to make prototypes or to implement the idea.

- Learn how to use metaphors effectively and at the right time. In organizations with many involved simple metaphors can help to disseminate and communicate ideas faster, build interest and support. Although the organization is mostly using quantitative way to evaluate ideas, many individuals still rely on aesthetic terms and qualities as a yardstick.

- Use excessive and revisionist rhetoric only in its proper place – small groups. Only the teams that know each other well benefit from this kind of language. Expression is discarded naturally. Wilson’s studies show that about 30% of innovations occur in small teams of high level of trust among members.

So, it’s really not enough to bring in PR people, marketing people, social media, apps, resellers and “smear on” a facade of words and images in the final stages of innovation processes or to products launched on a market. In every part and point of innovation there is a story to tell and the way will determine whether the idea will be a “flip or flop”.

The Poetry of Innovation, the need to drive and communicate innovation from an idea that manifests itself in reality – is important in every step. When companies and individuals realize the potential and understanding of using metaphors properly – there are opportunities to realize more ideas, more companies and more entrepreneurs, that will create a growing economy. Furthermore, if innovation is to succeed, we need to understand that innovation is carried by more than the idea – namely, our common language and how we shape the world with every word.

A richer language – creates a richer world.

/ Anders Bjers

/ Anders Bjers

Anders Bjers

It is very interesting that Brooks writes this kind of book. As a conservative columnist describing himself as someone being “not good at moments of intimacy with family or friends” in a Times Q&A. Watch this brand new TED video with Brooks.

Enjoy the story of ourselves as social animals and our deeper human nature and who we are… or who we may think who we are… Who are you?

Enjoy /

Anders Bjers

Enjoy/

Anders Bjers

If it’s social – it is collaboration. When deploying new tools to both innovate how you are interacting with your colleagues, customers or others and why you are to start reaching out; then it will also mean that you will start to collaborate or make collaboration possible. By doing so you are using ways to engage and involve people around you (the company / organization / eco-system). Connections that you both plan and wish for, while others just happen.

Social Media is way too often used as just another megaphone to shout out same old prefab messages as in traditional channels. Move yourself away from that. Open up for more and you will get back value.

We see that mayor companies are doing so in order to gain leverage in organizations that includes many, many employees, leaders, consultants and others. But we also see the effect on how social and collaborative means to sense more of the relationships that are created. To sense more of the doing and potential of the organization. To sense the company and the doing of the people involved, both on the outside and the inside, so to say. So deploying a social collaboration not only means technology – often technology are seen as the silver bullet that “fixes” almost everything. Just as often, it may be the opposite. Tech is important, sometimes crucial. But so are culture, leadership, openness, trust, meaning and direction. Tech can be the facilitator, the common context that make new products, actions and flows possible, that in its turn can be considered a silver bullet for – change, improvement and innovation. This I believe.

Remember, where “social” is today is where “The Internet and the web” found itself fifteen years ago – then the “New New thing” that met both skepticism and evangelism on its potential. But just as we can’t think about life without the web today (having been normalized) – tomorrow we will consider “social” to be just as “impossible” to live without.

Let’s take a look at some disruptive tech that brings buzz and cases on collaboration.

Twitters hashtags is a good example on collaboration. A user (Chris Messina) created the hashtag without Twitters (the company) real consent. Instead, Twitter was against the use of hashtags and tried to stop it. But the pressure was stronger among users and today hashtags is something commonly used to follow a flow of conversations and collaborations let’s say among an audience or users of a brands products. (see a good story from GigaOM)

Check this Wall Street Journal article on how companies are collaborating actively with college classes on how to build online marketing. Social is a tool used extensively. Innovative in many ways and I wonder if it’s possible in Sweden?

A young Swedish entrepreneur recently developed an idea as a school assignment. His idea was to help children take important medications with a better understanding, less stress and anxiety. He created “Snorisar”. It is both a story and a product. With the help of a Facebook group he collaborated with parents on the development of the product and the idea itself, right from the start. Also, user groups were created to test the idea in order to bring in feedback before launch. The turnout was so good that today “Snorisar” is sold at Pharmacies. You can suppose that the outcome would be different and not as user friendly without collaboration. And would have cost much more.

Salesforce launched less than a year ago the Salesforce Chatter, a collaboration application for enterprises to connect and share information with people at work in real-time. Chatter is considered to be a disruptive technology that can change how people share and collaborate at work for real.

IBM is working in a somewhat similar way with its Lotus Live. But I don’t think they are grasping social in a user friendly or smart, contemporary way. You cant even share the video… A good example of a tool you should be cautious to deploy, in my mind.

Key takeaways.
- If you think social – think collaboration.
- Reach out to your relations early in the innovative process. Embrace the potential for co-creativity.
- Listen and be sure to answer back. Give feedback. Don’t shout out same messages as in traditional channels.
- When you are followed be sure to follow back.
- Make a strategy before launching social for collaboration. The tech itself is not a silver bullet. It depends on how you deploy and engage.
- Be sure to connect tech with the culture, behavior, needs, meaning and direction.
Check back for more next week. Lets dive into the subject c-creativity with the help of social tools.

Anders Bjers

This blogpost is syndicated with Googol.

IBM Lotus Live