@Jurjan: You’re totally right and I think it is a fact of interpretation. Social innovation and the actual platform establishment should go hand in hand. But in the case people are not ready for social innovation, don’t focus on the fancy front-end but start engaging them first. I certainly not only mean financial rewards and am a strongly believer social identity theories. People have to know they’re heard. Some groups are sensible for financial rewards but for the majority community status is much more important. It’s all about kudos in online and physical communities. The fact that you’re heard and that activities are released upon your statements.

@Aditya, you certainly cannot plan disruptive innovation but you actually can create an environment which fosters innovation…but it will take another article to go over that issue….

Interesting blogpost!

From my experience with innovation platforms I agree with your observation that a lot of organizations forget the social aspect and focus too much on the technological tools. However, I do not agree with your statement that organizations should focus on the social aspects first and build a platform later on. Because such a platform can be perfectly used in the first innovation stage as a portal to kickstart innovation. By use of such a portal, top management can communicate their commitment to innovation, communicate innovation goals and the first steps can be made on fostering innovation within the organization.

In the next steps of the innovation process, the social issues are definetly really important and should be given a lot more attention in most organizations. When using an online tool to boost innovation, it is critical to organize offline meetings for example. Next to that, we have seen with our clients that top management involvement and leader participation are really important drivers.

I’m not sure whether you only mean monetized rewards in your last paragraph, but from several studies it appears that a lot of social aspects are very important drivers in community participation as well. Think of the social identity theory, for example. People participate in the pursuit of power, fame or status. So it’s not all about the money.

My final thought on this is to do with time. To foster a true spirit of innovation within an organisation, you have to prioritise it enough to give people time to think… think about stuff that isn’t going to necessarily move them closer to achieving their sales targets etc.

It’s a tough call for an organisation to make, but as you say, embracing innovation is the only way to make it work.