Innovation and Collaboration: A Platform Isn’t A Platform Without It

At the start of his 15 minute talk at the the 2010 TED conference in Oxford, England, author and journalist Matt Ridley compared an Acheulean hand axe from half a million years ago with a modern computer mouse. Both remarkably similar in shape and size. Both designed to fit the human hand. Both invented to help humans be efficient and productive.

The similarities end there, but the evolution each of these tools took highlights the value of relationships in driving collaborative innovation.

Hand axes were made to a pretty unvarying design for over a million years — 30,000 generations — whilst computer mice were invented less than a century ago and already have evolved to the point of being obsolete.

New ideas are collaborative efforts

Today, we interact with computers in our pockets and on our laps through tracking pads and touch screens. The biggest difference between both inventions is how they’re made. A hand axe requires one type of raw material for its manufacture — stone. Computer mice are a mish-mash of ingredients. Silicon, metal, plastic and rubber are mixed and moulded to deliver the end product.

One person can make a hand axe relatively easily. Not a single person in the world can make a computer mouse on their own. Collaborative innovation is rarely - if ever - a solo process.

The ideas and innovative practices required are distributed across a wide group of diverse minds — the idea of plastic, the idea of the transistor, the idea of the laser, even the idea of the computer.

Successful collaboration happens faster when collaborative relationships emerge - when different ideas can “meet and mate."

Open communication, open innovation

No wonder the title of Matt’s talk was “when ideas have sex.” To understand how the modern computer mouse can evolve as quickly as it has, first we must understand how emerging technologies for communication have evolved, integrated, and transferred information — facilitating faster and faster collaborative innovation.

Integrations

Early versions of tools like telephones and computers were useful, but limited by their lack of connectedness. Integrations connected telephones through exchanges, and computers through dial-up and DSL broadband — the “internet.” Integrations gave the tools more utility and usefulness.

On desktop computers, we shared and stored information through email accounts and the world wide web. Websites used cookies and used our gender, birthday, and marital status to make the web more relevant for us.

Information

As more devices connected to these integrated networks, more information was shared, stored, and retrieved. Mobile phones — with calendars, address books, calculators, and notepads — enabled us to store and retrieve data. Knowledge sharing and collaborative innovation started to improve.

Soon, the information we shared and stored included photos, videos, and stories. We became creators of content, not just consumers of it. Our collaborative culture started to digitize.

As information sharing continued, and sharing tools improved, we used communication technologies to access and share ideas. In the United States, 1–900 telephone numbers provided ideas and advice to help people tune their guitars, find nightclubs, and learn how to make pasta sauce. By 1991, 1–900 telephone numbers were a billion dollar business.

Ideas

Social networking platforms allowed us to leverage our existing relationships, to share and access ideas from anywhere. Requesting recommendations from friends for new restaurants to try became easier than ever. Videos and photos provided ideas for what to cook, what to buy, where to hang out, and who to hang out with. Filters, emoji, and stickers provide a canvas to share those ideas quickly and easily.

Social networks - from Facebook, to Instagram, to TikTok and beyond - are “idea networks.” We look to them for inspiration every day, multiple times a day. The ability to share knowledge and ideas through them has improved our personal lives.

Collaborative innovation networks

Businesses today use a mix of telephones and computers, connected through phone lines and broadband, storing information in databases and CRMs, but we still rarely make use of “collaborative innovation networks” in our work lives.

Most businesses build an innovation strategy based on input from their employees - increasingly assisted by AI - but adopting a collaborative mindset can expand their innovation networks significantly. These human innovation networks are small.

That started to change - quickly - over the past decade.

New types of collaborative innovation platforms enable companies to look beyond their own team members for innovative thinking. By engaging with innovation partners, companies co-create value and drive innovative solutions with cross functional teams with a variety of skills, across a variety of companies.

Power to the people

People-powered platforms have emerged, offering knowledge sharing tools, inspiration, up to date information, and the opportunity to drive innovation with the help of external collaborators.

These new platforms integrate deeply with existing technology stacks and workflows through APIs and integrations, accelerating the co-creation process and encouraging the collaborative innovation process.

These new “collaborative innovation networks” for the enterprise come to life through two types of platforms — inspiration platforms and collaboration platforms. These platforms are designed to encourage collaboration among team members and external partners. By fostering a collaborative environment, these platforms also encourage innovation and creative problem-solving.

Inspiration platforms

Effects, filters, and stickers are used by billions of Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat users to create new content quickly and easily. Inspiration platforms work in the exact same way, but for businesses. These platforms support collaborative innovation by providing tools and resources that streamline the creative process. These platforms provide quick-start assets for idea generation, through graphics, images, filters, and layouts.

Canva‘s tools make it easy to create vibrant graphics, images, and videos through their web-based service. Customers can choose from a library of preset dimensions for social media, print, email, and the web, select a template, customise your design, and share it or download it.

A vast selection of templates is included for free, and a growing marketplace of designers provides access to even more ideas from $1 each. Tools to organize assets by folder and team make it easy to share and collaborate on designs inside and outside your company.

Collaboration platforms

Similar to how Facebook’s “recommendations” feature works, gig economy platforms like Fiverr and Upwork enable businesses to solicit ideas from a network of collaborators spread across the globe. Collaborating partners are a few clicks away, and these platforms offer tools to collaborate effectively.

These platforms facilitate a collaborative process by connecting businesses with a network of global collaborators. Collaborators can include agencies and freelancers - even your own customers.

It raised $180 million of funding, and was arguably too early for it's time, but with over 1.2 million members and over 2.1 million ideas exchanged through Quirky, it’s no wonder that companies like General Electric (GE) and Mattel relied on it to develop ideas for new products.

Anyone with an idea for a product could join, and find other community members to start the collaborative innovation process.

Once a project was developed, revenue was shared between the main inventor, their collaborators, the brand, and Quirky. Some notable innovations originated through Quirky included the “Pluck” egg yoke extractor, and “Pawcet” - a paw controlled outdoor drinking fountain.

Integrating “collective intelligence”

Whilst most “idea networks” for the enterprise are siloed and exist as standalone tools, they’ve increasingly become deeply connected to existing workflows and collaborative innovation processes through APIs and integrations, encouraging team members to participate in collaborative efforts with less friction.

When Canva's Button launched in 2014, it enabled marketing tools like Cinchshare, Shortstack, and Sendible to quickly integrate the right tools to encourage collaborative inside their products.

This made content idea generation easier for their customers, within the existing products they already used to collaborate and solve problems in.

Collaboration platform Fancy Hands, which provides a team of US-based assistants to help companies with research and other tasks, boasts integrations with Basecamp, Do.com, Asana, Trello, Evernote, Google Calendar, and Facebook. These integrations connect assistants with the workflows and tools that their customers already use for creating ideas.

Yes, AI, LLMs, and Neural Networks are the future of computing. That said, integrating the human powered “collective brain” into the enterprise - through idea networks - will continue to be a powerful collaborative force.

Cross-functional collaboration is a human skill. It's not something AI has mastered - or may ever master.

Collaborative innovation doesn't happen by accident

Sure, there are plenty of platforms and tools to encourage collaborative innovation, but humans still need to be incentivized to form habits around them, and make the best use of them. Innovation and collaboration - even in the age of AI - requires leadership commitment.

Here are a few ways to encourage team members to develop a collaborative innovation mindset and generate ideas beyond their own brains and teams:

Bring diversity to the table

Diversity drives innovation - great ideas come from everywhere. Bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and teams usually unlocks new opportunities and new possibilities.

Focus on progress, not proving yourself

When was the last time your senior leaders modeled a "startup mindset" and created the right level of psychological safety to encourage collaborative innovation to happen? Many leaders fear public failure more than they crave innovation. Leaders need to lead from the front, to know and show it's okay to try, fail, and learn.

Tap into the power of collective intelligence

"Eureka moments" are usually an individual feeling, but they're usually the byproduct of a wide range of diverse perspectives coming together. Collaborating involves teams with diverse expertise coming together to solve complex problems. Diverse perspectives are your best innovation resource.

A collaborative innovation mindset is the key to unlocking your team's full potential.

Developing collaborative innovation ecosystems

Collaboration involves teams, and relationships need to be built across different departments and teams for collaborative work to happen. Here are a few ways to effectively approach this.

Recruit key stakeholders

Start by identifying key stakeholders that share your goals and interests, and can benefit from co-developing an innovation strategy with your team. These might be other companies, academic institutions, research organizations or even customers.

Set protocols for communication

Collaborative innovation relies on strong communication. Choosing the right tools, establishing protocols and managing clear communication channels is essential.

Build trust and open platform capabilities to others

Trust and openness are essential to fuel collaborative innovation, especially in a world of integrated products and platforms. Opening your platform to others - and involving them in the innovation process - builds trust and leads to an improved experience for everyone.