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Innovation Jams

Most of the attention on MROCs has been for permanent standing communities, but Ray Poynter has written about short-term research communities and General Mills is moving to communities that last six to eight weeks. How short-lived can a community be?

Innovation jams grew out of an internal IBM technique for collaboration. IBM has established what you could call flash communities that last just three days (flash as in flash foods or flash mobs). For instance, in September, Lotus General Manager Bob Picciano invited customers, employees and thought leaders to the Smart Work Jam, "a global discussion on how to create a smarter, more productive work environment". Topics included how workplace teams will evolve, how to maximize the talents of the upcoming generation of employees and collaborative business process management.

While jams are short in duration, they are large in participation. The IBM Innovation Jam in 2006 had 150,000 participants drawn from employees and business partners in 104 countries. The jam generated 10 new business ideas that were funded with $100 million.

The jam process involves:

• Extensive marketing prior to the event to get people excited to participate.
• Facilitators and subject-matter experts to keep the discussion moving along.
• Researchers and analysts to provide real-time feedback on common trends and patterns in the discussions.

Innovation jams are most successful when they leverage an existing real-world community, such as a community of employees and partners. Obviously, not much of a new sense of community can be built in three days among online participants.

Think of the innovation jam as the brainstorming part of a project plan. Instead of having a standing idea community constantly collecting thousands of new ideas, far more than you can implement, running a jam focuses everyone on a shared process at a point when it is most critical to the sponsoring organization.

Turn to a flash community like an innovation jam for that flash of inspiration.