On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Are Outside Innovators the Key to Success

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Are Outside Innovators the Key to Success In 2013, Campbell Soup Co. launched its Hack the Kitchen contest to challenge innovative developers to create web or mobile apps for mealtime solutions. The winner, FoodMood, tapped into users emotions by asking Whats your mood? and the app then suggested recipes based on the users feelings and food preferences. FoodMood, developed by Pollinate Inc., received a $25,000 cash prize and a $25,000 contract to bring the idea to market. But perhaps more important, Campbell Soup with more than 19,000 workers decided that it wanted outside innovators to create new ideas. Campbells is not alone. General Electric is partnering with students and entrepreneurs to help them create new products. The first lesson we learned was dont just talk about it, meet about it, think about it just go do it,saysVenkat Venkatakrishnan, GE Appliances Innovation Leader. Its something we dont do very well. We tend to evaluate all the risks, look at everythingthe local startup community goes and builds something, does something, and figures out the rest. Campbell and GE are big companies looking to adopt a more innovative,agile mindsetthat permeates start-ups, and more organizations realize they need to do the same in order to survive. Truly creative business leaders engage less-conventional partners, such ascitizen developers, and entrepreneurs to help drive innovation, notesVentureBeat. In addition, anIBM trend studyof more than 1,500 companies found that those who excel in business goals partnered more creatively with outside organizations and recruited less traditional partners for their efforts. Driving change Clearly, there are challenges for big organizations that want to become more entrepreneurial and respond quickly and efficiently to new ideas in order to stay competitive. Brad Smith, president and chief executive officer at Intuit, recentlynotedthat implementing change is not easy, partly because teams seek routine and repetition hoping to avoid (read more here) Photo: Bloomberg