IT Innovation Crisis: Getting to the Culture of Yes

Vivek Bhaskaran Survey Analytics and IdeaScale

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About Me

Founder of two companies BootStrapped, Profitable and Proud Used to be an IT/Tech Consultant

Let’s Talk About IT Perception

•  Poorly Understood

•  COGS – Like Government

•  Impedes You

•  Geeks

•  Wield Power – NO

•  Old Fashioned Entrepreneurs or Drones? #INTEROP14

Are We Something Like This?

Well, Maybe…But Some Facts

75% of CIO’s think they are aligned with Biz! 43% of Biz thinks IT is aligned with them! Net: About 30% of companies are clueless.

Source: Vivek’s Napkin Survey

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Now Some Real Facts About IT ü Best Listening Division in the Organization

ü Touches almost the entire company

ü Has an actual SLA

ü The “Yes” is silent, “No” is amplified IT is like Customer Support – you don’t think about it till you need it!

Let’s Change the Perception!

“All of our radical innovations come from people who are not domain experts.”

- Orange Telecom

Culture of YES!

ü Open Innovation

ü Listening & Communication Loop

ü Perspective

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Open Innovation

INCREMENTAL DISRUPTIVE

LOW RISK HIGH RISK STRATEGIC

LARGE SCALE

EMBEDDED SMALL SCALE

TYPES OF IDEAS

NATURE OF IDEAS

PRODUCTS / SERVICES

PROCESSES / METHODOLOGY

MARKETPLACE

STRUCTURE / ORGANIZATION

ROI Addiction vs. New Opportunity

“This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their

customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.” - Innovator’s Dilemma

Communication Loop

“Listen actively, respond quickly.” - Steve Jobs

Communication Loop

Be sure to show progress – even when you’re not implementing a solution so that a community comes to trust you.

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Listening = Empathy

We all feel the need to be listened to. Just the act of asking is noted. The ability to give feedback!

Perspective

“Our brains are wired to assume that ideas come from nearby are more concrete so they’re not considered as creative as the

more abstract concepts that come from further away.”

- Shankar Vedantam

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Perspective

Approach ideas first for their possibilities and

secondarily for their feasibility.

Q&A

•  Share a story of when your company met one of these challenges. How did they respond? •  IT has some key advantages in the

innovation space. What are they?

•  Other innovation challenges?

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Empower Innovation Listening Systems

Thank You!