Three Tips for Building Your Innovation Networks

Want to come up with inventive products and insightful solutions to problems plaguing your organization? Don't turn to your office mates down the hall; look to your innovation network.

That's the report from "Innovation: Sometimes it Takes a Village," an article discussing a recent conference on the topic of innovation networks at Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation.

What, exactly, is an innovation network? It consists of other companies, foundations or individuals who collaborate with your company in a developmental capacity.

While many companies like the idea of bringing new perspectives to the table, they might struggle to find ways to put into practice an innovation network. Here are a few tips that conference goers learned.

• 1. Implement internal programs: If the contributions of an innovation network are too free form or casual, they aren't going to meaningfully impact your company. Larry Huston, a senior fellow at the Mack Center, encourages companies to build an infrastructure to allow significant input from outside contributors. Huston experienced the success of this approach firsthand: as a vice president at Proctor and Gamble, he increased innovation productivity by 60 percent through his "Connect and Develop Strategy," working with researchers and developers outside of the company.
• 2. Consult with people in other fields: Conference speakers also discussed the need to reach out across disciplines in order to solve big problems. For example, 20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, oil experts couldn't figure out how to remove the oil frozen on the ocean floor. The person who figured it out was a construction engineer.
• 3. Shift company policies if necessary: Conference speaker Patia McGrath, who is the global director of innovation at GE, admitted that her company didn't always partner well. Once the company identified the importance of doing so, GE changed its policy of "acquire it of build it ourselves," said McGrath, and started aggressively building its innovation network.