^

The Innovative Power of

"\^

MUNITIES
\
\ By Chris Grams

\
These words were originally spoken by two-time Nobel Prize vnnner Linus Pauling. You need not be a brilliant scientist to appreciate the simple concept: the more ideas you collect, the better the chance that one or more of them will be truly unique and
innovative.

"The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas."

Many of today's most successful organizations maximize their potential to develop truly innovative breakthroughs by creating internal cultures that encourage the collection of diverse ideas. In these organizations, the best ideas can come from any
wherenot just top managementand often do.

Looking to be

I should know. I spent a decade working for one such meritocracy: the open source technology company Red Hat. During my time there, we grew from a 100-person startup in Durham, North Carolina, to a global technology leader with $1 billion in
annual revenues and offices in almost 60 countries around the world.

more innovative? Here's how to into the ideas of

successfully tap
your external community.

If a key to creating an innovative organization is empowering as many people as possible inside the organization to contribute their best ideas, Red Hat took things a step further. We didn't just involve the people inside the organization in the

LISTEN TO THIS FEATURE

at www.astd.org/TDpodcasts
Photo by Veer

JULY 2012 I T+D I 49

Look for places where there can be an obvious mutual \ exchange of value to find the best opportunities for opening \^
up the innovation process to outside community groups.
have intellectucd property or competitive reasons why opening up some parts of the organization just doesn't make sense.
If it doesn't make sense, don't do it.

the best opportunities for opening up the innovation process to outside community
groups.

Instead look for places where it would be easy and mutually beneficial for your organization to open up to the external community. At Red Hat, we had a rule we referred to as "defaulting to open." This meant we would be as transparent as possible about the inner workings of the business by default, and keep things private only when we had a good reason. Most organizations operate the opposite way, closed by default and only sharing with the outside world when absolutely
necessary.

Be of the community, not above the community Let's face it: most organizations think of themselves as the center of a community ecosystem. But I bet most of the people in the external community don't see them
selves in orbit around your organization. Successful innovating with an external community requires an organization to show humilitynot always having to
be at the center of the universe. Does it

might even originate from efforts hatched outside the organization as well. Spend some time looking for promising inno vative efforts to join forces with in the outside world rather than feeling like all innovation has to start with efforts you initiate. You may discover some amazing opportunities you were blind to before.
More ideas lead to better ideas

One of the key figures in the open source

software movement is Linus Torvalds,

always have to be your commimity? Do others always have to collaborate on your

projects?

the creator of the Linux operating sys tem. In explaining why he opened up the development of his software to any contributor who wanted to get involved versus developing it himself behind
closed doors, Torvalds once said, "Given

The benefit of a default-to-open mind set is that you are collaborating openly as standard operating procedure rather than searching for one or two opportunities
that make sense. Because of this, col
laboration with the outside communities

I prefer an "of the community, not above the community" approach to engaging external communities. What
does this mean?

enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." By this he meant that the more people
involved in the creation of the software,

the more "bugs" (defects in the software)

they could uncover quickly. Surely two Linuses can't be wrong. You'll get better ideas when you get more ideas. You'll solve more problems when you have more people working on them. So follow these five tips, and

It means your organization doesn't

need to lead or originate every commu

becomes more common, more natural,

and less forced.

When looking for places to engage with external communities, I always start by looking at the opportunities where both the organization and community members might benefit. For example, perhaps you've had reports from several customers who think they could significantiy increase their own revenues if one of your products had a certain feature. Because this opportunity for innovation would benefit both sides, it might be a perfect opportunity to collaborate. We saw this situation happen often at Red Hat, where key customers needed a particular part of the software to do something it didn't currently do. Because these customers saw huge benefits for
their own businesses if the feature was in

nity effort in which it is involved ("above the community"). It doesn't always have to set the agenda. Sometimes by simply joining or observing an existing effort ("of the community") rather than start
ing a new one of your own, you'll get more fresh ideas, more energy, and more contributions than if you force others to join your projects. And if you want to lead

a project, you may find more success if you earn your right to lead from within through your contributions over time.
At Red Hat, we looked for the best and

I hope you'll be on your way to having many more eyes both inside and out side your organization uncovering more ideas, helping you to determine the best ones, and turning them into innovations you would have never imagined possible
before.

Chris Grams is president and partner ai New

place, many of them were wiUing to share their ideas for how the feamre might be implemented. Some of them even put their ovm developers to work on writing code alongside our developers. Look for places where there can be an obvious mutual exchange of value to find

most promising open source software projects and, even if they didn't originate with Red Hat, we would still join them as participants. Sometimes this meant we'd enlist our own engineers to work on a project, sometimes we'd use our brand to help the effort gain more attention and credibility, and we might even help fund
or finance it.

Kind, where he builds sustainable brands, cul

tures, and communities in and around compa nies and organizations; chris@newkind.com.

The key is being open to the possibil ity that the best innovative ideas for your organization might not only come from people outside the organization, but

INTERESTED IN ORDERING E-PRINTS?

Would a digital version of this article be a great fit tor your next course, presentation, or event? Are you interested in e-prints of several T+D articles

on a specific topic? Visit www.astd.org/TD. and

click on "About T+D," for more information.

JULY 2012 I T+D I 51