the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
5, No. 7, July 2005
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Creative
Power of the (Not So) Many
By Jeff Govendo
I
just looked up the word “dinosaur” in the encyclopedia.
I did this because, having just learned about Wikipedia, the on-line
encyclopedia, I wanted to re-enact what I did when my dad brought
home our very first family encyclopedia when I was six years old.
Unlike the old World Book, which had about three pages on the subject,
this one had hyperlinks to specific subheadings and related sites
that would probably take me the better part of a day to go through.
Wikipedia
is a free, online resource with over 600,000 entries in English (there
are also versions in nearly every other language), and growing daily.
What is unique about this resource is that the articles are the
products of visitors to the site; they are added to and edited by
the readers themselves, with supposedly sufficient oversight to
prevent “crank” entries or blatant misinformation. Whether
reader-edited reference material proves viable in the long run or
is simply a passing cyberfad, only time will tell.
I
read about Wikipedia in a recent Business Week cover story about the
explosion of mass collaboration and information-sharing that is taking
place on the Internet, in the context of retail markets (e.g.,
eBay, Amazon), politics (the Drudge Report and thousands of other
blogs), technology (Linux, Skype phone service), entertainment (Apple
iTunes), product innovation (InnoCentive, which encourages product
ideas for corporate clients from legions of independent “inventors”),
and countless others. These collaboration sites are creating the cyberspace
equivalent of town meeting places, where people would gather to share
information, build on each other’s ideas, and no doubt disagree
and argue a lot.
Perhaps
it’s not surprising that in a world where conflict, preoccupation
over security, and political polarization have pulled so many people
apart, the desire to come together has never been stronger. The
Internet is providing a brand new way to address an age-old need,
albeit from a “safe distance.”
But
what if you’re not a giant, online marketplace like eBay, or
not willing to spend most of your waking hours facilitating discussions
on a blog? What if, instead, you’re a small manufacturer or
retailer with a modest-size workforce and budget, and still want the
benefits of creative thinking and excellent collaboration in order
to remain competitive? How can you even begin to approximate the
range of ideas and suggestions seen in these online enterprises?
Well,
it would be hard for anyone to compete with the combined brainpower
of several million contributors. On the other hand, in your business
you have something they don’t: nobody out there knows your line
of work as well as your own people. The expertise is right there.
All you have to do is couple that deep knowledge and wisdom with their
innate creativity, and your company’s capacity to innovate will
be inexhaustible.
In
the next issue of this newsletter (August), we’ll focus on some
specific things you can do to fully harness the creative power of
your workforce and customers.
And
you won’t have to spend a day looking it up in Wikipedia.
