The Organizational Network Fieldbook: Best Practices, Techniques, and Exercises to Drive Organizational Innovation and Performance

Chapter 14. THE INNOVATION LAB: BUILDING IDEA-SHARING NETWORKS

Jean Singer and Kristi Droppers

Too often, a firm's potential for innovation goes unrealized because it is unable to combine the ideas, energies, and skills of people working in disconnected pockets of the organization. Differences in function or region, or even in demographics such as age and gender, can separate people into homogeneous pools and inhibit the stimulating exchange of ideas. Whether it involves an R&D scientist and a member of the company's real estate department who together recognize an opportunity to turn empty office space into sites for start-up companies, or a Gen-Xer and a senior manager who figure out how to use Facebook to reduce employee turnover, the ability ...