Depending on the people involved, their motivations, and the phase of the moon, you may or may not find fertile ground for the practice of collaborative innovation.

In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores the fecund places that you, as a practitioner, may want to think about planting your seed of ideation to ensure a bountiful harvest.

Seymourpowell has finally revealed the design details of the new on-bar livery for Guinness, the Global rollout commencing in November 2012 in the UK and Ireland. The inherent contrasts and complexities of Guinness as a beer and global icon were the key factors that influenced the design language of the whole project.…

Our world is a system that contains many sub-systems: the oceans, the forests, the climate – all are complex, fragile and well calibrated organisms with a system character. If one of the parts is not running well, the others will suffer as well: one weak spot will influences the overall performance. Systems can repair themselves, once they are not running well – unless the weak spot is getting larger than the self-curing ability of the parts involved. Then the whole system can collapse: system failures are the most wicked problems around us.

Also a business is a system: it consists out of separated parts that in order to function are heavily dependent on each other. A customer is one of these parts that belongs to the ‘business system’, and is mostly considered to be the weak spot. No wonder that most…

The front end of innovation offers organizations engagement. Engaged people bring more of their gifts to the table. The back end of innovation offers organizations ideas that, when implemented, bring relative advantage. Each idea has its own story of relative advantage and risk. How do you tell the back end story in a valid, credible way?

In this article innovation architect Doug Collins commends people who practice collaborative innovation to their organization’s chief financial officer. Having heard many, many tales of the back end, she can guide you. You can help her, too.