Leveraging social networks for innovation

Many well-known organisations are leveraging the connective power of social media to enhance innovation in the workplace. There are clear opportunities, and potential challenges, for social networks to transform the way ideas are generated and collated.

Many employers are understandably concerned about on-the-job use of social networks because they promote informal groups of individuals which cannot be easily controlled. Yet it is Manpower’s view that this kind of structure does quite the opposite and can add real value to a business. Most of the best ideas are borne out of causal conversations or exchanges, rather than meetings or workshops. By giving employees shared responsibility to generate ideas it is possible to drive emotional and intellectual engagement, as it recognises that their insights and ideas are critical to the company’s success.

Today, most organisations are set up for teams and individuals to work in silos, but social networks can potentially be the link between these silos, creating an open working structure. In doing so, companies create a culture where employees are encouraged to share ideas freely and easily – which means good ideas and insights become ingrained into the company culture – and work is less likely to be duplicated.

Not only can social networks help create an innovative culture inside the organisation, social networks provide a platform for “open innovation,” by allowing companies to build channels to customers, academics and independent inventors who used to be hard to reach in a targeted and sustained way. IBM has launched dozens of new initiatives and improved their existing offerings and practices based on ideas drawn from its “Innovation Jams,” huge online brainstorming sessions attended by its global employees, partners and customers. Manpower Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres has more than 500 Facebook friends who are Manpower employees from around the world. He says access to their unfiltered ideas has informed his view of the business in exciting new ways.

Social networks are also having a significant impact on smaller businesses; small business owners and entrepreneurs can use social networks as a channel to reach enormous audiences alongside bigger brands and organisations to test out ideas.

In addition, social networks can help identify experts in a particular area or groups of people with the same knowledge and interests. Many public sites have already become a powerful tool for linking together “communities of interest” – groups of people connected by personal or professional interest in a particular subject matter, anything from online marketing to pharmaceutical research. These efforts can prove especially valuable in capturing and transferring knowledge across organisational silos.

To harness the power of social networks for innovation it is essential that an innovation mindset becomes institutionalised and internalised in any organisation. By creating clear objectives and outcomes for a social network this can be achieved across an organisation. Keeping employees informed about where their ideas are going and what they have contributed to will ensure they are motivated to keep fuelling the innovative culture. In doing so, organisations tap into a creative culture that liberates innovation at all levels – creating a competitive advantage for the company.

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Peter Haglund, Country Manager, Manpower Staffing Services