Next Level Innovation Blog

my idea on IBM's collaborative Thinkplace space: shared office spaces in big city outskirts

by Yann A Gourvennec
This post was originally published on the Marketing & Innovation blog

A short while ago I went to visit one of my customers in order to have a discussion about innovation. One of the ideas that was mentioned during this meeting was about the need to have a repository in which ideas could be stored and in which one could also exchange and debate about them.  Immediately, the idea of a wiki sprang to my mind.  It's only natural because this is what I'm using in  the office; at Orange business services we have a Confluence(*) wiki platform, set up on top of an Oracle files database (a popular CMS platform used for building repositories) and the wiki enables us to store as many documents as we wish and start discussions with our colleagues and actually to organise ourselves around projects. This is very convenient and I thought it was worth mentioning in a discussion with my client.

  And indeed the client in question was interested.  However, this client also mentioned to me the name of a project by IBM that I have never heard of before: Thinkplace. At first I thought it was some sort of piece of software that you would put on the Intranet and then use to share material with your colleagues.  But then I realised, by searching the Web with the 'thinkplace' keyword, that thinkplace was actually a fully fledged open Internet website whereby anybody, repeat anybody, can post ideas in order to be debated with others. I don't know if that's web 2.0 for you, but I think that's a great idea.  So I entered my idea.  The only way to test the system, is to do it hands-on, and actually if it is about proposing new ideas and getting people to start discussions, I thought it would be a great opportunity to submit an idea I had thought of and get the opinion of others. So here's my idea, in writing and in a short video which I recorded for the purpose and posted on Facebook too.

TerraBella: Connected Shared Office Spaces In Big City Outskirts tags: collaboration, productivity, work The idea is to enable collective and fully connected shared open spaces, between different companies, on the outskirts of the cities of our big metropolises to avoid unnecessary commuting, + provide outstanding infrastructure & tools for knowledge workers Reduce the impact of commuting on the environment, improve work efficiency, develop open innovation, improve well-being of employees How would it work? How might it be implemented? Several high-tech companies could partner together to provide such shared spaces, in partnership with professional real-estate companies. Shared spaces could then be rented out to companies (large or medium) who would rent a number of cubicles for their employees: salespeople, knowledge workers, clerks etc What are the benefits to the stakeholders of this idea? The idea is to enable collective and fully connected shared open spaces, between different companies. On the outskirts of the cities of our big metropolises so as to avoid unnecessary commuting, as well as provide a work dedicated area for knowledge workers, and also entice knowledge sharing across different organisations. The project is not technologycal per se, but technology is of the essence when it comes to making people collaborate. These shared office spaces could also be the opportunity for high technology companies (IT infrastructure, application software, telecommunications etc) to demonstrate new technologies in the collaboration area, and even develop new tools, more pervasive, more user-friendly. The impact on the environment as well as the well-being of employees would be dramatic. Despite the availability of cheap and almost unlimited bandwidth, pervasive and outstanding collaboration tools, which enable people to share documents and even design new ones over the Internet without leaving their offices, I have noticed that working habits by and large haven't changed much in the past 15 years. Despite all the talk about remote working, mobility, pervasive computing etc, most of the knowledge workers from our big cities around the globe are still doing the same stupid thing everyday: spend hours commuting from their leafy suburbs to the centre of town, or even the other way round. However, should we ask these people sitting at their desk why they have to be in the office, I think we would be very surprised to discover that, for a vast majority of them, the people they work with most of the time are not sitting next to them in the cubicle next door, but faraway. And even when they are located in a nearby building, chances are they will talk to eachother over the phone. The benefit would be manyfold. High-tech companies would not only make revenue on this, but that would also provide them some sort of showcase for their new technologies, and they would also be able to benefit from this initiative to show that their ideas can have a positive impact on the environment. This would be a compelling living proof that technology can actually do something about the environment. Participating companies would also benefit from this idea because they will have to invest less in real estate, they would have more flexible workforces, and it has also been proven by IBM in a similar experiment in Paris, France (1995 and beyond) that on average employees were gaining 1 1/2 hours every day on travel time and that one of our out of this one hour and a half was reinvested in work and productivity (employees been keen to show that they don't benefit from the system but are more productive.

(*) Confluence is one of the platforms made available to enterprises in order to set up internal wikis

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHUVBZW6oIU]

Innovation & cross media: Picnic '06

Last week I was at the Picnic '06, Cross Media Week in Amsterdam. Not only was the Westergasfabriek a nice location for meeting each other, the whole entourage and atmosphere I found very stimulating. But of course that was not the only reason I went...

During the three cross media-focussed days I heared 'between the lines', that a lot of succesfull (innovative) idea's spring from enthousiasm, teaming and creativity.

It was very cool to see the Pixar presentation by Michael B. Johnson, where the enthousiasm just spluttered all around when he gave us some insight in the process of creating a movie. On friday I listened to John Underkoffler (worked on Minority Report), talking about his view on the replacement of the current computermouse. He showed us a video of the Gesture Glove, in which enthousiasm and creativity were centric again...

Another thing I heared a lot at the Picnic was the buzz of 'user-generated content'. This is, as you probably all know, one of the most important factors in Web 2.0.

If I should name two companies that really get it (and inspire me), I'd say MTV Networks and Linden Lab (creators of Second Life).

• MTV Networks: because of projects like Digital Scout and Flux, that give young people the opportunity to make their generated content count in today's world. Simon Guild, President MTV Europe, said MTV is all about constantly pushing the creative boundaries. For the Flux concept in Italy, they promoted the website YOS.it. Nobody knew MTV was behind this, and the page was at first all black. For every visit another pixel appeared, till the whole Flux page was visible...
• Linden Lab, Second Life: because this game is all about what the users do with it. You can create your own house, company, cars, etc, and can even make a good living out of it. Where other games restrict their users, Second Life gives a lot of opportunities. For example, the PR company Text100 (also speaking at Picnic) opened it's first office in Second Life and even conferences are finding their way to this virtual world.

Of course there are a lot of other good examples, so feel free to put your favorites in the comments.

Finally I'd like to tell you about the presentation by Joseph Jaffe. Mostly revolving around his book Life after the 30 second spot, he tells the audience about the fact that consumers aren't stupid anymore and they're no longer impressed by 50 years of branding. The new branding is about engagement, reach out to your customers and connect with them. Sharing, respect, listening, working together...

I seriously started to doubt then and there, wheter the big companies with long history (such as IBM) are able to make the switch on time, to this new branding Jaffe talkes about... And if you'd ask me if they're able to handle Web 2.0? I think most traditional marketers and comms are scared as hell of customers having a voice.

An interesting quote for marketers from Jaffe, which I fully agree on: "Consumers know your brand better than you". Let's start learning from them!

Web 2.0: Power to the people!

My favorite innovations of the last few years are in the area of Web 2.0. (I leave such things as the wheel and the ability to start a fire out of my list to pick from:-) )

Web 2.0 is a set of technologies, such as Blogs, Wikis and social bookmarking that allow internet users to very quickly publish on the internet. They're able to set up collaboration tools to reach out to communities, build communities, and send their message into the world. And all of this is possible without the need for expensive IT tools and highly trained consultants to do it for them. Anyone can do it! (well..?)

This movement will have a great impact on society, as I like to illustrate with the analogy to e-business:

With the start of e-business, every mom and pop shop could suddenly sell their products to a global set of customers, just by setting up a web shop. This privelege had until then been restricted to global corporations with their global distribution channels and global presence. Overnight it didn't matter anymore who you are, and how wel organized you are internationally, but it mattered what you are offering and at what price.

In Web 2.0, any individual or community can suddenly have a net presence, that until now has been the privilege of Global publishing and entertainment companies such as CNN and Disney with their global distribution channels and brand presence. Now, it doesn't matter anymore who you are and how wel organized you are internationally, but it matters what you have to say.

A very good example is Wikipedia, a free and on-line encyclopedia that is updated with the speed of a newpaper, but is starting to reach the depth and quality of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica.

Another Example is YouTube, where people share their own Videos. This site has a lot of vistors, and is really becoming new entertaniment brand. Myself for sur, I cannot yet oversee what people will come up with to do with these new technologies, but they surely lower the barrier for individuals and communities to influence the global  discussions and issues. As traditionally corporations, governements and NGO's have done.

To me this is democracy at the next level - Power to the people!

Corporate innovation process

As i read on Corante - Ideaflow this report is still being edited, but might be very interesting to have a look at. Among other things, it gives a clear overview of the corporate innovation process.

Innovation is like a dishwasher

Image and quote from Jangandabla.com:

"Is innovation any fun? Is it just to come up with a new idea? (...) I think that innovation is fun - but also hard work..."

Ants! Innovation at your feet.

As of 2006 there are approximately 12.000 known ant species. The biomass of all these ants on this globe exceeds that of any other species, they can survive in almost any environment and exist for over a 100 million years. Talking about getting big by being small! Our society resembles an ant mound in which small organisations can act big, just by realising innovation, that equals cooperation. IT enables them to act like ants, to collaborate faster, broader and deeper.

But it is not just small organisations that need to cooperate for growth. Like the rhino needs the oxpecker (a small bird) to keep its skin healthy, large organisation need to cooperate with their customers. Listen, get inspired an act. It is no more a do-it-your-self society we are living in!

So, I´m just wondering what we can learn from nature, will National Geographic guide us through? Will your cat bring us the next breakthrough? In a broader view, I wonder where we should look to actually find ideas for innovation...

Collecting opinions in the field through podcasting

As part of the activities around Next Level we have been busy recording a podcasting series called Opinions in the field.  The series is aimed at an internal IBM audience and in the series young professionals interview colleagues on how they see innovation.

Most of us having never recorded a podcast before, had to learn very quickly how to do this, and at first we certainly underestimated the time and effort it takes to create a good podcast! It turns out sticking a microphone under someone´s nose spontaneously doesn´t do the trick...

However, organising this podcasting series have really made me see the power of new media. It was not only valuable for myself, the other young professionals and  experts to have discussions on how we innovate in our daily work, but since we published the interviews on our intranet, a lot of reactions have been coming back from people!

Not only that they thought it was interesting and fun(ny) to listen to, but also people wanted to know more about the subjects colleagues talked about, and about the possibilities of podcasting. IBMers have contacted us with their own ideas on setting up similiar types of series.

To me this is what makes trying new tools so interesting, the unexpected reactions and good ideas that follow on.

Innovation that matters video

At IBM, we also sing songs to explain how Innovation can help you. Watch and listen to the video.