What do a business author, a financial journalist, a medical illustrator, and a software architect have in common? If I said advice on innovation, would it surprise you?

^[1]Practically Radical, William C. Taylor’s latest book ^[2], is a wonderful thought provoker, full of stories of companies and leaders taking a novel approach to improve profits and create new enterprises. One of Taylor’s main concepts addresses the idea of engaging customers and in some cases any interested persons for ideas for new products, for solutions to business and technical problems and even for product design. Although companies are constantly receiving feedback from customers, Taylor encourages reaching out beyond customers and well beyond the responsible employee group to consciously track, value and encourage participation from the human race.

This is very reminiscent of the “wisdom of crowds” data presented in detail by James Surowiecki, a financial journalist, in his 2004 book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Here, he suggests that ideas submitted by a wide range of people are of higher quality and greater innovation than those by a single individual or an ongoing committee of people. Surowiecki’s criteria for successful use of crowds require that each individual’s input is formed independently of the input of others, that they use their unique experiences and knowledge to formulate their ideas, that the individuals receive the known facts and interpret them in their own way, and that there be a way to collect all the ideas and create useful data.

The power of collective independent intelligence also brings to mind the Photosynth project in which a collection of independent input is gathered to create a more complete and more accurate whole. See the TED Talk titled, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth ^[3].  Photosynth technology takes Flicker photographs which include partial images (for example, of a structure or landscape) submitted by anyone, anywhere in the world and intelligently combines the partial images of a subject (such as the Eiffel Tower) to create a perfect image of the complete structure of the subject. Thereby it takes input from the world of people who have independently taken subject-related photos and creates something that all can then enjoy and use. This conglomeration of independent images to create a whole image may lead to new discoveries, ideas, connections or historical revelations drawn from the wider audience that the picture of the subject now reaches. 

In the same vein, in the well-known TED talk titled, David Bolinsky Animates a Cell ^[4], Bolinsky, a medical illustrator and animator, explains that he took on a project for Harvard to animate a cell in an enlarged movie format to unveil the amazing activity that goes on in these complex metropolises called our cells. “Cells work to help our bodies – huge entities that they will never see – function properly,” he says.

It strikes me that if we contemplate each individual as a cell or an element of a cell, we can extend the thought to say that each of us is ultimately working to make this world function better, even if we don’t realize the part we play.  As in the Photosynth project, the contributors don’t necessarily even know about the end product being created. This concept is proven over and over in Taylor’s book, where he provides instances where contributors, unrelated to the reward system of the business, offer profitable ideas for improvements.

3 Ways to Get to Your Best Solutions

So how can your business achieve benefit from the arguably infinite number of ideas in the collective intelligence? Here are 3 ideas:

• Restructure your reward and recognition systems so no one leader or business unit feels it needs to come up with the answer alone but focuses on the business results (and not the source of the innovation) for performance assessment, in this way encouraging the acceptance and use of other’s ideas.
• Have a distinct recognition program for idea submission designed to encourage business units to seek a wide range of ideas and encourage others to want to contribute.
• Make your process to develop the business vision, strategies and product plans more inclusive by engaging diverse talents in these deliberations and having a structured system to evaluate and put ideas into action. 

The best strategies and initiatives are developed with extensive input and participation, tapping into the intelligence of many. As I advise my clients, it never hurts to ask…EVERYONE.

Sharon Terry, Senior Consultant at LaserBeam Consulting, helps executives unleash their own and their business’ full potential, allowing them to amaze their customers, leapfrog competitors and grow rapidly.