Signaling the importance of innovation
What is an Innovation Room? I’m referring to those dedicated spaces in corporate office buildings, typically the size of a mid to large size conference room. They look different than the other offices: often colorful, little or modular furniture, relaxing seats, loaded with innovation-stimulating technologies (3D printers, Amazon Echo’s, VR/AR tools, interactive screens, etc.).
The purpose of these Innovation Rooms is to provide a dedicated, innovation inspiring location, where groups can gather to work on innovative solutions.
In our company Innovation Rooms have been established in many countries. Those areas are specifically created to allow employees and customers to brainstorm, ideate and experiment with business and customer solutions related to our key brands.
Innovation Rooms provide a strong signal from the local leadership that innovation is important to them. Those dedicated spaces help create a new mindset and demonstrate that the leadership is committed.
Innovation Rooms provide a location where one is invited to think differently, to play with new technologies, to familiarize participants with new gadgets and to experiment with new meeting styles.
Innovation Rooms provide an opportunity for different “silos” of the corporations to connect and collaborate.
Innovation Rooms signal to visiting customers that the company is committed to innovation. They can be one of the best customer engagement tools. They are an excellent place to conduct experiments together with these customers.
Some Innovation Leaders, while creating an Innovation Room, had to overcome typical “corporate” barriers. These ranged from requirements to have all offices in uniform corporate colors to safety and security regulations.
There is a risk that these Innovation Rooms end up as impressive spaces used as regular meeting rooms. I recall one dedicated, passionate Innovation Leader who addressed this by creating guiding rules on the use of “his” Innovation Room, e.g. only for innovation related activities, no power point presentations, book through him.
As Mahatma Gandhi said:
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
So, as global Innovation Leader, I did support local Innovation Leaders across the world who wanted to set up an Innovation Room by providing them with learnings from colleagues who ran Innovation Rooms in other countries: how those spaces looked like, how they were used, what worked, what didn’t work and connect them with their peers to share experiences.
More about this topic: Successful Innovation Labs Have These Four Things in Common and Creating Innovation Spaces
Do you agree? Disagree? Please discuss below!
More of my blogs on innovation: Wim Vandenhouweele
