In this video, Jack Dorsey talks about innovation, Square and Twitter. Personally, I think Jack is one of the worlds greatest innovators and also an enabler of great innovation. Keep it simple, get it to the users and move on.
Its a quick video but much can be pulled from what Jack is saying. I think first and foremost, innovators need tools to innovate. He doesn’t go out to directly say that but in the case of Square, his tool set was his ability to code and his financial resources to get a prototype built and to the market quickly.
Getting it to users (and quick!) is another. Often times in enterprises we tend to over think the implementation of tools. In some verticals like healthcare and financial services it just has to be that way, but get a POC up, let users test it, show it to the business, refine based on feedback and get production out the door. You obviously have to roll this out with some thought around governance and roles but those should not stop it. Part of getting it to users quickly is also to keep it simple. In the case of most Social Software packages like Connections and Jive, you get a lot out of the box. Often times this meets or exceeds what the business wants. So go vanilla, buy a few latte’s for the CSS guru in the company to add some flare to the skin and let it roll.
Move on. Get sponsorship, get it to production, roll it out and create best practices. Let users get their hands dirty and then improve over time. Now that the business has a tool that they user they will tell you gaps and you can fill those as needed.
