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How a Global Professional Services Corporation Tapped Open Innovation for Social Impact
SITUATION
Finding Novel Ideas for a Technology Ventures Team
How can a corporation that is serious about social responsibility launch the most effective campaigns in its focus areas? This is the fundamental question of a technology ventures team in a global professional services firm. Their goal is to find ways to leverage technology to make socioeconomic contributions, especially to underserved and minority populations. The team often needs to quickly collect diverse ideas and viewpoints as part of their initiatives.
SOLUTION
6 Ways to Gather Great Ideas
The technology ventures team has worked with MindSumo on multiple open innovation initiatives, each targeting an aspect of their work. Six of the challenges they launched were:
- Design a marketing campaign that inspires 50,000 Black and Latinx students to complete an online Digital Upskilling curriculum (respondents were required to download and complete the curriculum in order to submit their entry)
- Women in Tech, looking for US women who are making a difference in technology
- Who’s doing tech right (or wrong)?
- What should we call our “applied low-code” curriculum? Looking for a name for the team’s game-based learning tool to teach people entering the workforce how to produce results with little to no coding
- What is “best in class” when it comes to employee resource groups? Looking for best practices in promoting inclusion and belonging in enterprise employee resource groups
- Understanding the impacts of technology on the workforce, seeking the views of respondents about how technology evolution will affect the workforce, what concerns they have in the current economic climate, and what is most important to prepare for the future workplace (and why)
GATE
MindSumo managed the challenges through its platform and worked with the client to assess submissions and determine winners. A dedicated innovation project manager worked with the client on each challenge, including:
- Assistance in the initial scoping of the challenge content
- Consultation and expert input on what elements would make the challenge most successful
- Management of the launch, distribution, and promotion of the challenge
- Oversight of the submission review, curation, and rating process
RESULTS
Making Progress with Useful Input
l cases, the technology ventures team received a useful number of submissions that helped advance its initiatives. The first challenge, which required participating in the digital upskilling curriculum, received 39 submissions with 30 earning cash awards. Submissions in the other five challenges ranged from 108 (employee resource groups, 10 winners) to 387 (Women in Tech, 32 in top 50%), with low-code curriculum name (151), impacts of technology (237), and right/wrong tech (292) between them.
Each challenge had its own set of submission criteria and reward structure. Winners shared cash awards of varying amounts based on the results of the assessment:
- Marketing campaign – 30 winners
- Women in Tech – 32 scoring 8+ out of 10, 7 scoring 9+
- Right/wrong tech – 15 winners
- Low-code curriculum name – 4 winners
- Best-in-class employee resource groups – 10 winners
- Impact of technology – 8 winners
In addition, MindSumo prepared a report for each challenge that included data from digital analysis of the submission group. Data included word/term frequencies, custom and intelligent tags, key idea highlights, participant locations, word clouds, and supplemental question responses.
In every case, the technology impact office received valuable, idea-rich material that has enabled the successful achievement of key initiatives. In addition to receiving solutions for the main challenge, the office received solver responses to ancillary questions pertaining to the challenge and to topics of general interest to the company.
Industry
Technology
Number of Employees
65,000+
Company Revenue
$5 billion+
Areas Served
Global
30 winners, 39 submissions
Digital upskilling curriculum
67 winners, 387 submissions
Women in tech
8 winners, 109 submissions
Understanding the impacts of technology on the workforce
THE TEAM
Keaton manages the MindSumo business segment of MBO and is in charge of business development and building client relationships with enterprises and innovators on the platform.
THE TEAM
Vice President, Product
Keaton manages the MindSumo business segment of MBO and is in charge of business development and building client relationships with enterprises and innovators on the platform.
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