Love your case studies. Incredibly informative and challenging. I think Harrah’s innovation strategy is wonderful. Very democratic and empowering to involve employees, vendors, customers, etc.

Is the decision making process just as democratic; or do the CEO and VP of innovation simply make the call. How is the innovation decision communicated to all that participated? Does the employee votes count for anything except a count?

How do you involve your vendors and customers in the process? What’s in it for them? How does Harrah’s reciprocate; do their participating vendors and customers ask for Harrah’s participation in their innovation process in return?

Sorry for so many questions. If you find a moment, maybe you can pick two.

Great job!

Great work! I loved your calling out of the employee vote for their favorite innovation. Anything that fosters engagement and empowerment of people is a key opportunity to invite further passion for innovation from a workforce (especially useful during an economic downturn.)

Like commenter Steve Todd, I work at EMC. (In fact, we “met” via our employee social network.) Engagement via social media and 2.0 behavior models is a major theme at EMC, and we’re experiencing great benefits as a result.

We now use our employee social network, and its global membership, to help design the content and logistics of our annual Innovation Conference and Idea Contest — as well as to have discussions on the idea submissions. (Imagine developers and other interested minds discussing such ideas free of usual silo or geographical restraints. Imagine the other net new ideas that are generated from these discussions.) The conference itself is broadcast via a live feed so that everyone engaged throughout the year can participate — we’re able to toggle from Russia, to India, to Ireland, and other facilities, live for rotating discussions led from those regions. The conference culminates in a “Peer Choice Award” vote, held on our social network, and announced in real-time at the conference. The physical “award” itself is similar to the Stanley Cup — it travels each year to the country of origin with the best idea … adding a little positively-charged competition!

The take away here, I’ve seen, is of inclusion and empowerment in the innovation process. While the idea “stone” that is tossed in the company water is powerful, I suspect that the connections that come from the global inclusion and collaboration among interested minds that otherwise might never have known one another is at least as powerful.

Warmest regards,

Polly Pearson
VP Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement, EMC Corp