{"id":236,"date":"2009-04-15T07:59:53","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T13:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workingknowledge.com\/blog\/?p=236"},"modified":"2023-03-02T21:29:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T03:29:00","slug":"identify-priority-innovation-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/identify-priority-innovation-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Identify Priority Innovation Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Point:<\/strong> Define priority innovation areas to harness employee energy<\/p>\n<p><strong>Story: <\/strong>When it comes to innovation, Harrah&#8217;s Entertainment doesn&#8217;t play games. The operator of a global chain of 50 casinos is pursuing a theme-focused innovation strategy similar to technology giant Hewlett-Packard and venture capital firm The Foundry Group.  The company identified six areas of interest (akin to HP&#8217;s 8 themes and Foundry&#8217;s 5 themes &#8211; see <a href=\"http:\/\/workingknowledge.com\/blog\/?p=173\">Innovation Investment Strategy<\/a>).  Harrah&#8217;s target areas are: enabling technologies (such as wireless and radio frequency identification); enabling platforms (cloud computing, service-oriented architecture, anything-as-a-service); &#8220;smart&#8221; service (self-service kiosks); interactive CRM; next-generation gaming; and expanded channels to reach customers.<\/p>\n<p>An innovation team of about 10 people from IT, marketing, customer service and gaming evaluate idea submissions from employees. Harrah&#8217;s also taps the innovations of vendors and is considering enlisting the public in seeking new innovations in gaming and entertainment. To gather even more feedback, Harrah&#8217;s created an &#8220;Innovation Portal&#8221; where employees can vote for their favorite innovation.  Top management (CEO Gary Loveman and VP of Innovation Chris Chang) then decides which ideas ultimately get funded.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Action:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Identify the areas of top priority to your firm, to help steer energy &amp; momentum in the areas that will provide most value to your firm.<\/li>\n<li> Use themes to look for the deeper, long-term enablers and platforms rather than shallow short-term gadgets and projects.<\/li>\n<li> Ask employees for suggestions, feedback or votes on ideas within these areas<\/li>\n<li> Consider involving vendors, customers and the public as well, to expand the pool of ideas. (This strategy will require thinking through the IP issues.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For more information on Harrah&#8217;s: <em>Network Computing<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/networkcomputing.in\/Structuring-Innovation-001Apr009.aspx\">article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Innovation and new product development are often open-ended.  To focus employee efforts, identify the areas that will provide most value and return to your firm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[71,45,5,11,21,34],"tags":[377,100,371,101,68,375],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-study","category-customers","category-how-to","category-innovation","category-new-product-development","category-strategy","tag-case-study","tag-cloud-computing","tag-innovation","tag-interactive","tag-investment","tag-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2291,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/2291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workingknowledge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}