Swarm Vision Innovation Talent Blog

The Top Three Blogs on Innovation Talent

Posted by Suzan Briganti on Aug 17, 2017 4:23:28 PM
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This blog was originally published in InnovationManagement.se at on August 15, 2017. In the article, the author shares three surprising observations from analyzing the most popular innovation blogs.

 

Where is the Best Advice on Innovation Talent?

Innovation is a hot topic today. No wonder that there are numerous blogs on the subject. In a fascinating report, CapGemini found that “difficulty finding the right people to drive innovation efforts was the number one constraint to innovation success:”

Primary Constraints in Innovation.png
Source: CapGemini, Innovation Leader or Laggard, 2010

So we assumed there would be lots of good advice in these blogs on the people side of innovation ‑ innovation talent, leadership and teams. We set out, full of enthusiasm, to find the best blogs on innovation talent.

Our Methodology

The Swarm Vision team set out to identify the best blogs on the subject of innovation talent. How did we do it?

  • First we identified the top 60 blogs using several online lists
  • We then focused on those blogs with at least 5,000 Facebook fans or Twitter followers, of which there are 31
  • We then analyzed recent months of these 31 blogs, looking for any articles on innovation talent
  • We also searched key terms on each of 31 blogs to unearth older articles of relevance
  • We tagged each article on the aspects of innovation that it discussed (e.g. creativity, leadership, teams, hiring, retention, culture of innovation)
  • Finally, we rated each blog on the percentage of articles related to innovation talent, and on the quality of those articles. We defined quality as offering clear advice (not fluff) based on empirical results, not just assertion.

Three Surprising Findings

Based on our research, we reached three unexpected conclusions:

  1. Little out there on innovation talent

    Our first surprise was that the top 31 innovation blogs offer few articles on the subject of innovation talent. This is particularly surprising given how critical the people side of innovation truly is.

  2. Casual & vague treatment of innovation talent

    Our second surprise was how these mentions were mostly in passing, not dedicated in-depth treatments. The blogs that did mention the topic offered pretty vague advice, such as “You need to hire the right people for innovation,” with little guidance on just how to do that.

  3. No framework for innovation talent

    Thirdly, the subject of innovation talent seems to lack an organizing theory or framework. There are shards of wisdom here and there about creative people, environments that foster creativity, the power of diverse teams, and the like.

Our overall, but unexpected, finding is that the vital subject of innovation talent is not well developed, and that there is a need for a framework for innovation talent, to guide companies on their innovation journeys.

The Drumroll, Please

That being said, three innovation blogs stand out for covering the subject of innovation talent, and for specific articles of value. Consider these blogs your starting point:

Blog Name # Facebook Fans # Twitter Followers
Stephen Shapiro Blog 5,544 7,763
Innovation Management 5,213 12,205
Destination Innovation 112 33,640

 

What Do You Want to Learn About Innovation Talent?

We’d like your opinion. Please comment on this blog post, telling us:

  1. Is innovation talent an important subject for you?
  2. What specifically, do you struggle with when it comes to the people side of innovation?
  3. What would you like to read about in an innovation talent blog?

Based on your feedback, we may just dedicate our writing to cracking the meaty subject of innovation talent!

About the Author

SuzanBriganti.jpg

Suzan Briganti, CEO & Founder, Swarm Vision

Suzan Briganti brings 25 years of experience in research, strategy and innovation. Suzan has a patent pending in innovation software. She has grown Swarm Vision from a garage start-up to a trusted solution provider to global Fortune 500 clients. Swarm Vision is a platform to identify and leverage innovation talent in the enterprise to drive growth. Suzan leads Swarm Vision with a focus on building great products and teams. Suzan has an MBA summa cum laude from Boston University and a design degree from Italy.

Contact: suzan@swarmvision.com, @swarmvision

Topics: innovation teams, innovation research, Innovation, innovation talent