Thinking socially

For any company undergoing a major transition -- from a start up to a merger to a significant change in the marketplace, and so on -- new thinking and new perspectives are more valuable than ever.

One company that thrives on the constant influx of new ideas is Medtronic, the world's largest maker of medical devices. In an article in MIT's Technology Review, the company describes its approach to managing the process. In some ways, managing may be too strong a word. What the company is doing is simply making it possible for its 5,000 scientists and engineers to bring new thinking to bear on their product development work.

The Medronic approach includes:

-- A heavy emphasis on social networking technology built on top of a Microsoft SharePoint software;

-- Wiki-like social networking tools that help to break down knowledge silos;

-- Seeking outside expertise through Innocentive, an open innovation network that allows participants to post challenges or technical problems anonymously worldwide.

According to Mike Hess, Medtronic's vice president of innovative excellence:

"The company has developed community pages centered on specific topics, similar to fan pages on Facebook. 'When new people come into the organization or a project area, they have some knowledge to tap into,' he says. 'For example, we use lots of materials in different medical products that have different characteristics. We are using social networking to make information about those materials more systematic.'

Of course any such system can not be implemented in isolation from the working environment or indeed the culture of a given company. These are tools, after all. People have to be motivated, and skilled enough, to use them in the right way. Imagine an improvisational team such as a jazz ensemble that's suddenly joined by a classically-trained pianist.  Needless to say, a few things have to happen before the true collaboration begins.