A little while ago Twitter announced “Hack Week”, an initiative to allow Twitter employees to spend time trying to see what cool new ideas they can come up instead of doing their day jobs. This is similar to Facebook’s ‘Hackathon’ and Google’s 20% policy, whereby Google employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time working on side projects not directly related to their ‘job’.
Such initiatives stem from the understanding that a firm’s employees are a source of creativity and innovation which if tapped effectively can create great value for the employer.
It got me thinking though about how effectively vendors tap into the creativity spring that is their channel, which, in many ways, is an extension of the vendor’s own workforce. The channel partners will often have more direct contact with customers and users than the vendor’s own employees, so there’s huge potential value in their ideas and insights.
Yet how many vendors have programmes or processes which really seek out the innovative, out-of-the-box, groundbreaking ideas that the channel could potentially deliver? Aren’t many existing feedback mechanisms simply a ‘tick in the box’ so that the vendor can say they’ve fulfilled that particular obligation? In reality how many vendors still focused on pushing information at the channel, rather than genuinely soliciting their ideas, suggestions and yes, even their criticisms.
The successful vendors of the future will be the ones with the best eco-systems, and a successful eco-system relies on interactivity and genuine exchange of ideas and opinions. The tools exist now to make this sort of communication far easier than it was just a few years ago. So what are you doing to tap into the creative potential of your channel?
