Bayer Corp., H.J. Heinz Co., PPG Industries Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Highmark Inc., Mine Safety Appliances Co., Philips Respironics and MEDRAD are all part of the first Culture of Innovation Collaboration Forum, which gathers regularly to learn from each other and from the group’s organizers, a trio of Pittsburgh-based design firms.
“Our focus is the innovation function in a company,” said Lou Musante, managing partner at Echo Strategies, one of the group’s organizers. “CEOs are coming to our (member) CTOs and R&D directors and saying, ‘I want sustainable growth.’ Innovation drives sustainable growth, and that comes from collaboration between R&D and business units.”
A visualization of notes from recent meetings of the Culture of Innovation Collaboration Forum.
The group learns about innovation process and also communication so new ideas can get disseminated and various arms of an organization can better work together.
In business, much is kept close to the vest for fear of competition, but, at the forum, each member is free to talk — all while maintaining their company’s confidentiality rules — and learn from each other and the various collaborators brought in by the organizers.
There is a small fee for membership, and participation in activities is key to finding value in the group, Musante said. Since its founding in 2009, there have been 25 sponsored events ranging from quarterly peer-to-peer discussions, smaller breakout meetings based on specific ideas like motivating knowledge workers or building a high performance team, and lunch and learns.
At Bayer, the company prides itself on its innovation work, and the forum allows employees to exchange ideas with peers from other national and global companies, said Craig Caputo, vice president of marketing and application development insulation systems at Bayer MaterialSciences LLC.
The company has been expanding its involvement in the group and has included 10 to 15 more employees this year. Caputo hopes to double that number by year’s end.
Wyman Lee, vice president of human resources at MEDRAD, said the company already is implementing what he is learning from the group, such as adopting a more aggressive use of rapid prototyping, and how to articulate ideas and new products both inside and outside the company.
He also appreciates the group’s loosely managed format.
“People have an opportunity to talk about mechanisms for innovation, as well as employee motivation; (it) just gives everyone an open forum for discovery, and I think that is one of the reasons the collaboration has been successful both in terms of maintaining people coming in and their desire to be open about what they are doing,” Lee said.
The group allows members to see how innovation and creativity is fostered in other companies, allowing people to learn how to look at challenges from a different perspective.
It’s a similar approach to the three design firms — Echo Strategies, Daedalus and ThoughtForm — that facilitate the forum. The companies are in similar spaces, but they each have a specific specialty to bring to the group.
“Right now, it’s about building a strong foundation for thought leadership and knowledge transfer,” said Steve Frank, business development director at ThoughtForm. “If it becomes a trusted and valued network, that is most important right now.”
The forum also can help with economic development in the region and attracting workers.
“I think the more of this we do, the faster we innovate, the more product we are able to develop that increases the reputation of Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania as a place where the knowledge industry flourishes,” Lee said.
The forum started as an offshoot of the Pittsburgh Chief Technology Officers forum and has been a good way for the three design firms to continue to work with their local customers, Musante said. He is trying to organize a second version of the forum, this time aimed at small to midsized companies with revenue between $100 million and $1 billion. So far, the groups are spreading through word of mouth, with email invites passed between people.
“There is a lot of networking groups and, usually, they are focused on sales, but this is a collaborative group focused on learning,” he said. “There is an underlying level of trust; we aren’t there to hustle, we are there to learn with them.”
Original Post by Malia Spencer covers manufacturing, higher education and technology. Contact her at mspencer@bizjournals.com or 412-208-3829. You can also follow her on Twitter.