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The tale of our Innovation Process- Mobex
Well the question has been revealed and the Challenge open for a week now and it’s been a busy one; promoting the Challenge, getting materials out to schools and profs, Twittering, answering student emails and speaking to student groups. If you think there’s an opportunity to speak to your class or club about Innovation and the challenge get in touch and we’ll see what we can do! (email nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com)
It’s been a good week for the Applied Innovation team overall. Two of our team members were recognized at the RBC awards gala (I’ll write about that later) and a really exciting pilot was launched. RBC Mobex, the mobile payments service made its debut on Sept 22. Mobex allows anyone who registers to send small payments via the text messaging feature of your call phone. It’s a very simple service which is going to have a big impact. Mobex is important to the AI team since the idea first got traction with us! My boss, Avi Pollock seeded the idea of mobile payments and pay-by-text a few years ago. At the time it seemed like he was gazing into a crystal ball and the idea met with a receptive but skeptical audience. Avi stuck out the Innovation process, gaining support, providing further insight from research and cross industry examples and finding executive sponsorship through our Innovation Council. Several aspects were put into the lab for proof of concept testing, allowing the RBC group interested to be well informed about something totally new as they formed a strategy. The idea became a full project anchored with the business sponsor and Avi stepped back to take a role as advisor and SME; this is the way it goes within our process. When we successfully move an innovation though the process we have to give it up! But we do so happily knowing that the business sponsor has the ability to take the innovation to market; we enable them and in turn they enable the bank. We find bank context, test, and incubate; they pilot, refine, institute and grow the innovative new product, process or capabilities.
Currently Mobex is in a public pilot mode; a great example of developing by experimentation. It’s been opened up to RBC staff, friends and family, but with Mobex making it so easy to send a few dollars we know it will spread. It’s over 1400 users already! Have a look at the end output of the Innovation process and let us know what you think- we're all friends of Innovation so feel free to try it!
A mini review of Mobex courtesy of Yeah I'm a Geek.com
The Third Challenge has been revealed!
Our 3rd annual Next Great Innovator Challenge is live! The wait is over and this year’s challenge question is now posted and team registration is open. We’re really excited about this year’s question:
"Suggest an innovative concept, product or process from another part of the world or different industry that Canadian financial services providers should adopt."
While it is open ended and forward looking as a good Innovation challenge should be (no stuffy historical cases here!) we’re hoping that it gets you really engaged. From our first 2 years of running the Challenge we’ve realized that you all have tremendous international experience and really interesting prior work experiences. So we thought why not see if the students of Canada can draw on that wealth of experience and pair it up with their assessments of the future of Canadian Financial Services? You have your chance to show us what other Financial Service providers do elsewhere in the world or what other industries have mastered and maybe you can change the banking game!
A few NEW things to note about this year’s Challenge:
- The timeline has been tuned up a little- registration is still 4 weeks, but you have an extra week to finish your proposal.
- You can still sign up for text alerts to remind you of milestones, and soon you’ll have a chance to pilot an online collaboration space and even share a synopis of your ideas with your trusted friends and mentors for feedback.
- A mobile version of the website, optimized for your phone's browser. Try innovator.shrinkraywireless.com on your phone!
- Check out the videos of last year’s finalists and the event. More video to come!
- We’ve added way more Innovation resources: some top SlideShare shows on Innovation, new links, a newsfeed with a round up on what’s new in Innovation.
- Twitter! Follow us, we’ll be updating regularly to give both Challenge insight and to share a little bit of our lives as innovation practitioners.
That’s not all- we’ll be adding features and material all through the fall to not only to help you with your entry, but to give you Innovation resources that you can keep on applying in school or in your careers.
Finally, don't forget you can post comments here on the Innovator blog, and you can send any questions to nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com.
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The Innovator Blog is your inside source for advice and guidance on the RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge™.
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