http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/ en Copyright 2009 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:09:04 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss And more importantly, how to describe them in such a way that will WIN a spot in the finals. It has been my experience that it can be helpful to understand the framework that the narrative (the story of your idea) needs to be presented in early- not to bias your writing but to balance it. I thought I would tackle the proposal template for you to make sure you can spend more time on your idea and have less to worry about in the write up. Unfortunately we can’t post the contents of prior years’ proposals, but I can go through the template section by section in the next few posts, giving you some insight into what should appear there. My first recommendation is please follow the format. In order to be consistent as a judge the format has to be uniform across all submissions, thus enabling us to really look at the content. Every year a few teams invent sections while it may have great content it doesn’t track with the judging criteria. Let’s look at each main section: Proposed Innovation “Suggest innovative methods or tactics to transform the workplace to match the needs of an evolving and increasingly diverse workforce.” You can tease us in the executive summary, but in this section you have to give details! Bring in the context of your idea, why you feel it has value and for whom and start fleshing it out. Use tight conclusions on the “whys” and results, but don’t provide every shred of evidence here; use the appendixes to hold your evidence and back up your proposed results. You can describe: - Describe the target of your innovation and their value structure. Who are they? Give us their characteristics and the conclusions on what will need to change and why they will benefit. - The description of the innovation itself: why is it, what does it do, for whom, when, where, where it’s coming from, why you think it’s important, what supports it etc. - The unmet need or opportunity your innovation targets, or the risk it mitigates. - Interim conclusions, summaries of results and proposed outcomes; make the reader want to continue on to find out more. - Why your innovation is something Financial Services providers don’t know or do but should! - Anything you feel really introduces your innovation to us and sets the Canadian Financial Services context. Implementation Plan “Describe, at a high level, the key things that should be considered for development and implementation of this idea.” This is the real meat of your proposal. Here you answer the implied part of the Challenge; that is HOW Financial Services providers actually would use your idea to create a different workplace or way to work. A great idea without a plan attached is not yet an innovation. Here you add the plan and really start to create an innovation. Mastering this is what makes our team APPLIED Innovation. We know you’ll have made assumptions about the sector, and costs and even lines of business and that’s OK. Just be sure to clearly state what assumptions (also fits nicely in the appendix) you made. It’s the framework that you are setting out to make your innovation fly that we really want to see. Remember this is another section to expand on your idea. Give us the key elements, tactics, capabilities and steps here and any conclusions justifying them, but put the detailed evidence in your appendix. We want to know that you have a vision on how your innovation will work! Impact of your Innovation “Describe the area (who or what) your innovation will impact and the outcome. What implications does this have for the future of Canadian Financial Services?” This is a fantastic area to really give us the “sell”. Show us who your innovation will add value for. Tell us your insights into those employees, managers, leaders, clients or stakeholders,. Tell us how this will change the workplace in Canadian Financial Services for the portion of the workforce you have concentrated on, and how that relates to customers, other parts of a Financial Services provider or the shareholders. For example: does you innovation allow us to work differently, therefore allowing more talented employees to do more for the client? Or perhaps it streamlines some work function using technology and allows a better work life balance for all employees? Or is it a connection between groups which preserves or creates knowledge and makes the business unit more effective and competitive? How does it make this workplace THE workplace of the future? And the real fun of innovation is taking us into the realm of the possible; make a call on how your innovation will shape the future. Appendixes I love appendices. By putting evidence and information in the appendices you can write a very nimble proposal which focuses on the key elements, conclusions and RESULTS while referring the reader to your appendices for the evidence. And since we do not limit the word count on the appendices or in fact the format you can really beef up your argument here. You can use just about any sort of content; we’ve had financials of course, and research, but we’ve also had resumes, storyboards, charts, prototypes, mock ups and even strategic analysis in innovative frameworks (Blue Ocean, VRIO- some of my favorites!) Next post- the Executive Summary! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/challenge_tips_1_the_body_of_the_proposal.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/challenge_tips_1_the_body_of_the_proposal.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:09:04 -0500 COULD BE. What workplace do you want to have? What is the “art of the possible”? Then you can narrow down from there. We are looking for your idea in a financial services industry context, but not necessarily an explicitly as an RBC case. If you are looking for inspiring materials check out the Innovation Center. We’ve just uploaded new links to some great blogs and reports on the Challenge theme and we’ve also chosen some interesting SlideShare presentations to start you off on the issues and opportunities in the workplace of the future. If you are interested in the diversity angle, have a look at the recent Canadian Immigrant interview with Zabeen Hirji, our Chief Human Resources Officer, and the executive sponsor of this year’s Challenge. Here are some thought starters I’ve been sharing with students. When you are considering ideas ask yourself things like: • How do you create collaboration and meaningful connections across a multi-generational and/or increasingly, diverse workforce? • What technologies will be needed to navigate the evolution of the workplace? What cultural shifts must occur? • How do those characteristics and needs relate to work as it is? As it will be? • How will your proposal create value for employees, clients and the enterprise? • Does your innovative idea and plan: target a specific portion of the workforce, a specific line of business or functional area? • How does yout innovation create competitive advantage? That should get you started on your path to innovation. Next blog I’ll talk about tackling the problem or hypothesis and how to get insight about the workplace(s) in the Canadian Financial Service industry. ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/thought_starters_for_this_year_1.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/thought_starters_for_this_year_1.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:30:28 -0500 We’ll extend team registration to midnight, local time, on Thursday November 5th. The online registration is closed, so to get a late team in you need to email all team details to nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com. Be sure to include: Team name Contact information for each member Name Address with postal code Email address Phone number School and area of study We’ll update the database and send you your team profile ID and password. Keep in mind we cannot extend the proposal deadline, so make sure you are ready to submit by Dec 6th. Check in on my next blog on thought starters for this year’s challenge theme! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/extension_for_team_registratio.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/extension_for_team_registratio.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:23:34 -0500 Innovation Tool Box with some links to sources to get you thinking about the workplace/workforce of the future. We’ve also selected some new SlideShare presentations to give you some angles to think about. Finally, the secure idea share feature is running as part of your team profile. You can enter the kernel of your idea under the Share my Innovation option, and create a list of mentors/advisors to send the idea too. They’ll receive an invitation to log in, rate your idea and leave comments. You may have other ways to collaborate, but if you don’t we’ve added this for you to try. Thanks for registering, welcome to the Innovator and happy Innovating! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/registration_is_closed_on_to_the_proposals.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/11/registration_is_closed_on_to_the_proposals.html Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:35:24 -0500 here. The Pink Rangers have the unique distinction of being the first ever team to win a Mini Challenge! We tried the topic of Social Innovation this time around, specifically looking for innovative ways to allow groups that create social innovation and social good to connect and collaborate. This topic was chosen to be more open and less Financial Services or technology centric. We hoped to attract the interest of a more diverse group of students, which it did. We hope to see all the teams that tried the MC register and try for the big prize in the Next Great Innovator Challenge. The judges found the MC fell into 2 categories right away- good ideas and ideas that really went the extra mile. We liked all of them, and as one judge put it “it was easy to see the social merit of all of them, but we had to judge them in the framework of the innovation question”. We can certainly see going back over the proposals to see what can be done with the ideas, or in some cases the combinations of the ideas. The Pink Rangers proposal worked in the interconnected and collaborative nature of the challenge question and gave it depth by using both real world and off line tactics. The public ranking of the ideas was interesting, with the public being in favour of 5 of the proposals by a wide margin. The Pink Rangers was in the top 5 by public ranking as well. We’re contacting the team now to congratulate them, arrange their prize deliver and to find out which RBC sponsored charity they would like donation (matching their prize) directed to. And a special mention to all the teams from Professor Kietzmann's class at SFU (including the Pink Rangers). We recieved 7 proposals from teams in that class- thanks for Innovating with us! Look out central Canadian schools- west coast Innovators may be challenging you this year! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/10/the_inaugural_innovation_mini_challenge_champs.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/10/the_inaugural_innovation_mini_challenge_champs.html Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:47:44 -0500 Mini Challenge at the same time as preparing the Main Next Great Innovator Challenge. Double the work some days and of course there’s keeping the names straight; but Innovation Mini Challenge (as in smaller version of) and Main Next Great Innovator Challenge (as in the Main event) seemed to keep us straight. Today we are at an interesting midpoint; the Next Great Innovator Challenge is now up and open for team registration and the Mini Challenge voting is about to close. We’ll have a winner next week for the MC, so if you haven’t read the proposals have a look here before midnight and chime in with your rating. The voting isn’t the only judging criteria, but it is important to share the public opinion with the RBC judging panel. I’ve noticed some of the MC teams have stuck together and already registered for the Main Innovator Challenge, which I think is great- they’ve had a warm up, now are primed to jump into the bigger challenge! Some students have been asking where to start. I’d recommend having a look at our Innovation in Action presentation to give you our perspective on how we do what we do at RBC Applied Innovation. I’d then have a look at some of the links to external sites about innovation to get a feel for the approach. Next step would be to get your team together for your first brainstorm session on the topic. I would suggest you get each team member to do some back ground reading on workforce and workplace of the future in general terms, with perhaps some focus on the Financial Services industry but keep it non-specific. Ask them to read what they want (on topic of course), and share a summary or the articles before the brainstorming session. But more importantly at this stage find things that are interesting and inspiring. Then get together and let that inspiration flow. A few brainstorming tips:- Have some background research done, but don’t constrain the research sources or approach too much. Research from a concept point of view; don’t get to tactical at this point. - Do a little warm up to get everyone thinking; show off a good example, watch a funny YouTube video connected to the topic ("The Office" anyone?), tell a personal story, have a word association; anything to get the brain out of day-to-day linear thinking mode. - Have a facilitator who keeps things moving, makes sure all ideas are heard and helps clarify points. The facilitator sacrifices the ability to input, but it’s a very important job. - Be sure to group the ideas that support each other or relate. Look for novel connections too. Often a group of tactics will illuminate a bigger concept, or a group of issues will link up to expose a real root cause of a problem. - White boards, flip charts, sticky notes and your digital camera (to capture the notes) are tools of the trade. - Circulate the summary to everyone and see if there is a round of after-the-fact thoughts. The French call this "l'esprit d'escalier", meaning "that perfect thought you had after the meeting as you walked down the stairs". And keep an eye on the website and here on the blog. We’ll start introducing resources and perspectives we think might help you form your ideas into the winning proposal! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/10/october_update-_too_many_challenges_or_just_enough.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/10/october_update-_too_many_challenges_or_just_enough.html Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:34:14 -0500 Home page or Challenge page here it is: "Suggest innovative methods or tactics to transform the workplace to match the needs of an evolving and increasingly diverse workforce." 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. We can’t tell you how to solve the Challenge, but we can tell you that the whole of RBC is excited to see what innovations you propose. Why this Challenge? Two factors contributed to choosing the Workforce of the future theme. As we wrapped up our 3rd Challenge last spring we noticed that a number of proposals, ideas and insights coming up repeatedly. On its own this is interesting since that conveys a strong signal about the repeated idea or insight, coming from independent sources, year over year. (I’ll write about that later.) We realized that each of the prior Challenge questions led to mainly client centric and technology based innovations; also a good thing. But we wondered how we could explore other areas that could use innovative approaches. Enter the second factor; each year when formulating the Challenge question the Workforce and Workplace of the future was suggested as a theme. It was always a very close second in the running. The light bulb went off and voila, this is the year to ask you to innovate with us around the Workforce theme. I’ll blog more about ways to approach the topic, and different ways to think about Workforce and Workplace. A few NEW things to note about this year’s Challenge: - The Innovation Mini Challenge! It’s our “innovation warm up”, and is still open until Sept 27th. Take on collaboration and connection to create more Social Innovation and your team can win $1000 while warming up for the Main Challenge. - Custom alerts. We email, blog, twitter and RSS; you can choose how you get your Innovator updates. - Twitter. Well it’s not 100% new, but we were the first to twitter for a bank in Canada, and we’re keeping it up. 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. ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/09/the_fourth_next_great_innovator_challenge_has_been_revealed.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/09/the_fourth_next_great_innovator_challenge_has_been_revealed.html Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:08:42 -0500 Innovation Mini Challenge (the "MC") and are already seeing teams register. I can imagine folks reading the Social Innovation theme and asking “Hmm, interesting but why would an Innovation group in a Canadian bank care?” Let me back it up a bit and tell you the Mini Challenge story. The idea behind the Mini Challenge is simple; we wanted to give students a way to warm up and try innovating with us leading to our main Next Great Innovator Challenge later in the fall. We took what we have learned in the past few years of running the main Challenge and boiled it down; simple entry, online, quick, a more open topic that can get the audience involved; and voila the Innovation Mini Challenge was born. The last item was particularly important as we wanted to attract students that might not jump right into the main Challenge but should! We wanted to use the Mini Challenge to attract other disciplines and perspectives, and encourage them to stay with us for the main Challenge. We also liked the idea of asking an innovation question in the MC which is not so financial services specific, so we can share the innovations broadly. Then the search for a topic began. This past year I’ve come across Social Innovation from a number of angles; seeing the topic emerge in my innovation feeds, seeing social change happening though online tools like twitter (i.e. hohoTO), offline via groups like The Torch Partnership and their great “Unfinished Lecture Series”, and the Center for Social Innovation just up the street here in Toronto. At the same time we have been able to work with our partners in the RBC Foundation on a number of opportunities. These influences and my own interests came together and got me thinking about all the great groups out there working to create a better society, and some of the emerging challenges and opportunities for them. We’re all challenged to do more with less these days BUT luckily we have things like social media, virtual worlds and mobility as new tools. And some of my favorite “old” tools too; ingenuity, inspiration and collaboration. With that in mind it was a short hop to come up with the MC Challenge question; to ask you to come up with innovative ways for all those groups to connect and collaborate. It strikes me that in that collaboration there is tremendous opportunity for us all to create some real Social Innovation! So get your team together and you tell us: "Suggest innovative ways to allow these organizations to connect and collaborate." Here are some groups to look at initially for inspiration in your innovation: Torch Partnership (and http://www.torchiswicked.com/ ) Center for Social Innovation Mashable’s Social Good Conference hohoTO RBC Foundation (and support for groups) ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/09/why_social_innovation.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/09/why_social_innovation.html Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:51:09 -0500 Welcome Back! For those who are finding out about the Challenge for the first time, Welcome and thanks for joining us! I can’t believe I’m writing my kick off blog entry for the Challenge for the 3rd time. It’s really great to be here again, inaugurating what we hope will be another outstanding year of results for this program. There are lots of reasons why the Challenge program is the most enjoyable thing I get to work on for Applied Innovation at RBC. The students, their energy and ideas, the things we can try in the Challenge platform and the way the ideas impact the bank are all top of the list. I’ll try and talk about all of those things and more this year in the blog. What’s coming? This year we have an exciting new theme which will be announced with the Challenge question in September. People across RBC are already excited to see what the students propose! We’ll be adding new content to the website to help you innovate in the challenge and hopefully beyond. We’ve already added a few new features, including custom alerts widget so you can stay updated online. We’ve reformatted our highlights gallery so you can get a good feel for previous competitions. We’re on twitter and friendfeed too! And….. PREEEESENTING….. (DRUMROLL PLEASE!) The new RBC INNOVATION MINI CHALLENGE! The RBC Innovation Mini Challenge is our way of extending the Challenge and helping you warm up for the Main Challenge question. Innovation can have BIG impact, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. We thought why not take what we’ve learned from the Main Challenge and make a short, sweet and easy to enter Mini Challenge that more students can try out? We’ve chosen Social Innovation as our first theme, something that we (on the Applied Innovation team and our peers in the RBC Foundation) are very interested in. We want students of all types to team up and tell Canada how to create more Social Innovation through Collaboration. You can team up and register right away, and I’ll be blogging to help guide you to a great proposal. Check out the Innovation Mini Challenge details and tell your friends! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/08/welcome_to_the_rbc_next_great_1.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/08/welcome_to_the_rbc_next_great_1.html Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:59:56 -0500 Omega4 from Ryerson: Binh Lu Carey Gibson Jonathan Chiriboga Zuzana Fabian This is a great win for Ryerson, taking the top spot in the Challenge for the 2nd year in a row. A few interesting points; this is only the 3rd year of an MBA program at Ryerson, and this team is made up of part time students. So in addition to their regular school commitments, work and family they found time to Innovate! When students first submit their proposal we ask them to prepare a short synopsis to be used if they are selected as a peer voting candidate. In this case Omega4’s idea, L.E.O. (Lifelong Electronic Oracle) was chosen by our Innovation Council to go directly to the finals. We have their peer voting synopsis, so here’s their idea in their own words. “The L.E.O. is your personal virtual online financial advisor that can answer any financial question you might have. Confused about your financial choices? Have a question about your personal savings, loans, or investments? Need advice about retirement or planning for the future? Is it too much trouble to go into a branch and you can't find what you’re looking for on the Internet? L.E.O. can help. L.E.O doesn’t just answer questions. L.E.O gives you answers personalized to your situation. L.E.O. brings together customer relationship management, artificial intelligence and RBC investment know-how to help you with any of your financial needs. L.E.O can speak to you in your own language, show you videos, and give you information or advice tailored to your circumstances on your time. L.E.O. can even help you get connected to an RBC in-branch advisor if that's what you need. To get started, simply ask L.E.O. a question.” ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/a_little_more_detail_leo_lifel.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/a_little_more_detail_leo_lifel.html Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:51:59 -0500 Really, the winner is RBC. Hearing all of the ideas, and the discussions prompted amongst the judges and audience, the organisation wins by having our collective minds expanded. Without further ado, the 2009 RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge winners are: Omega4 from Ryerson! And, they have the distinct honour of making it 2 years in a row for Ryerson. Congratulations to all the teams and the exceptional students. The whole NGI team hopes that all of the students had a wonderful experience. http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/and_the_winner_is_1.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/and_the_winner_is_1.html Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:06:00 -0500 And the decision is.... It's time to go to the innovators' gala! Check back later this evening for the revelation of the winner of this year's Next Great Innovator Challenge. ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/proposal_5_and_deliberation.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/proposal_5_and_deliberation.html Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:54:43 -0500 Team Omega4, our Ryerson team (and part time MBA students) did a great job illustrating L.E.O, a Lifelong Electronic Oracle. The team's professionalism and passion really captivated our Judges. We're now seeing Team Aspire, from Schulich, showing us how to increase savings levels in Canada with a great bond innovation adapted from other markets around the world. Aspire are representing Canada's undergrad students in a tough field of grad teams. I think they're givng the grads a run for their money! On our break I was able to drop out to the cool down room and was happy to find several (very) relieved teams cooling out with a friendly game of Rock Band. Great idea from our event team to help the students blow off a little steam after the pressure of the boardroom. http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/proposals_3_and_4_and_break_ti.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/proposals_3_and_4_and_break_ti.html Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:39:03 -0500 Wow, 9:30 and we have 2 proposals done and are into the 3rd. The students have been thrilled to be in the RBC boardroom and so are we! So far.... derativeDesign from Rotman, started us of with a very powerful mini-movie bringing thier proposal, play.money to life. Team Rice from Waterloo, our most diverse team and peer voting winner, followed on with a great illustration of thier model for Islamic friendly banking anchored in community support of Islamic students in Canada. On deck Omega4, and back to the boardroom we go! http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/2_proposals_in.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/2_proposals_in.html Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:30:55 -0500 twitter as we take the teams through the day! ]]> http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/finals_day.html http://blogs.rbc.com/innovator/2009/03/finals_day.html Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:30:31 -0500