Innovation can take many forms. An organization develops a new product or service. A new business model offers customers a new brand experience. A new strategic partnership is formed, resulting in new customer segments and new distribution or communication channels.

More than ever before, organizations view innovation as a strategic priority, giving them a competitive advantage over others, at a time in which most employees are asked to do much more with much less. Who has time to innovate? It’s tough enough to slog through daily operations without having to think up new ways of doing business, too.

Making innovation a strategic priority often requires that stakeholders make a shift in their thinking to make innovation a consistent, repeatable part of their daily business routine.

“Creativity thinks up new ideas, but innovation takes that idea and turns it into action,” explains Lisa Bodell, Founder and CEO of futurethink, adding that “Stakeholders need to separate good ideas from great ideas before turning that great idea into a business thought.”

Ideas are the easy part. Knowing what to do with them is the trick that turns a creative idea into a business innovation. Consider the Swiffer, that nifty collapsible mop with replaceable ends. During the research and development process, P & G took an ethnographic approach to determining what was missing when people cleaned their homes. Once the gap was identified, they created a need and subsequent demand for their innovative product.

Admittedly, not every organization has P & G-sized resources to combat hurdles to innovation which, in most organizations, include lack of time, money and inadequate staffing levels. Bodell states that other hurdles include “an evaluation process that squelches innovative ideas, no way to track the progress or success of innovation initiatives and no way to tap into the thinking of employees, partners and users.”

A good place to start in your innovation initiative is to find out who in the organization is already doing something interesting or cool. Interviews, focus groups and surveys will elicit employee knowledge, opinions, attitudes, and degrees of satisfaction with existing innovation initiatives. Once that baseline is established, an overall approach to innovation can be developed.

The Quest for Innovation: A Global Study of Innovation Management 2006-2016 was a survey commissioned by the American Management Association and conducted by the Human Resource Institute. This polling of 1,356 global leaders captured the top five elements necessary for developing an innovative culture in any organization. That is, 1) customer focus, 2) team work or collaboration with others, 3) appropriate resources (time and money), 4) timely and effective organizational communication, and 5) the ability to select the right ideas for further research.

“You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what people brag about and what they wear -- similar to ways in which you get a feeling about someone's personality,” notes Carter McNamara, MBA, Ph.D., in his Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision.

The steps to creating a culture that supports innovation on a daily basis are more accessible than one might first imagine. Every cause needs a champion and innovation is no exception. Innovation requires top down support, where those at the top lead by example and encourage stakeholders to take smart risks.

“What often limits innovation in any organization is that people tend to want to ‘get it just right’ before sharing their ideas,” explains Bodell. “Leaders who support innovative thinking need to help employees become comfortable with sharing their ideas- and works-in-progress.”

Artists at the Academy Award®-winning Pixar Animation Studios share their beginning sketches and drawings of animated characters with team members early in the process. This allows them to stimulate the thinking of their colleagues, gather feedback and build on that feedback throughout the animation process which adds depth to the finished product.

“Many people worry that by sharing their ideas, someone will beat them to the punch,” remarks Richard Bowers, Ph.D. “There is no limit to what can be done if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

Other steps in creating a culture of innovation require leaders, managers and supervisors to encourage new and alternative thinking and to share subsequent ideas within business units and across the organization. Everyone needs to know what others are working on and feel a part of the whole. Employee feedback about the status of organizational innovation can be captured in surveys about employee engagement, employee satisfaction, working relationships, and organizational assessment.

To foster a culture of innovation, leaders must support their teams with resources and expose them to creative ways of being. Offering tools for creativity and innovation on the company intranet is a start. The workforce must feel motivated to participate fully in innovative thinking without fear of reprisal. Employee recognition for innovative ideas – from a day off, memo or heartfelt thank you -- means someone noticed and cares. And, remember to keep people apprised about what happens to ideas as they make their way through the innovation pipeline.

If you would like to learn more about how Survey Software Online can help you identify activities related to innovation and help keep your stakeholders apprised of your innovative ideas, check out our website at www.SurveySoftwareOnline.com.

Jan Stringer West, Ph.D.
Organizational Psychologist
Survey Software Online
Addison, Texas

Need to gather stakeholder feedback about customer or employee attitudes, behavior and satisfaction but can’t justify the fees of a full service survey research firm? Consider using Survey Software Online (SSO) at www.SurveySoftwareOnline.com where you get a strategic, discriminating product at an affordable price.

Survey Software Online is several cuts above existing online survey software systems. SSO differentiates itself because it was developed and written not by software writers and developers, but by survey research professionals; their in-depth focus and expertise make the difference.

Survey Software Online is a subsidiary of the National Business Research Institute, Inc., (NBRI) an organization staffed by organizational psychologists who understand which research methodologies are appropriate for measuring organizational variables, and how to implement such research without contaminating data through poorly designed survey items, scales, or processes.

“Many customers wanted a full service survey research team, but had no budget for it. SSO was created by our organizational psychologists to fill that need. We now offer a complete continuum of services from self serve to full service,” explains Ken West, Ph.D., President and COO of the National Business Research Institute, Inc. “Everything is done on our servers with no strain on client resources. The process is very scientific, based on survey industry standards.”

Although anyone in any department of any organization might find Survey Software Online of use, the service may be most helpful to those in human resources, sales, marketing and customer service who routinely use surveys to gather information on employee and/or customer satisfaction.

When comparing Survey Software Online to other online survey software, SSO rises above the others because of its rigor and in the amenities it provides.

“Survey Software Online is competitively priced; we offer clients unlimited numbers of surveys with unlimited numbers of items per survey while also offering customizable account preferences,” notes Melissa Barba, Director of Research Consulting at NBRI, adding that expansive customer support is offered online or via a toll-free telephone number.

Like most online survey services, Survey Software Online offers users a free 30-day trial or annual services at either a Standard or Premium level. Differences between the Standard and Premium levels are in the number of survey responses; the creating, editing and deleting of demographic groups; downloading passwords, addresses, and submission status; the capability to design and send email announcements and thank you’s; and the ability to track survey respondents.

“Survey Software Online is one of two providers to offer customizable account preferences and survey design from scratch, along with custom headers, footers, images, logos and links, customized buttons and messages and use of your own ‘from’ and ‘reply’ email addresses,” states Ms. Barba, noting that these custom features set this software apart from others.

Users may ask any questions they desire using formats that include multiple choice (with single or multiple answers) and essay or open-ended text. For matrix blocks using scales (e.g., satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, dissatisfied), SSO offers users the ability to create, edit and delete custom scales. It even allows users to save questions and items to a Personal Survey Question Library for later use or reference.

Users can use their own email lists, which can be uploaded directly from Excel into the system. Email announcements about upcoming surveys, invitations to complete surveys and email thank yous are all customizable (e.g., company logo, mission). Users have the ability to track responses and send customized reminders to those who have yet to respond, a very useful feature!

“Clients may change the dates on their surveys and reuse the surveys year after year. This allows organizations to compare data from year to year,” notes Ms. Barba.

Individual survey items are either radio buttons or a drop down menu which may optionally require a response. Open-ended items may or may not require a response. Therefore, there is no such thing as an incomplete response which could muddy the data. Even if respondents do not complete the entire survey, the data already in the system is used in analysis. Reports are available in either HTML or PDF formats.

“Most users of online survey systems are not trained in data analysis,” states Ms. Barba. “This can lead to erroneous conclusions.” The rigor with which Survey Software Online was designed and developed minimizes these types of errors. And, having saved significant dollars by designing and implementing your own surveys, you might have some money left over to take advantage of the expert analysis of an organizational psychologist at the National Business Research Institute or consult with a statistician to ensure valid, reliable results!

Finally – customized surveys at reasonable prices! Run, do not walk, to your computer and register for a free 30-day trial demonstration of Survey Software Online at www.SurveySoftwareOnline.com. Your organization will be glad you did.

Advertising and marketing communities have clamored for our auditory attention on the radio; they have directed our visual attention to store shelves, billboards and television. In the United States, an average child is exposed to more than 30,000 television commercials a year; the average adult to approximately 86,500. In recent years, advertisers and marketing communities have used sensory branding to bombard our other senses of smell, taste and touch, luring us into trying over 1,000 new brands each year.

Researchers understand that the human brain rarely processes sensory input in isolation. Advertisers and marketers understand that consumers are most receptive to a product when that product appeals to and engages consumers’ multiple senses.

“We store our values, feelings and emotions in memory banks,” says Martin Lindstrom, author of Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. “The human being has at least five tracks—image, sound, smell, taste and touch that contain more data than one can imagine because they have direct bearing on our emotions. They can fast forward or backtrack at will.”
Our senses help us understand the world around us. Our senses trigger memories and memories influence our emotions. Our sense of smell evokes the strongest of emotions and is the sense most closely linked to memory because it is hard wired to our brains. Seventy-five percent of our emotions are generated by what we smell. Emotions influence behavior – consumer behavior in the global marketplace.

Sensory branding includes the standardized ambience of what customers see (e.g., size, layout, color of lights, staff uniform), what customers hear (e.g., type of music or sound, volume), scents customers smell and where (e.g., in the air, on tissue paper, bags or receipts), what customers taste and what customers touch.

Sensory branding makes its impact each time customers engage with or react to a company’s product or service. By employing scent, sound and material textures in immersive customer experiences, marketers build strong connections with their customers and drive preference for their brands. Sensory branding drives customer satisfaction, but few organizations actually conduct market research or customer surveys to determine the extent of cause and effect.

What appeals to one customer may not appeal to another. An individual might react adversely to a scent by itself, but respond favorably to the same scent when it is used in combination with a particular sound, texture or taste. Customer surveys are adept at teasing out subtle nuances in perception and subsequent interpretation through consumer behavior. Which of the five senses were stimulated? Which messages resonated with customers? What were subsequent customer behaviors?

Customers at Celebration Health, Florida’s Hospitals’ healthcare facility, were cancelling MRI’s in record numbers, resulting in significant revenue loss. Employing strategies in sensory branding, Celebration Health renamed their MRI department ‘Seaside Imaging’, painted beach murals on the walls and added folding lounge chairs. They transformed the MRI machine into a sand castle. Scent Air provided Coconut Beach and Ocean scents. A 50% reduction in cancellations resulted.

Samsung, the consumer electronics giant, pumps a scent smelling like honeydew melon from the ceiling of its retail spaces prompting one visitor to observe, “I love the smell of technology. It smells stimulating.”

Kellogg’s spent years studying the relationship between crunchiness and taste, before patenting the crunch of their cereal. Consumers enjoy every “Snap, Crackle and Pop”, part of the Kellogg’s brand based on auditory stimuli, taste and texture.

“Far from being a practice limited to the few, today multi-sensory merchandising stimulation and sensory branding are separating best practice from good. It is a science. It can be unique to your stores. It can create sub-conscious and unconscious stimulation, suggestion and memory reinforcement and retrieval that are part of your brand DNA, and an important driver of productive outcomes for your business,” observes Peter James Ryan, chief executive navigator, Red Communication.

Some sensory branding campaigns have spinoff products or services. The Westin Hotel chain has a worldwide Sensory Welcome program. A customized soundtrack creates a relaxed mood in the hotels’ public spaces, blending with infused scent and interior design. The company’s White Tea fragrance became so popular it is now sold through the company’s in-room catalogue, its branded website, and in Nordstrom department stores.

The impact of marketing through sensory branding can be measured at every step of the customer relationship. Internally, employee surveys measure the level of employee engagement in the process of sensory branding initiatives. Which marketing managers and operational staff have authority to act on specific aspects of the sensory brand? What organizational structure best supports project teams? How are teams trained and motivated? What are the implications for organizational design – for the communication and coordination among operating groups and implementation teams?

Assessing customer satisfaction or employee satisfaction with various aspects of sensory branding helps inform existing and future business decisions. Have you identified the impact that sensory branding has on your return on investment?

If you would like to learn more about how SSO can help you identify outcomes and be more productive, contact us now at 1-800-756-6168.

Dr. Jan Stringer West, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Survey Software Online

There is a clash of the titans going on in the Web-based applications arena. In the blue corner, from Redmond, Washington, the veteran multi-national computer software behemoth Microsoft. In the red corner, from Menlo Park, California, the Sultan of Search Engines, Google. The two have been trading punches for the past few years and the fight is just getting started.

The Microsoft versus Google battle features two companies approaching the Web-based applications market from completely different directions. Bill Gates and Microsoft built its empire on desktop applications running on local PCs, while Google conquered the online search and advertising markets. As Microsoft tries to grab a slice of Google’s search business, Google has been counter-punching by going behind the firewall of Microsoft. What lies ahead is a day where the Internet and browsers, instead of a computer’s operating system, may be the foundation for application development.

Watching Microsoft and Google slug it out for world domination of the computer industry has significant implications, pushing technology to the limit in a race for supremacy. Over the past few years Web-based applications, or Webapps, have been establishing themselves as the preferred platform for business information systems and other critical applications. They are part of the Web 2.0 generation, where websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They house the ability to access interactive facilities, allowing users to run software applications entirely through a browser.

"We're on the cusp of the next generation, the next revolution in computing," Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google, recently said. "We're really being ushered into the era of cloud computing."

“Cloud computing” refers to applications and data stored online and accessible from any device with a Web browser. Browser-based software never requires installation processes or hard drive space because it lives in the virtual cloud on the Internet. And whenever you launch it, you always have access to the latest version, unless the Internet connection at your local Starbucks isn’t working.

The blog you’re reading now is posted on Survey Software Online (“SSO”), a complete Web-based user interface and communication platform that enables business professionals to effectively create, deploy and report the results of surveys.

Web-based applications like SSO combine the communication capabilities of the Internet with software resident in the “internet cloud”. A Web-based application is a program that resides entirely on the Internet as a multi-user, cross-platform application that allows many users to work from it at any one moment in time. The many advantages of using this technology are beginning to win over the computing populous.

One of the biggest advantages of Webapps is accessibility. Since applications like the SSO app are based on the Internet, users anywhere in the world can access them.

Plus, the constant updating and that annoying “network administrator” have been zapped by Webapps. Instead of every user having to download patches for their operating system, which seems like a weekly process, patches and upgrades are applied to the Webapp server so it has no impact on the user. The network administrator, who blocks every bit of software you try to install on your system, is bypassed through Webapps.

It may seem that Web applications spell trouble for software makers, and to some degree they do. But software vendors are adjusting to the times. Webapps opens a wider market for software vendors, who aren’t constrained by having to write code around a specific hardware platform and limit their market or incur additional costs to build for another platform. Many bugs and computer viruses are squashed in Web-based applications because no union is necessary between the Webapp and the local computers operating system, which can be rife with problems.

Webapps make the Green movement giddy. With software boxes, printed manuals, shipping costs, CD’s, and all the environmental consequences involved to distribute software, Webapps are both economically and environmentally friendly. Furthermore, Webapps eliminate the entire software piracy issue with one click of the mouse, leaving the U.S. government time to focus on those high-seas Somali pirates instead.

Web-based applications, because they are developed on open source platforms and supported online, provide cost-effective solutions. Webapps work any where, any place, any time, and even conquer the Mac vs. Windows issue, which, of course, is a whole other battle of the titans.

Dr. Jan Stringer, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Survey Software Online