Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood day folks!

At Planbox we just looooooooooove collaboration. After all, whether it’s in person or online, collaboration is the source of all great ideation. You can’t possibly expect your organization to implement an impeccable, foolproof solution without first taking it through some kind of collaborative innovation pipeline. Nuh-uh, especially not in today’s highly transformative AND disruptive world (which has become all the more disruptive with the COVID-19 pandemic). And as counterintuitive as this may sound, now is an ideal time to drive company-wide innovation campaigns. So put your thinking hat on and start bouncing ideas off of your employees, customers partners and suppliers, and have everyone give ’em a good ‘ol spit-shine until your ideas are GOLD–no, PLATINUM–no–DIAMOND! And that my friend, is what you call… ideation! And collaboration! And innovation! Yes, it’s many things, OK?! Welcome to the world of innovation! And now is the time to start thinking, planning and preparing, because whether you like to admit it or not, change is coming, and it’s coming fast!

NOW! As with everything in this world, all great ideas have a beginning, and sometimes, truly amazing ideas originate from people, places, situations and times you would never expect. Think water cooler talk. One of the seven habits of highly innovative organizations is to encourage employees to engage in water cooler talk by having a water cooler in every room in every department in every building of the company–even in the bathroom. OK, not really. Whatever. The point is, water cooler talk is a form of crowdsourcing that promotes collaboration and ideation, and can sometimes inspire your workforce to conjure up some of the best and most creative ideas. It’s kind of like when you’re in the shower; for some reason, you come up with some incredibly creative ideas in there. And you also realize you have a pretty decent singing voice too. OK, maybe that last part is just me. But you get the idea (pun intended). And in the same way that water has the incredible power to fuel intellectual capital, intellectual capital has the incredible power to drive innovation! But with remote work and shutdown orders taking over the world, water cooler talk has essentially become a thing of the past–at least for now anyway.

That’s why we at Planbox came up with a rather unique solution to maintain water cooler talk in these disruptive times, despite working remotely; collaboration, after all, is what we live and breathe (and drink), so we weren’t going to give it up that easily. No sirree! SO! We decided to hold a weekly virtual ‘Thirsty Thursday’ water cooler talk until this outbreak blows over as a way to keep the conversation going and keep our spirits high and mighty. Talk about killing two birds with one stone (employee experience and retention is kind of a big deal in these times!). But, of course, it wouldn’t be an official Planbox gathering without some kind of innovative twist, so we replaced the water with cocktails. I guess that makes it a virtual cocktail cooler talk.

All this to say… keep the conversation going! Your employees, customers, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders can all greatly benefit from ongoing ideation and collaboration, now more than ever before. Of course, we’re not saying to have a drink with your innovation ecosystem, but it that floats your boat then by all means go ahead. What we’re saying is, you know, make sure you have the proper infrastructure to coordinate, facilitate and streamline the right kinds of conversations that align across your company’s missions and innovation campaigns, like uh… I dunno, say, an agile innovation management platform! And maybe, just maybe, your organization can start planning for emerging trends and ideating around ways to prepare for a post-covid world, one drink at a time.

Water for thought!

Til next time folks!