Considering the limited availability of tools that exist to support innovation management, I find this statistic very compelling.

To gain competitive advantage, organizations are striving to capitalize on "continuous innovation" and the tools that support innovation. Many executives that I speak with share the vision that innovation needs to be captured and managed within an organization.

So, execution is key when it comes to inspiring continuous innovation. But how do you build and implement effective business models to sustain innovation?

As business managers, we need to tap into tools that enable innovation-tools that focus on facilitating creative and unstructured activity. Structured systems, the ones that are the backbone for your business operations such as ERP, CRM and others, help you manage your organization's vital structured information. Social software, on the other hand, gives business users access at a very granular level to tools that enable the free flow of ideas and unstructured nature of creativity.

Here's an example: You can leverage a group within your corporate member directory  to create a Wall of Fame in your organization, which links to a repository of employee activities that have been rewarded. These innovations align directly with your business strategy and each employee profile contains information about that person's achievements within the organization.

You could also deploy an Employee Ideas Program using social networking tools such as online forums to foster idea generation.

Social software for business brings diverse perspectives together in a very ad hoc manner, enabling people to share ideas, insights and opinions freely. It's an incremental process: people use these tools to network; collaborate; and then innovate.

Social software supports the social aspects of the whole innovation process. The tools should be flexible and customizable enough to plug into and extend your ERP systems. An important caveat about the whole process:  whatever innovation toolset you implement, the offering must be tailored to meet industry-specific or region-specific needs of customers. We've done just this at IGLOO, with the deployment of our Manufacturing Innovation Network (MIN).

Skewed toward the regional manufacturing industry, the MIN provides a replicable organizational model for innovation, based on emerging social software technology.

I invite you to join our compelling webinar panel discussion on building online sustainable innovation networks on Friday June 19 at 2pm EST.

Register today!