Glossary
Innovation Community
An Innovation Community is a permanent, organisation-wide network of innovators — a continuous, low-cost channel for ideas, inspiration and engagement that makes innovation everybody's business. It gives corporate innovators a place to connect, be inspired and develop innovation opportunities together, both online and offline…
Definition
An Innovation Community is a permanent, organisation-wide network of innovators — a continuous, low-cost channel for ideas, inspiration and engagement that makes innovation everybody's business. Rather than a one-off campaign or challenge, it is an ongoing space where corporate innovators can connect, be inspired and develop innovation opportunities together.
An innovation community works as a hub for both casual and formal innovation activities, combining online and offline touchpoints — a branded online space where people share trends, news, best practices, ideas and project updates, complemented by events such as technology pop-ups, project demonstrations and networking events. By giving people a place to meet and collaborate, organisations can identify and nurture their corporate innovators, engage employees more deeply, and steadily build an innovation culture.
The community is typically supported by dedicated community managers who keep activity flowing, and by social features and notifications that sustain engagement over time. Where time-bound formats like idea campaigns and innovation challenges create bursts of activity, the innovation community is what keeps innovation alive between them — turning innovation from an occasional event into a continuous, shared habit across the whole organisation.