Technology Access
This is an area where we see a key difference between an Innovation Center and a co-working space. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about what it takes to become super-successful in a variety of fields and the opportunities that many icons had that few others did. One such subject of his book: Bill Gates.
Having dropped out of college to create a little startup known as Microsoft, Bill Gates is known as a leader in the technology field. Mr. Gladwell discusses the series of “lucky breaks” that Mr. Gates was able to take advantage of; including, his High School having a Computer Club at a time when most colleges didn’t have one.
Mr. Gates was able to develop an expert level of knowledge in computer programming in part because had access to technology that was out of reach for most Americans at the time. And while technology is constantly changing – what High School doesn’t have a computer club now? – all new technologies are initially cost-prohibitive for most Americans and startup firms. Good Innovation Centers provide that same access to the newest and hottest technologies that Mr. Gates’ High School was able to provide him.
Training
Just as we as humans can’t stay young forever, your business won’t stay in its startup phase forever. Moving beyond that startup phase requires your teams to develop, hire, or otherwise obtain new skillsets.
When you’re breaking into the market, you need to iterate quickly and push new products. Once you have a toehold, you need to establish defensive positions from potential competitors, guardrails to ensure future efforts are successful, processes to explore new ideas and markets, and internal infrastructure to support corporate growth. In other words, as you grow you’re going to need new skills and new layers of management oversight. A common tactic to obtain those new skills is to offer training to your employees.
An example of a company going through these growing pains is Uber. I teach a PM 330 course for Norwich Pro. In it, we explore the challenges that came with Uber scaling to meet the demand of their ride-hailing market. However, most companies aren’t valued at over a billion dollars and therefore don’t have the resources to set up their own training program as Uber did.
But again, that’s where an Innovation Center can help out. They can strike deals with professional development organizations and include training programs at a discount. Sticking with Norwich Pro, they offer subscription-based learning that offers corporate-branded learning material and employee space on their Learning Management System. An Innovation Center should have a deal like this in place to support its members as they scale up to meet the demands of tomorrow.
But don’t forget to continue to look for ideas to invest in, explore those ideas, and rollout ideas that have proven their merit. If you need help developing the skillsets and processes to do that, be sure to check out our training and workshop offerings. Our training helps managers and their teams develop skills in the methods, tools, and terminologies required to develop new products and service lines. And our workshops help build programs and dedicate resourcing in alignment with the Innovation Management best-practices identified in the ISO 56000 standard.
In Conclusion
While both Co-working spaces and Innovation Centers offer space to work, customers of an Innovation Center should demand more. It isn’t just about having a space to come in and work, but the resources and the means to grow a successful company.
Those resources will change as your company begins to grow from the prototyping phase, through customer discovery, product refinement, market-entry, market capture, and scaling up phases. If you are currently working out of an Innovation Center that is not offering any of the five traits described in this article, you need to reconsider whether they are able to truly offer the support you need to maximize your budding organization’s, or budding product’s, potential.