- Search for organizations that add value to the vision and specific value proposition. Their added value should be complementary to what your existing partners already provide. Yet keep in mind that inviting competitors of existing partners will most likely provoke conflicts.
- Creative companies can be valuable. When trying to get a community to accept social innovations, design thinking and creativity can be deciding factors.
Cross
Industry
Innovation
Industry
Innovation
Connect
Tips & tricks
Tools
- YourOwnLab
Connect to new people from various industries who feel the same way about cross-industry innovation with the help of YourOwnLab. In other words: this tool can guide you to interesting partnerships. - Social media search
Facebook: rely on the ‘snowball effect’ to find new people. This means getting referred to new contacts by people you already know.
Twitter: follow people who are working on innovation to receive Tweets relating to your interests and activities. Before you know it, you'll have built an entire network.
LinkedIn Advanced: when you need specific profiles, you can use LinkedIn Advanced to reach the right persons or organizations. - Selection criteria
When putting your cross-industry team together, you should keep the following criteria in mind:- Valuable (complementary) input
- Interest
- Open-mindedness
- Power
- Co-working spaces
Working in the same space is a fun way to get to know new people and organizations. Check out the Bar d'Office network or Coworking Belgium.
- Use selection criteria
Preferably select your partners with an eye to vision complementarity and the provision of unique resources or competences. You can also rely on other criteria, like affinity with a collaboration culture, openness, willingness to take risks, commitment, cognitive distance, reliability and spatial distance. Steer clear of bad matches in terms of knowledge, culture, finance, IP or patents.