innovation awards

Congratulations to our second #TheDigitals superstar of the week: @DanBarker

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It’s been a riotous week on #TheDigitals leaderboard, with nefarious ReTweet covenants being struck, random hashtagging explosions and even a bit of cold hard cash being thrown around as various parties try their best to scale to the dizzy heights of superstar of the week! 

In the end though there can be only one, so this week we’re congratulating web and online marketing whizz (and occasional Econsultancy guest blogger) Dan Barker – Well done Dan! 

Presenting our first #TheDigitals superstar of the week: @WillPScott

https://assets.econsultancy.com/images/resized/0002/8560/the-digitals-superstar-badge-week-1-blog-third.pngCongratulations to our very first #TheDigitals Super Star of the Week: @WillPScott! 

In his own words, Will is a “Self confessed geek, working in online/social media” and has certainly worked his social to acheive this lofty and much-coveted position by being an all-star social sharer this week, promoting the biggest and best awards in Digital to his followers and creating genuine engagement (that means no hashtag spamming, plenty or ReTweets and genuine mentions).

Congratulations Will! 

Want to be a future superstar? Read on…

#TheDigitals Leaderboard: Get involved and help judge the biggest awards in digital

https://assets.econsultancy.com/images/resized/0002/8488/thedigitals_2-blog-half.pngOver the past few days, you may have noticed #TheDigitals hashtag popping up regularly on Twitter. 

If you don’t know what The Digitals are then go find out now! (Don’t worry, we’ll wait)

We love it when people share our stuff, but there’s more to this than just an engaged audience; We’re running a leaderboard to help spread the word about the biggest, brightest awards in digital and we want your help! 

Of course, this is social media we’re talking about, so there has to be a prize right? You betcha there is…

Innovation and staying ahead of the curve

http://econsultancy.com/images/awards-logo.png?1322745958Econsultancy will be hosting our 2012 Innovation Awards at the Park Lane Hilton in London this evening.

In the run-up to the glittering award ceremony, we’ve been speaking to our shortlisted candidates to get their take on all aspects of innovation in business.

We’ve looked at fostering the right kind of environment to get those ideas flowing, budgeting make sure plans don’t impact your bottom line, and looked back at some great ideas to help get you inspired.

Of course, even a great idea can be outdone. The industry has never advanced as quickly as it does today, with some truly awe-inspiring ideas rolling out every day.

With all this competition to factor in, we thought we’d close our series by asking our nominees about keeping ahead of the innovation curve.

Innovation for agencies: convincing the client

http://econsultancy.com/images/awards-logo.png?1329307452Over the past month we’ve spoken a lot about the nature of innovation in business, and during the course of these posts we’ve looked at ways to foster an innovative spirit within your company, as well as justifying the cost and protecting the budget. 

But what if you aren’t the one who ultimately has to pay if your ground-breaking new ideas don’t make the cut? 

A large number of our Innovation Awards entries come from agencies, which have to work doubly hard to justify unusual or experimental campaign choices, yet still manage to deliver some of the most exciting new ideas every year.

In today’s Innovation Question , we look more closely at exactly how they manage this. 

Which innovation from the past 30 years do you wish you’d come up with?

http://econsultancy.com/images/awards-logo.png?1329307452As we learned in our previous post, our Innovation Awards shortlist candidates all thought that an ability to learn from past mistakes was just as important as a vision of the future when trying to advance your business.

It’s not always mistakes we learn from though, and business innovation is as much about evolution as revolution.

Today we’re asking our expert panel which companies, products and ideas from the past have truly inspired them, and which ones they wished they’d had a hand in…

Q&A: Sissie Hsiao of Google Analytics on innovation

SissieThis month we’ve been posting regularly on the subject of innovation as a prelude to our annual Innovation Awards on February 23rd.  

We’ve been asking our shortlisted candidates for their opinions on every aspect of innovation in business, from identifying innovative ideas and people to scaling projects at multi-national level.

Today, we thought it would be useful to hone in on one particular business and gather their responses to our list of innovation-themed questions.  

Sissie Hsiao is group product manager at Google Analytics, a company which has based its reputation and success on doing things differently from the very start. We asked for her opinions on a variety of topics, and on the awards themselves.

What are the characteristics of great innovators?

innovation-awards-logoThomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Alexander Bell, Marie Curie… 

On the face of it, these people may not have much in common, but they all topped Lemelson-MIT’s 2012 list of great innovators, with names that will go down in history (and occasionally, infamy). So what exactly unites these revolutionary thinkers? 

We’ve been talking about innovation a lot in the lead-up to our 2012 Innovation Awards on February 23rd, and while approaches and implementation differ wildly, one point that keeps arising is that Innovation is all about people, about those brave souls with the gumption to push a wild idea through to completion. 

Finding the people with the right skills is a major challenge for any business, so how do you spot these people, and how do you harness their ideas? 

The candidates on our awards shortlist all know a lot about the brainstorming process, and all have the ability to bring these ideas to fruition, so who better to answer today’s Innovation question:

Can large companies be truly innovative?

http://econsultancy.com/images/awards-logo.png?1322745958Yesterday we spoke about the business imperatives behind innovation. We know that in today’s fast-paced market it’s important to evolve if you want to get ahead, but just how easy is this?

While start-ups are often built on revolutionary ideas, creating something truly new is a much tougher challenge for larger companies.

With levels of bureaucracy, procedures and red-tape to cut through, just how viable is it for a multinational to make a real change to its existing business model or introduce something new to market?

As it turns out, it’s extremely possible! Just look at Google and Apple. Of course, those are companies built around innovation from the ground up. But what about those with more traditional organisational structures?

We turned once more to our extensive panel of innovation experts…

What drives innovation in business?

http://econsultancy.com/images/awards-logo.png?1322745958Every business wants to be seen as innovative, as a company that leads and creates new trends, , but what are the solid business imperatives and values behind maintaining an inventive, creative culture? 

Are businesses aimlessly chasing ‘The Next Big Thing’ when they should be concentrating on the day to day running of the company?

Even if you do decide to chase those ideas that make the cut, is innovation something you can really ‘plan’? Or should you put your faith in an agile working environment and leap on the ad-hoc opportunities?

We asked a range of contributors to tell us why innovation deserves to be at the core of any business model.

Innovative trends to watch in 2012

awards-logoHaving made it to the shortlist for the 2012 Econsultancy Innovation Awards, it’s fair to say the people we’ve been interviewing this week know a thing or two about bright ideas.

Today we asked them to cast an eye back over the last twelve months and identify the innovations they feel have had the biggest effect on the marketing landscape.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, so we also challenged them to gaze ahead and offer their opinions on the trends to watch in 2012…

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