Interesting concept of the Maverick…would you care to describe it in more detail? I’ve got a post lined up with all the roles that a Social Team needs in order to succeed – any last minute contributions to tighten up that model are always welcome

Best and Happy New Year (Just),

Boris

1. What is your strategy?
2. Who owns these ideas?
3. How do you make them a reality?

The answers…..

1. Our strategy is to connect people so they will come up with ideas with people they wouldn’t normally.
2. They do.
3. This will be done by the community.

It was at this point I realised they didn’t want innovation. Although they were the innovation team. They wanted nothing to do with directing it, just hoping it would happen if they created a community.

A community with no or little direction (i.e. strategy), streamlined process, or ability (unless they have budget or can convince people internally) to realize their ideas will struggle unless of course they hit the lottery! I’ve seen it happen but it’s never sustained or repeated.

Needless to say we went our separate ways. As I left I wondered why it didn’t work for them? Simple – it takes effort and planning to do it right (with expert help of course). It’s easy to do it quickly and badly, whilst appearing to have done something right.

But the results, well….I’ve seen bad grassroots communities work for years because they deliver some value. Thing is, benchmark that against someone doing it right and you’d soon realize how much value you missed by getting your strategy and process in order instead of leaving it to chance and the drive of the maverick to take their idea forward.

Now there’s a great topic – The Role of the Maverick. If I point to any great community there is usually a Maverick at the heart of driving it forward, with strategy, process and determination.

Happy New Year (nearly)……