Articles
How to Create a Culture of Innovation
Some inventions and innovations seem to be born out of thin air, but a culture of innovation is not. It's one thing to say that innovation is critical, but something altogether different to build a culture that drives innovation. So, how do you create a culture that quenches your thirst for innovation?
The first step is to prioritize and motivate your people so that they feel inspired and supported. That is achieved when there is dedicated support from leadership, careful planning, conscious effort, and proof that you’re investing in your people, customer, and the future. If you're reading carefully, you know that's a lot to ask for! But it's the only way to be successful.
CapTech's Innovation Challenge
Multiple times a year, CapTech hosts an internal Innovation Challenge related to emerging technologies. Why do our people love this challenge? CapTechers have the opportunity to form cross-functional teams and collaborate with people across the organization with whom they otherwise may not have the opportunity to collaborate with. CapTechers also enjoy the support from leadership to have fun, learn, and show off their expertise with the latest technologies that are transforming the world.
Our last challenge was Innovation in Sports, which required teams to develop innovative solutions for the Sports industry, yet another facet of everyday life that has been severely affected by COVID-19 but also benefits greatly from technology advancement. The winning team developed a mobile companion app for sports that helps fans grow their knowledge and increase their engagement in real-time while watching a game, match, tournament, etc.
The team’s research indicated that football was the most popular sport to watch online or broadcast TV— and a Facebook study showing 94% of participants kept a smartphone on hand while watching TV, making it a de facto remote control. They hatched their plan. With the lack of a strong broadcast-mobile crossover application, they could take advantage of an unrealized opportunity to increase sports engagement through a mobile app of their own design.
This video tells you more about their exciting solution.
Previous Challenges
Accessible Solutions
Companies often neglect to consider how technology can improve the lives of those with disabilities. In this challenge we invited CapTech consultants to find ways to improve the lives of users regardless of their abilities.
Notable Solutions:
- Reduce the daily burden of caring for aging-in-place seniors
- Making visual graphs audible to those with visual impairment
Augmented Reality
AR provides a unique way to preview tangible products digitally and to view intangible products for the first time. We challenged our consultants to re-imagine the user journey using augmented reality as a key feature of those journeys.
Notable Solutions:
- AR by design in a CMS
- Taking the fear out of hospitals with AR
Internet of Things
The proliferation of hardware and software tools to prototype IoT solutions is opening IoT to companies with no prior device experience. We asked our consultants to build examples of how IoT can help their clients.
Notable Solutions:
- On lot service alerts for automotive retailers
- Letting mass transit passengers control their ride
Machine Learning
With the proliferation of data comes the ability to build predictions. We posed the problem to our consultants to find data and possible predictions for innovative use cases at our clients.
Notable Solutions
- Identifying local traveler mood using sentiment analysis
- Understanding customer feedback across product reviews
Wearable Technology
Wearables, and more specifically awarables, can sense and respond to the environment around the wearer. We challenged our teams to envision ways that sensing surroundings can benefit users and enterprises alike.
Notable Solutions:
- Saving lives and reducing environmental impact with a wearable
- Machine learning improves bicyclist safety
Natural Language Processing
As a totally new user interface, NLP challenges companies to exploit their ubiquity for customer engagement. We challenged our consultants to find ways to exploit this interface for our clients business problems.
Notable Solutions:
- Giving guests a voice in their hotel room
- Voice-enabled data insights
Sports Industry
Teams were challenged to use technology to re-engage sports fans in a socially distanced world for the benefit of the fans, community, and teams.
Notable Solutions
- Mobile makes virtual group athletic outings possible
- Securing and simplifying the betting experience using blockchain
Exciting Ideas for Innovation
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Brian Bischoff
Principal
Brian leads our business strategy for our practice areas and is a thought leader in digital strategy. He provides an objective perspective through the strategic analysis of current technology trends and designs and builds great experiences for our clients.
Jack Cox
Fellow
Jack has over a decade of experience helping Fortune 500 clients build mobile and device strategy. He is responsible for the firm’s mobile practice and is a frequent speaker on mobile development and best practices.
Vinnie Schoenfelder
CTO
Vinnie is Chief Technology Officer and plays a large role in helping define services, forge partnerships, and lead innovation for our clients. As a thought leader, he regularly helps clients solve their most complex business challenges.