Information flows tend to follow specific human routes and codes within companies, making it difficult to build contexts and definitions that would be common enough for a variety of professionals to communicate on highly strategic and engaging topics. Within SMEs as well as within global firms, or even associations, deciphering those codes is critical to align ideas and visions on common goals. Whether you need a technical crew to better explain field configurations to your material provider or present to a network engineer the requirements of non-technical customers, dimensional diversity is a tool that can help you make sense of information from customers to technical specialists to drive discussion towards user-centric problem-solving.

Developing common languages

As varying strategic angles becomes a necessary reading tool to make sense of a complex and uncertain environment for innovation, enabling individuals to communicate around common standards and goals becomes the new operational excellence for team working in global, matrix and interconnected ecosystems. Smart change makers within those teams, whether they work for global or local businesses, are able to articulate customer issues under a variety of viewpoints, making sure they include customer requirements at every level of the discussion. By breaking silos, confronting ideas and viewpoints, addressing commonly shared issues and creating synergies with customers, dimensional diversity adapts information shared across knowledge communities to include customers into daily interactions.

Dimensional diversity results from the application of horizontal, vertical, systemic and technical layers of diversity to make sense of change. As defined in our latest management report, it enables entrepreneurs, specialists and leaders to coordinate efforts through network oriented knowledge sharing, enriching experience through personal stories, hence amplifying diversity of thoughts to solve complex issues. In order to generate the open-innovation and communicative environment needed for dimensional diversity, change makers can for instance build multi-dimensional views of change and reassess definitions to update common languages, as further developed in our latest operational plan.

Developing operational excellence through dimensional diversity

By consistently cross-breeding information from customer to every knowledge community involved in delivering solutions, dimensional diversity re-uses cumulated, hence distinctive and authentic information and values from internal as well as external experts on specific subject. Enabling a continuous flow of information by adapting and re-defining concepts that can be understood and re-used by a variety of stakeholders is a critical asset change makers utilize to develop operational excellence. Applied to weareinnovation.org, this tool would provide below insights:

• Vertical diversity to confront ideas and strategic viewpoints: the innovation trends covered by this knowledge platform are global and systemic, which enables to listen to different level of expertise and experience in developing, implementing or evaluating technologies and processes. I make sure a specific emphasis is provided to outline the voice, context, intention and wording used to express ideas and opinions in order to keep conversations open enough for further thinking and questioning from readers and followers.

• Horizontal diversity to address commonly shared issues: social media, including social networks, blog platforms and new syndicated media engaging specialist content offer a wide variety of viewpoints on innovation trends affecting multiple sectors and organization types. From agriculture to banking, and from innovation experts to sales experts, I include agreeing and conflicting ideas to better shape innovation context, as well as operational priorities. I can then compile best practices into strategic and operational recommendations for intelligent change.

• Technical diversity to create synergies with customers: our recent technical assessments of innovation, whether from a market, strategic or business viewpoint, all confirm the interlink existing between several components of the technologies supporting the digital economy. Varying technical solutions and viewpoints to make sense of technological progress allows me to share insights and messages with technology and business specific audiences while highlighting the more generic content they need to have in mind to make their own decisions. On the long-term, this knowledge platform builds a single story for specific innovation challenges, such as social innovation and legal, environmental impact of the digital economy.

• Systemic diversity to break silos: a growing variety of players, including governments, universities, businesses and leading firms are engaged to address commonly shared issues through connected platforms. Because they seek to share and inspire knowledge that support their own vision and forecasts of economic, social and political benefits of innovation, they continuously influence discussions held at an operational level to drive change within growingly pressured ecosystems. I ensure such analyses are included in experts discussions by following and sharing ideas emanating from politics, economics and social bodies, putting them in perspective with operational insights.

Bridging gaps between expert communities is a key attitude to develop for further diversity, agility and human-centricity. From a content development point of view, it opens access to a wider range of business and field vocabulary to reshape messages in line with a variety of expertise and expectations. This is also what enables to shape a common grammar for change, which is critically needed to drive cultural transformation within the information era.