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Establishing A Corporate Accelerator 

QUICK SUMMARY

Dakota Crow shares his experience building a successful corporate accelerator program that focuses on discovering and developing both people and ideas within an organization. The program evolved from a small internship to a comprehensive innovation ecosystem with multiple entry points, including bootcamps, incubators, and speaker series that engage hundreds of employees annually. By democratizing innovation and providing structured frameworks, the accelerator has generated significant business value while creating a culture where innovation is accessible to everyone, not just an elite team.

KEY QUOTES

  • “No company ever innovated. People innovate. And that’s where my philosophy from our team goes, we’re all about the people. The people will create the innovation and the ideas.”
  • “Getting more innovation across your organization helps people believe more in innovation.”
  • “I would say it’s all about assembling ideas. It’s about developing people and ideas, but ultimately, if you want them to go further, you have to assemble them.”

FULL SESSION SUMMARY

Defining the Corporate Accelerator

Dakota begins by defining a corporate accelerator as “a structured time-bound program within the company designed to incubate and scale internal innovation ideas, often modeled after external startup accelerators.” He clarifies that his focus is specifically on internal ideas from internal people, not external startup partnerships. The speaker emphasizes that successful accelerators work because they de-risk innovation, allow for quick experimentation, and democratize innovation across the organization.

Evolution of an Accelerator Program

Dakota shares how his program evolved from a small internship program with six participants to a comprehensive innovation ecosystem. Initially, the accelerator required participants to leave their jobs for three months, which limited participation. He redesigned it as a part-time 12-week program requiring only 4-6 hours per week, which dramatically increased participation to 37 ideas in the first cohort.

As the program grew, they added an incubator for ideas that needed further development and a bootcamp as an entry-level program. The bootcamp, described as the “gateway drug” to innovation, runs for one week with 90-minute daily cohort calls plus homework. This tiered approach allows for approximately 300 innovators to participate annually, with bootcamps running monthly.

Creating an Innovation Ecosystem

The accelerator is part of a larger innovation ecosystem that includes:

  • NQ Speaker Series: ~100 events annually reaching 30,000 people
  • Idea Place: A crowdsourcing platform for gathering ideas
  • Bootcamp: Entry-level one-week innovation program
  • Innovator Residence: The formal accelerator program
  • Incubator: For further development of promising ideas
  • Flash Labs: For quick innovation sprints
  • Hackathons: For intensive development sessions

Dakota explains how they’ve rebranded as the “Innovation Studio” to better communicate their value to business lines, focusing on four key deliverables: inspire, ideate, accelerate, and implement.

Frameworks and Tools

The speaker emphasizes the importance of providing frameworks to ensure consistency in innovation projects. He shares a canvas tool they use to guide innovators through key questions about their ideas, including value proposition, customer segments, and business model. This “compass document” helps teams start with a hypothesis and then validate it through research.

Dakota also discusses their approach to hackathons, which includes three levels:

  1. Full-stack hacks (building from scratch)
  2. API-based hacks (using existing APIs)
  3. “Snack hacks” (using automation tools like Copilot and Power Apps)

He argues that the third category, while sometimes dismissed by technologists, can deliver quick business value.

Recognition and Culture Building

A significant portion of the talk focuses on building innovation culture through recognition. Dakota shares their innovation awards program with six categories that celebrate different types of innovators. He notes that leaders were eager to nominate their own people, leading to the creation of additional nomination categories.

The speaker also discusses their innovation persona framework, which helps employees identify where they fit on the innovation spectrum without judgment. This framework acknowledges that different types of innovators are needed and provides suggestions for how each persona can contribute.

Results and Impact

Dakota shares impressive results from their program:

  • Growth from 6 to ~300 participants annually
  • 14% of their enterprise innovation team discovered through these programs
  • Projects generating approximately $20-25 million in value annually
  • Creation of a community of innovators across the organization

He emphasizes that the accelerator helps package ideas professionally with innovation canvases, business model canvases, prototypes, and pitch decks, making them more likely to be implemented by business lines.

Recommendations for Implementation

The session concludes with recommendations for starting a corporate accelerator:

  • Start small with just 10 people
  • Keep teams small (2-3 people)
  • Ensure you have dedicated “head coaches” who care about the entire process
  • Track everything but don’t set rigid expectations
  • Make it fun and playful to encourage creative thinking

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  1. Successful corporate accelerators focus on developing both people and ideas, not just generating innovations.
  2. Creating multiple entry points (speaker series, bootcamps, hackathons) democratizes innovation and builds a broader innovation culture.
  3. Providing consistent frameworks helps innovators structure their thinking and creates more comparable outputs.
  4. Recognition systems are crucial for building and sustaining innovation culture.
  5. Packaging ideas professionally (with canvases, prototypes, pitch decks) significantly increases their chances of implementation.
  6. Different types of innovation activities (from “snack hacks” to full accelerator programs) serve different purposes and can all deliver value.
  7. Building a community of innovators across the organization creates momentum and belief in innovation.

DELIVERY ON EVENT FOCUS: Aligning Innovation with Business Strategy

The session strongly delivers on aligning innovation with business strategy by:

  • Creating structured processes that connect innovative ideas to business value
  • Involving business leaders as sponsors and decision-makers
  • Focusing on packaging ideas in business-friendly formats (projections, executive summaries)
  • Tracking and measuring business impact ($20-25 million annually)
  • Using frameworks that force innovators to articulate business value
  • Creating a “Flash Lab” approach to quickly kill zombie projects that don’t deliver value
  • Implementing a tiered approach that allows quick wins (“snack hacks”) to fund larger innovation bets

DELIVERY ON EVENT THEME: Harvesting Innovation and Sowing the Seeds of Future Growth

The session effectively addresses the event theme by:

  • Building sustainable innovation capabilities across the organization
  • Creating pathways to discover and develop innovation talent (14% of enterprise innovation team)
  • Establishing processes to move ideas from concept to implementation
  • Developing frameworks that help ideas mature and grow
  • Building recognition systems that encourage continued innovation
  • Creating multiple entry points that allow more employees to participate
  • Demonstrating how small innovations can fund larger transformation efforts

ACTION ITEMS FOR INNOVATION EXPERTS & CORPORATE CHANGEMAKERS

  1. Start Small: Launch a pilot accelerator with just 10 participants and 2-3 person teams to test the concept.
  2. Create Multiple Entry Points: Develop tiered innovation programs (speaker series, bootcamps, accelerators) to engage employees at different commitment levels.
  3. Develop Consistent Frameworks: Implement standard canvases or templates to guide innovators and create comparable outputs.
  4. Implement Recognition Systems: Create innovation awards that celebrate different types of innovators and contributions.
  5. Track Everything: Measure participation, idea progression, and business impact to demonstrate value.
  6. Identify and Train “Head Coaches”: Find people who care about the entire innovation journey to guide participants.
  7. Create Innovation Personas: Help employees identify their innovation style and how they can contribute.
  8. Package Ideas Professionally: Develop standards for how innovation ideas should be presented to business lines.
  9. Embrace “Snack Hacks”: Don’t dismiss small automation projects that can deliver quick wins and build momentum.
  10. Connect with Leadership: Involve business leaders as sponsors and create nomination processes that engage them in the innovation ecosystem.