Regardless of being part of a startup or an established company, how do you stay innovative? Growth, as Martha Stewart would say, is a good thing but with that good thing comes infrastructure, rules and a potential innovation ceiling. How do you work around these barriers to keep your company at the forefront of your industry?

At InCrowd we ask ourselves this question all the time. Over the last ten months we have experienced some pretty significant growth and with that has come the challenge of structure vs. innovation, standard operating procedure (SOP) vs. a different way of doing things and corporate red tape vs. transparent tape. Our desire to incorporate new business tools into our daily work, find different ways to engage our customers and keep our product offering fresh have lead us to become part of different communities for sourcing innovation. One of those communities is BostInno, a hub for information and ideas.

Our current SmartCrowd pick is a dual award going to those smart people that developed the BostInno platform and those people smart enough to use the platform.  The first round of applause goes to the movers and shakers at BostInno, an online community publishing platform and local news site focused on innovation in Boston. The second round of applause goes to those people and businesses using the platform to share information, learn from others and stay free of red tape. The recent post 5 Ways for Companies to Stay Innovative as They Grow nicely demonstrates the value of sharing information and offers some interesting ideas for staying innovative.

Do you have others ideas for cultivating innovation and avoiding the SOP trap? We’d love to hear them!