Citizensheep » IBM misleads with use of term ‘social innovation’

7 October, 2008

This post is in: Rant!

IBM misleads with use of term ‘social innovation’

I have just made a complaint to IBM.

Dominic Campbell drew my attention to the way IBM uses the term ‘social innovation’ on one of their websites and I too took exception to it. So I used their online contact form to send the following message. Let’s see if they respond.

Sir/Madam,

I am very concerned about the (deliberate?) misuse of the term ‘social innovation’ on your website (http://tinyurl.com/5ykzgt).

In every other encounter I have had with it the term applies to strategies that strengthen civil society, NOT to the use of social technologies to further one’s business objectives (see Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/4znj6j).

I accept this may just be case [sic] of bad research, and not a deliberate attempt to mislead people into believing your motivation is for the public good rather than private profit.

Therefore I hope you take this issue seriously and review your use of the term.

I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Grimes

Admittedly the Wikipedia definition does seem to allow for IBM’s use of the term:

“Over the years, the term has developed several overlapping meanings. It can be used to refer to social processes of innovation, such as open source methods.”

But I still maintain that it’s misleading and that they should change their terminology.