Service Research & Innovation Initiative

IBM, Oracle, and other tech companies have formed a new nonprofit consortium dedicated to the advancement of service innovation. IBM realized that service innovation isn't a one-company thing," says Thomas Pridham, senior vice-president, Advanced Programs of the Service & Support Professionals Assn., and executive director of the SRI Initiative. In other words, IBM realized that, to fully understand how the field of service innovation was evolving, it needed to be part of the broader community. The SRI Initiative, Spohrer points out, has always been conceived as a separate entity from IBM, despite being the brainchild of IBM executives. And the SRI Initiative's future online social-networking and public archive features could distinguish the SRI initiative from earlier industry groups, such as the San Carlos (Calif.)-based Consortium for Service Innovation, founded more than a decade ago. That nonprofit organization's list of tech benefactors and advisers has some crossover with that of the SRI Initiative (Microsoft and Cisco, e.g.). It offers white papers, workshops, and conferences for members to learn how to improve their customer-service programs, as well as a members-only wiki to share ideas. The SRI Initiative's plans to formally involve educational institutions and government funders to collaborate with corporations—perhaps the next step in gaining widespread acknowledgement for both the idea and practice of "service innovation"—should further distinguish the two organizations. You can read more about this here. You can go to the SRI website here.