Market profile: Mark Turrell, chief executive, Imaginatik
By Ben Bland
Mark Turrell is one of those entrepreneurs who is so enthusiastic that it makes it difficult to work out whether he’s a forward-thinking innovator or a delusional dreamer. He is the 37-year-old founder of Imaginatik, a software company that was named by the World Economic Forum as one of 39 global technology pioneers in 2008.
Imaginatik provides businesses and other organisations with software that effectively acts as a sophisticated suggestion box for employees, customers and suppliers to put forward and debate new ideas online.
Over recent years, Imaginatik has worked with the likes of US drugs giant Pfizer and Coca-Cola’s Beijing office to enable them to get more out of their staff.
But Mr Turrell admits that it’s not always easy convincing employees to go out on a limb and tell their bosses what they really think.
“It’s difficult to get people to share ideas if they’ve just been told they’re a muppet by their boss,” he says.
“We were the first people to take collaborative tools into business and we spent the past 10 years focusing on how to get people using them in practice. Now, we’ve cracked many of the cultural adoption problems.”
Mr Turrell is very obviously a follower of the “two heads are better than one” school. In fact, he believes the dramatic growth of social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace means that, within a decade, society will become much more collaborative and Adam Smith’s famous division of labour will be significantly eroded.
“There is a societal shift at the moment,” he says. “Within 10 years it’ll be normal to have as many as three or four jobs each.”
He is referring to the so-called “slash/slash economy” where a whole generation of kids supposedly use online social networks to make money by creating their own music, art and fashion.
“We’re entering a world where there’s very little control and our company is at the heart of it,” he says. “We can’t control how our customers use our tool.”
If his rhetoric is at times dizzying, his drive is definitely not in question – as recognised by Pfizer, which nominated Imaginatik for the Davos gong.
Speaking from the lofty Alpine slopes, he sounds like a man genuinely excited by the opportunities at hand.
“Most of the sessions here do have a sense that the world is changing and every single person you talk to is a mover or a shaker,” he says.
