How To Build External Relationships: Great Lessons From Intuit

by Stefan Lindegaard

YOU: Fresh, dynamic, innovative entrepreneur or company. Relishes out-of-the-box thinking. Eager to deliver new product or service that improves the lives of millions. Web and social savvy. You think in the cloud – as in computing.

US: $3 billion innovative software company. Searching for passionate, spirited people who want to bring new ideas and products to life. Believes innovation is a team sport. Seeking possible long-term relationship. Hope to grow rich together.

No, this is not a dating agency. It is a quite unusual message from Intuit which on October 5 hosts their first Entrepreneur Day.

Entrepreneur Day is part of Intuit’s broader initiative to drive mutual growth through open innovation and partnerships. They invite a select group of entrepreneurs, start-ups and small but...

Next Stop: Open Innovation – A Session In Your Company, Conference Or Network

by Stefan Lindegaard

The innovation role is changing rapidly as companies embrace the open innovation movement, seeking external partners to co-create future products and services. This change the way companies organize for innovation and it requires a new mindset and new skills; it is no longer enough to just be a good project manager, researcher, engineer – or leader.

Therefore, I am pleased to offer the “Next Stop: Open Innovation” session for companies that want to get a better understanding of open innovation. The session is built around the below elements:

* Approaching Open Innovation: What is open innovation? What are the benefits and challenges of open innovation? What can we learn from the open innovation pioneers? How should your company approach open innovation? How do you handle...

Why Clorox Ticks Me Off: Another Bad Lesson On Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

It has only been a few days since I lashed out on an open innovation initiative at Campbell Soup. This time Clorox ticked me off enough to write a similar post. Why? They wasted my time.

I explained in another post, Five Lessons On Twitter, LinkedIn and Innovation that Twitter is a great tool for research on open innovation. So when a tweet like this one pops up in my filters, I got a bit excited:

“Clorox just re-launched its Open Innovation site. Come check it out http://bit.ly/1IlIJG and be a part of the development process! CloroxTweets”

Interesting! They even ask me to join their development process. Why not check it out? The link is: The Open Innovation Virtual Network

The first...

Six Happiness Tips For Tough Times

by Stefan Lindegaard

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions — such as fear, sadness, or anxiety — as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week...

When Open Innovation Becomes A Gimmick: Lessons From Campbell Soup Company

by Stefan Lindegaard

Let me start out by saying that it is purely accidental that I am lashing out at Campbell Soup Company in this blog post. It could have been several other companies as Campbell has not really done things that have not been done at other companies that set up programs to accept innovative ideas from external sources. While their intentions may be good, their execution is so poor that I can’t imagine they’ll have much success at this attempt at open innovation.

Here are a few of the problems I see with Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation program:

• It’s too vague and unfocused. Campbell says they want “ideas for new products, packaging, marketing, and production technologies that will help us meet the needs of our...

Troublemaker! You?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I often think back on an old post from David Nordfors on the Innovation Journalism blog. I have found his words to be true many times and if you work with innovation in a large company you can most likely relate as well and in particular to the part I have inserted below.

—–
When someone tries to innovate within a traditional organization,
few will understand what he/she is doing,
but everybody will understand who is a trouble-maker.

After the innovation has been embraced by the organization,
few will remember who started it,
but everybody will remember who was a trouble-maker.

This is the dilemma encountered by many intrapreneurs -
they risk punishment for success.
—–

Are you a troublemaker? : – )

Good reads on innovation #4

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of reads, videos and podcasts on innovation that I have enjoyed and re-tweeted in the last couple of weeks. I hope you will enjoy this as well.

You can follow me on Twitter: @lindegaard

The Power of “Starting” Questions – a must read in which Scott Anthony says that the right questions can send you down the path to disruption.
http://www.innosight.com/innovation_resources/insight.html?id=619

The New, Faster Face Of Innovation – a must read that show us how technology is transforming innovation
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/business-insight/articles/2009/3/5131/the-new-faster-face-of-innovation/

Why Edison Was Wrong – a great read in which Steve Shapiro states that the ability to integrate is the most important skill for organizations getting into open innovation
http://www.steveshapiro.com/2009/08/07/failure/

Real Companies Must Innovate...

Why Ignorance Is A Threat To Innovation In The U.S.

by Stefan Lindegaard

A Twitter post really ticked me off yesterday. It was written by @seansrich, the Twitter name of Sean Rohde, a software developer and political blogger in Texas, and it was caught in my search filter because it mentioned Denmark. It went like this:

—
@MAXHDTV we still have it good here in Texas and all the non liberal states. Entitlements kill innovation look at Denmark 26% on pub income.
—

Contrary to what Sean believes, Denmark is one of the most innovative countries in the world, and we are consistently ranked in the Top 3 on various indexes that measure the happiness of the populations of countries around the world.

Yes, we have a big government, we do pay a lot in taxes and...

Five Lessons on Twitter, LinkedIn And Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have been an active user of LinkedIn for a couple of years. At first, I ignored Twitter. It was too superficial and did not bring any really value. Six months of getting to know Twitter has changed my view. Twitter and LinkedIn are great tools when you work with innovation.

So what have I learned in the last couple of years? I made a quick summary of this below. Perhaps you can find some inspiration in this or post a comment that can inspire me to new ways of getting value out of Twitter and LinkedIn in relation to innovation.

1. TweetDeck for Twitter is a great tool for inspiration and staying updated

I used to follow blogs through aggregation tools such as Bloglines.com. Not...

Why Eco-systems And Networked Markets Impact Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have used the word “eco-systems” in many of my blog posts. It is kind of a strange word so I thought it would be appropriate to share how I got inspired on the ideas behind eco-systems and networked markets.

It goes back about 5 years when I led a group of Danish innovation leaders and intrapreneurs to a study-tour on innovation in Boston. We had the pleasure of meeting with Bhaskar Chakravorti, who had just written a book titled The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations To Market In a Connected World.

Bhaskar had also written a great article for Harvard Business Review – The New Rules for Bringing Innovation To Market. I have always been curious about networks and...