The Faces Of Open Innovation
I got an e-mail last week. A senior innovation leader who is thinking of creating a role for open innovation to fully develop the capability within their organization asked me for input on the profile for such a role. I know several such people, but the request made me want to get a better understanding of the backgrounds of the people working with open innovation.
I did a search on LinkedIn and my network revealed 124 profiles with open innovation in their titles. I sorted out academics and consultants and other non-corporate people, which about halved the group. Of these 60 or so people, I found 18 people having enough information on their profile to get a better understanding of the people who run open innovation.
So what did I learn in this little exercise?
• Open innovation continues its growth. The number of corporate people with open innovation roles has grown significantly since I did a similar search in the spring. I take this as another sign that the open innovation movement keeps up its momentum.
• Lack of detailed information and inactive profiles. Surprisingly, many people did not have a detailed and/or active profile on LinkedIn. I understand that not everyone uses LinkedIn as actively as I do, but LinkedIn is nevertheless the leading platform for business networking. A serious open innovation leader should be active here as this is one of the very first places people will research the open innovation leaders of a company they might work with in the near future.
• Too much focus on R&D and engineers. R&D and technology are two key words in the profiles of these open innovation leaders and a large majority of them are engineers. Engineers as great people and they are usually great at innovation.
However, I believe we need a holistic view on open innovation. We need open innovation leaders who can identify and execute on opportunities across business functions and with many different types of innovation. On the latter, be inspired by the Ten Types of Innovation model by Doblin. Do we need more business people rather than engineers to make open innovation happen? Not sure, but I think the question is valid enough for consideration.
• Where are the B2B companies? Most of the 18 profiles are from consumer products companies. One reason could be that many consumer products companies have set up crowdsourcing-like initiatives similar to MyStarBucksIdea creating new open innovation roles within the company. But this finding makes me wonder whether B2b companies are less active on open innovation compared to consumer products companies. I will look further into this.
In other blog posts, I have given my input on the traits and skills needed by innovation leaders in the future and on the lessons I have learned on such people. They are The Traits You Need To Be Successful Within Innovation and
10 Lessons For Innovation Leaders And Intrapreneurs.
You might wonder who these people are. You can, of course, do your own search at LinkedIn, but you can also check out the links below.
Chris Thoen, Managing Director, Global Open Innovation Office, Procter & Gamble
http://www.linkedin.com/in/christhoen
Jason Husk, Group Manager, Open Innovation Networks, Clorox
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-husk/1/944/983
Manabu Tsuyama, General Manager, Open Innovation Division, Sony
http://www.linkedin.com/in/manabutsuyama
Shourya Roy, Open Innovation Manager, Xerox India Innovation Hub
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shouryaroy
John Tao, VP, Open Innovation, Weyerhaeuser
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-tao/0/61a/206
Kenneth Lee, Director, Competitive Intelligence & Technology Prospecting, Open Innovation Coordinator at L’Oreal
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethleeloreal
Sandra Van Den Berg, Open Innovation Director, Mars
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sandra-van-den-berg/7/603/90a
Sarah Pearson, Open Innovation Champion, Cadbury
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sarah-pearson/6/b21/29
Jose Miguel Alonso, Open Innovation Manager, Ericsson
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jose-miguel-alonso/0/16b/62
Jennifer Duggan, Open Innovation Manager, Nestle
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jennifer-duggan/1/369/57b
Manuel Martinez Alonso, Open Innovation Manager, Ferrovial
http://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelmartinez
Keith Chisholm, R&D Process Development and Open Innovation Manager, Mars Snackfood US
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/keith-chisholm/9/128/b17
Jeff Bellairs, Sr. Director, Open Innovation, General Mills
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-bellairs/0/b3b/645
Srinivasan Krishnan, Open Innovation Manager, Unilever HPC
http://www.linkedin.com/in/srinivasankrishnan
Steve Goers, VP, Open Innovation & Investments, Kraft Foods
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-goers/8/856/693
Linda Beltz, Director, Technology Partnerships/Open Innovation, Weyerhaeuser
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/linda-beltz-phd/5/a97/515
Shama Vaman, Open Innovation Manager, Cadbury
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shama-vaman/5/171/586
Jeff Murphy, Executive Director, Johnson & Johnson
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-goers/8/856/693
Why so surprised at the preponderance of engineers in the open innovation community? Good engineers are, by necessity, innovative. This is not so obvious with other professions. Engineers are prone to share, to seek out other engineers when they face a mental block. The walls of secrecy are generally erected by lawyers and MBAs that have a limited understanding of how technical progress actually proceeds.
Why are there not more B2B activities showing up on your search? It is possible that serious B2B projects may prefer a lower profile for legal reasons; it is also possible that such activities are founded on long-term relationships between the principles rather than the rather fluid and short term nature of most social networking…
Stefan,
I think you have to widen your search out a little more. for instance in Nestle the team are 'housed' under Helmut Traitler as Vice President of Innovation Partnerships at Nestlé
I like a quote he made
Nestlé's size was both an advantage and a hurdle to building momentum for a truly open innovation framework.
“Of course, the company is aligned to meet its strategic objectives and disruptive innovation of any kind will face hurdles,” he says. “With 270,000 employees worldwide, each individual within the organization is more anonymous and less exposed and not everyone knows everyone else. In this environment, projects can stall out due to entropy, or they grow and multiply, but their chances to succeed are not growing in parallel.”
His team aim to accelerate this and focus across the organization on the bigger wins. I think there are about 30 plus within the team.
Take a further search of innovation partnership as a search criteria or something similar, it might yield more insight.
Picking further back up on the developing of a profile for your senior innovation leader a lot does depend on what they are wanting to achieve from this more 'openness'. As you have well articulated many of the bigger companies are still struggling in the early stages of understanding all the implications and ramifications of going down this route. Slotting someone into a more matured innovation environment would be different from one that has to 'bridge' many internal barriers. I think we can look at the profiles built up for innovation champions in recent years and draw a number of attributes that would be well placed for the open innovation manager to have- just a thought Stefan
An interesting exercise Stefan, but have to say I (as an engineer
agree with Charlie's reasoning on why so many engineers turn up in your search. The natural place for open innovation to start is in the technical function, in my view because it can be neatly defined and encapsulated without excessive risk – so long as you have confidential structures to protect IP where you need them – which we use at IXC.
Speaking as an MBA, there should be scope for increasing innovation in other business functions, but the problem is tying it down to something concrete, so that it doesn't look too radical and threatening that provokes existing structures from strangling it at birth – I can't help thinking that social networking is creating a seismic shift in the way we do business, but by the time people figure out the model – it will have already happened!
I'm sorry Stefan but some of your great posts just get me going positively!
Reflecting on a profile and what it needs to have I went back to a document written by the University of Manchester for skills as a paper to the EU. Although they were under general headings you can take these 'headings' more specifically into open innovation aspects to consider. Let me offer these to you within your ruminations.
General Technology Knowledge- knowing about diverse technologies, having some technical development background would allow for relating more
Sector-specific knowledge- this gives some depth to understanding issues
Knowledge of the Organisations Structure- this allows for the potential for brokering and coordinating, knowing where to go
Change Management understanding- to oversee change to open innovation requires inception and implementation understanding so consequences can surface earlier rather than later
Technology Development- having a 'feel' for technology watch, market trend understanding and competitive intelligence helps trigger inside and outside.
Knowledge Management- Understanding where true value comes from in intellectual capital, knowledge-based assets will accelerate any open process that allows for the persons involved to relate more.
Technology Management- ability to understand all the different ways to communicate, search and use information and be ready to network.
People Management- skills to promote, organise, negotiate etc
Coordination skills in abundance- the level of cooperation within technical centres, research, product developers and how these interface with the outside world is paramount to have. The ability to coordinate
Marketing & Commercial Management- aligning and balancing competing interests to move the parties down the path to a shared 'win-win'.
Legal Appreciation- knowing the value of good documentation, but also knowing when to stop and reflect and not lose the value of the intellectual property in a sea of fine print and clarification, striving to maintain a 'spirit' of joint value.
Perhaps these help
Paul makes a valid point in distinguishing between placing an OI leader into an organization with a mature OI culture versus the OI leader needed to really develop this initiative. The latter would really need to be highly effective at instituting change management and obtaining support throughout the organization, even more so than the leader of the more established OI programs. And Paul's list of skillsets/disciplines is right on but I do see one that is missing. The ability to select the right people to join the team. Being able to identify the right kind of individuals to perform the scouting function is critical. Effective scouts share some common, innate characteristics such as the natural tendency to be curious, trendy, inquisitive, a solid communicator, empathetic, and imaginative among others. You can't train someone to be curious, for example. But once you have the right people on the bus, so to speak, you can train them to avoid IP contamination problems. Leaders of an organization's OI program need to be able to see these innate qualities in their recruiting and people management efforts.
Kristy
You make a valid point about the challenges of finding open innovation, but in reality you are looking for a strong leader with a history of changing cultures within a business. Most businesses have a core culture which sometimes stands in the way of innovation. Continuous Improvement departments are normally staffed by a lot of engineers, which is why you see more engineers than other profiles. Operations at many companies today is so risk adverse that they tend to shy away from innovation and change, therefore it is a support department that tends to be the catalyst for change. In my experience as a consultant, innovation gets support once the return on investment becomes obvious to the operations and executive management. That is the challenge, educating and motivating those groups to take action, and providing them the methods in order to achieve not only success, but change the culture to one that is self sustaining, and drives change from within.
Hi Stefan, thanks for this. Here is my advice to identify the right 'Open Innovation' Change Agent profile: http://nextstreams.blogspot.com/2009/08/are-you-r…
Are you the right 'Open Innovation' change agent ?
There is an on-going debate about why Open Innovation does not happen easily and is not widely spread among most major Corporations while, on paper, its management philosophy and aim may appear quite obvious. Even Corporations that have officially adopted this innovation strategy and management seem still to face difficulties to implement it effectively and in a sustainable way.
With the feedback and know-how we, at bluenove, are progressively adding up from the different 'Open & Collaborative Innovation' missions, from workshops to long-term projects we have been implementing for almost 2 years with our customers in many sectors, and recently sharing about this topic with Carlos Diaz (CEO at Bluekiwi Software), it appears clearer to me that when it does happen effectively, it is because the teams or the Manager, i.e the Corporate employees managing it, have a set of specific skills, backgroup and motivations.
To make it short, my point is that the Open Innovation 'Change Agent(s)' within an organisation who will be the one(s) delivering OI at the end of the day have to manage some risks and opportunities, as employee(s), that are a bit different from the ones their colleagues in other jobs and departments deal with.
Some of the risks handled by the 'Open Innovation' Change agent within a Corporation:
> interact online more and more often in a real-time 'Web 2.0' mode with external partners (startups, Developers, experts, etc.) thus facing Brand & Legal related issues and dilemas about 'if,what,how' to answer and give feedback, while handling the pressure to answer back fast enough
> appear too pushy when promoting ideas/products/services from 'external' partners
> appear towards the Communication & Brand department as the one always trying to put the Brand at risk: proposing co-branded related initiatives, Press Release involving a partner, experiencing frustrations from the Brand team about brand related framewoks and format constraints, etc.
> appear towards the Legal department as the one managing Partnership contracts issues as too much in favor of the 'external' partner
> appear towards the Purchasing department as the one disturbing the Procurement processes when 'dealing' with small (and weak) startups rather than other big (well structured) corporations
> appear towards the R&D team as sometimes careless about IP issues
On the opportunities side, the right 'OI change agent' will be the one :
> enjoying acting as the 'external partner' Champion within his Corporation and facing his colleagues: helpind among other things the startup or Developer to not get lost and exhausted contacting and meeting with all the decision stake-holders
> enjoying the connexions and contacts with new companies and people outside the walls of the company
> commited to deliver sometimes not aligned objectives and timings for both his employer company and the partner
> viewing, and being open about it, these external contacts also as opportunities for future jobs
> enjoying and sharing the 'creative vibes' from entrepreneurs and developers
> not feeling bad and ashamed fighting for budgets and expenses for things such as events and travels
As a employee, if you truly see these as Risks and Opportunities, you are probably the right 'Open Innovation Change agent' for your Corporation.
If you are the HR person in charge of searching and identifying the 'Open Innovation' Manager/Team Member within or outside your Corporation, this is a check-list of criteria to make sure he/she feels in line in terms of skills, background and mind.
The best guarantee for an enjoyable job and an efficiently delivered Open Innovation approach.
Hi all,
Thanks for your great comments!
To you engineers, you do of course add a lot of value to innovation. However, some of things you stated are problems just as well as benefits. More on this in an upcoming blog post. It will be slight provocative
Paul, as always, thanks for your great input! Can you share the Manchester report with us? Do you have a link? I fully agree that I could have widen the field and found more people. This was just a quick and dirty exercise based on my LinkedIn network.
Kristy, I fully agree on the people issue you mention. Innovation is all about people.
Martin, thanks for sharing your findings. I have tweeted your blog post.
Stefan
Stefan – Very interesting post! A quick comment re "there are too many R&D and Engineering people" on the Open Innovation rosters. I think this is a reflection of the fact that Open Innovation is a cousin of Central R&D…it is a modern version of "the old way" in which ideas would gain traction and become projects in the Industrial Age.
Marketing, Design, and Manufacturing are also becoming spawning grounds for Open Innovation…they're just not as heralded. I still believe Central R&D has a role to play in innovation today; but the behaviors and landmarks which guide success in that arena need to be contemporized for the Innovation Age.
Your work is great!
Best regards,
Sarah Miller Caldicott
Hi Stefan,
Being from R&D and an engineer and a consultant I guess I already have three strikes against me. Nevertheless, striking out does not prevent me from commenting on your post.
I have dealt with more than a few of the companies on your ‘A’ List and have found them all to be very engaging and willing to try new thoughts, ideas, and methods to get ideas to the marketplace. I have also noticed those people are mandated with the ‘early win’ disease that renders Open Innovation much more an exercise in rapid product development rather than true innovation. ‘Crowdsourcing’ was the term I believe you used. B2C companies, many of which you mentioned on your ‘A’ List, have been tasked with starting an Open Innovation group/department and really do not fully grasp the entire Open Innovation spectrum of opportunities. Because they are part of an organization that is bottom-line profit driven, these new departments are faced with the daunting prospect of creating these ‘early wins’, or, more to the point, early profit generators, to justify their existence. Of all the companies I have audited thus far, 100% are trapped in this paradigm. They view Open Innovation program success by working with their suppliers to solve an internal issue, or asking their suppliers to come up with unique applications for their products and bring them to the company. In a worst case, these companies open up a web portal that solicits ideas from the general public, then decides internally which ones to work on, leaving all the others hanging. I believe you even posted something similar to that earlier.
That’s not to say early wins are not important. In most of the companies I have worked with they are vital to the programs early stage survival.
I find it rather intriguing that you eliminated consultants in your search. Consultants are one of the few, if not only groups who are not unduly influenced by the ‘early win’ disease. They look at Open Innovation from a holistic approach, recognizing that early wins are only a small portion of the program. It is these consultants who can come into an organization and work with a person who has been appointed Open Innovation VP/Director/Manager and help them not only achieve the early wins but also help them see and install the larger benefits of Open Innovation. I blog about unused IP as the key to driving a successful Open Innovation Program beyond ‘early wins’ (www.openinnovation-openoutovation.blogspot.com), and have made it my mission at Tech Bridge West to help these companies mine the gold of unused IP that goes beyond a couple of successful product launches using a vendor solution.
For all Open Innovation VP/Director/Managers who view the program as partnering with vendors, suppliers and in some cases customers and universities as the be all-end all, you may be missing a key component of the program.
Cheers,
Kurt C Schneider
President and Lead Product Accelerator
Tech Bridge West