Comments on: The Faces Of Open Innovation

By: Kurt C Schneider

Kurt C Schneider — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:34:21 +0000

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

By: Sarah Miller Caldico

Sarah Miller Caldico — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:54:13 +0000

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

By: Stefan Lindegaard

Stefan Lindegaard — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:13:35 +0000

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

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:43:54 +0000

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.

By: Patrick Harkey

Patrick Harkey — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:21:23 +0000

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.

By: Kristy

Kristy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:10:27 +0000

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

By: Paul Hobcraft

Paul Hobcraft — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:30:27 +0000

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

By: Howard Farbrother

Howard Farbrother — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:29:20 +0000

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!

By: Paul Hobcraft

Paul Hobcraft — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:07:15 +0000

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

By: Paul Hobcraft

Paul Hobcraft — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:58:46 +0000

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.