The Innovation Strategy: Companies Don’t Have It

by Stefan Lindegaard

I believe innovation can only work to its full potential if it is aligned with an overall corporate strategy. Many companies mess up here. They simply do not have an innovation strategy. Companies have marketing or sales strategies, but only very few have an innovation strategy.

What should an innovation strategy look like? It can come in many different forms as it needs to reflect the company itself. Due the obvious reason mentioned above, I have a hard time finding cases on this, but I definitely like the Innovation Intent created by Grundfos, one of the world’s leading pump manufacturers.

Check out this description:

—–
At Grundfos we have successfully achieved many of our targets and therefore we have recently reviewed our long-term business...

How Companies Kill Innovation – A Good Laugh

by Stefan Lindegaard

Internal forces are often the worst enemies of innovation. Not much else to say on this : – )

Defining User-Driven And Open Innovation – And The Role Of Consultants

by Stefan Lindegaard

User-driven and open innovation mean different things to many people. So how should consultants guide their clients on this?

This became one of the key issues in a discussion that followed my Why User-Driven Innovation Should Not Be Confused With Open Innovation post.

I argued that these two types of innovation are related, but not the same. I also argued that open innovation and user-driven innovation already have too many different meanings and definitions making it useless for academics and consultants to drive ONE definition for these terms.

As a comment to this, Ellen Di Resta suggested that we should “view user-innovation and open innovation as approaches. Thinking of it that way, then it’s the application of an approach that needs to be tailored...

Open Innovation Starts With A Why

by Stefan Lindegaard

A journalist recently asked me how companies should get started with open innovation. I replied as below:

First ask this question: Why do we want open innovation? Many people believe open innovation is the Holy Grail and they just jump aboard without asking why open innovation is relevant to them.

An answer to the why question should show an understanding of how open innovation can be an important part of the general innovation strategy which in turn needs to be highly aligned with the overall corporate strategy. Many companies mess up here. They simply do not have an innovation strategy.

The benefit of having an innovation strategy is that it sets a direction for your efforts. This also allows you to better define open innovation...

How Open Innovation Initiatives Can Break Down Internal Silos

by Stefan Lindegaard

Silo thinking and organization is one of the toughest obstacles towards innovation. This stifles the holistic mindset and approach needed and it becomes harder to create significant innovation as different business functions tend not to get involved. As a result, companies miss out on the “white space” which I define as the great opportunities that lie between the silos.

The idea of open innovation is to build relationships with external partners. It is, however, great to see that open innovation initiatives also can break down silos and help internal innovation.

The initiative I have in mind is InnoCentive@Work: https://www.innocentive.com/at_work.php by InnoCentive. They describe this offering as a way to apply the best internal resources to the organization’s hardest problems so they are solved faster,...

Open Innovation Assessment: Is Your Company Ready For The Future?

by Stefan Lindegaard

My clients like my ability for asking direct and thought-provoking questions. I offer to use this ability to assess your current open innovation strategy and the initiatives that you have or are about to launch.

The process is simple. I get as much relevant information from you as possible and I do some research of my own. My observations are presented in a short document. Together, we use the observations to tailor a half-day session for the key people within your company. Our desired outcome is to build a better understanding of your open innovation opportunities and challenges and to develop specific actions points.

This interview with Jeff Bellairs, Director of General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network will give you an idea of the issues I...

Tough Questions And Great Answers: General Mills Steps Up To The Open Innovation Plate

by Stefan Lindegaard

At a first glance, the G-WIN initiative by General Mills looks just like the many other open innovation portals that are popping up right now.

So rather than just giving my two cents on this, I did an interview with Jeff Bellairs, who is director of General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network, to get a better understanding of the whys and hows of this initiative.

This turned into a great learning experience that I would like to share with others. I kicked off the interview by telling Jeff that I was kind of neutral on their project. Some things looked good and others not so good. I also mentioned that a press release they’d recently sent out on the project and the portal itself raised...

Good Reads On Innovation #7

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

How a Blizzard Saved the ATM by Shapiro – Good story on how innovation is adapted http://bit.ly/1BWg6C

Innovating for Fun and Social Good by Braden Kelley
http://bit.ly/16XvmD

Are you an Innovation Venture Capitalist? by Paul Sloane
http://bit.ly/30ZuiF

Can Innovation Create Competitive Advantage? by Jeffrey Philips
http://bit.ly/qx6JL

Project Goals or Effect Goals On Open Innovation by Sofus Midtgaard
http://bit.ly/3hq83P

Developing an Innovation Vision by Paul Sloane
http://retwt.me/1GjyE

Fight the Fear of Change by Paul Sloane

Why User-Driven Innovation Should Not Be Confused With Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Denmark has its share of world-leading companies on user-driven innovation. Lego, the toy company, is a great example of this through their Adult Fan Of Lego groups and many other initiatives.

Another example is Coloplast which develops products and services that make life easier for people with very personal and private medical conditions. Their business includes ostomy care, urology and continence care, and wound and skin care. They are considered by many as a global pioneer of user-driven innovation due to their work with doctors, nurses and users of their products.

Last week, I read an article on how Coloplast has set-up communities for their users to share experiences and ideas. You can use Google to translate the Danish article and you...

The Fun Factor & Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

What impact does the fun factor have on the innovations we bring to market? Honestly, I had not given this much thought until Braden Kelley made me aware of the Thefuntheory.com.

This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

What if we started to apply a fun factor to our daily innovation work? Could this bring out better results? Could it become more than just a gimmick? : – )

Check out the videos on Thefuntheory.com. I really enjoyed them. Do you...