P&G Perspectives on Small Companies and Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

This is part of an interview I did with Chris Thoen, Managing Director of the Global Open Innovation office at P&G. The overall topic is the intersection of big and small companies in open innovation.

Chris shares some great insights and I hope you will enjoy this…

How well informed do you find small companies to be about open innovation?

How well a company understands and adopts open innovation isn’t linked to its size, but more so to the focus of its leadership, its openness to new ideas and its commitment to innovation. We’ve seen small companies deeply engaged in leveraging open innovation to grow their businesses. And others either not committed, or still working to understand what it means and how it...

The First Mover Effect in Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I spoke with innovation people from a big automotive manufacturer last week. We talked about the automotive industry and open innovation. They said that there is already lots of collaboration going on in their industry and that it resembles open innovation in same ways.

It was interesting to hear their views and having some understanding of their industry, I agreed with them. However, I also asked why we do not really hear about automotive companies in the open innovation community.

Perhaps they are not really doing open innovation? Could it be more about alliance management and open source than open innovation? Or is it just an industry that does not want to share their open innovation insights and experiences?

It is most likely the latter....

Which innovation strategy (OI/UD) is best suited for a global B2B industrial company?

I would be interested in your thoughts as to which innovation strategy (Open Innovation or User Driven) you think is best suited for B2B industrial products companies to initiate. Why?
Is there room for both strategies / methodologies to coexist within the same organization? Why? Why not?
Lastly. how does this choice change (or does it) if it were a B2C products company?
Thanking you in advance for your feedback.
Regards,
Rich

MBA Candidate University of London – RHUL
rm119@student.london.ac.uk

Good Reads on Innovation #28

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of blog posts and articles on innovation that I have enjoyed in the last couple of weeks.

You can follow me on Twitter: @lindegaard

How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation by Casey Hibbard http://bit.ly/b0K0gs

Four Principles for Crafting Your Innovation Strategy by Carroll and Mui http://bit.ly/ffQUj3

Trust and Open Innovation by @innovationfixer – Kevin McFarthing http://bit.ly/dMni5v

What Venture Capital Can Learn from Emerging Markets by VJ Govindarajan http://bit.ly/hjjk3q

What’s Your Personal Social Media Policy? by Mike Brown http://tinyurl.com/4rx7864

Corporate Culture: Whose Job Is It? by John Kotter http://bit.ly/fQcE3q

The Experimenter – running a business by data rather than hunches by Schrage

Opportunities versus Threats: A People Aspect in Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

In this blog post, Todd Boone, Director of Market Development at Psion shares some insights and experiences on the people aspect of open innovation.

As you can read below, Todd focuses on making people understand that open innovation offers more opportunities than threats. I think this is a great approach.

By the way, this blog post originates from an interview in which I asked Todd this question:

Can you give some insights on the people aspects of open innovation?

His reply:

The traditional corporate philosophy towards information is secrecy at all costs. Protect the intellectual property. We know best. All of these point to one essential tenet of open innovation – you must give up control. If you are not prepared to relinquish...

OI Conferences – which is the very best?

There are just too many conferences on OI. Let us say you want to send a number of co-workers on just one conference per year – which one should you choose?

Perhaps it would be a good blog topic to list the ten most important OI conferences with pros and cons.

Doers versus Thinkers: Open Innovation Implementation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I led a workshop with Swedish innovation people yesterday. It was an interesting session and among many discussions, we had one on the issue of whether you should have a doer or a strategic thinker as the lead guy when you implement open innovation programs.

The vote was split on this. One half said that you need a doer because things need to happen. The other half said that you need a thinker because a strong strategic approach is important in order to succeed in the long-term.

Personally, I believe a thinker is the most important piece because it requires quite an overview to become successful with an open innovation program having in mind that you need to deal with internal as well as external...

What should a road map for open innovation implementation look like?

I am working on a blog post that offers advice on how a company can implement open innovation. My idea is to break this into phases such as

Pre-launch: A planning phase with a strong focus on strategic and organizational issues.

Launch: Focus on internal and external issues that must work well from Day 1.

Take-Off: Focus on how to gain momentum through adjustments and further development – 0-12 months after lunch.

Next Level: Actions that can take the initiative to the next level – 12-24 months after launch.

I hope you get the idea of the phases. It would be great to hear your input on this. Some questions: Better way to organize the phases? What specific issues should be addressed in the phases?...

Innovation Marketplaces: A Major Resource for Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

As open innovation becomes more widespread, the need increases for innovation marketplaces that can serve as intermediaries to which companies can quickly connect.

Some of these intermediaries will serve niche markets, whereas others will be more general. Some will be set up by companies to meet their specific needs, and others will be set up by third parties that want to position themselves as an interface between companies seeking solutions and the smart people—or companies—with solutions.

Such intermediaries have a role to play with small companies as well as with large. One of the challenges small companies need to tackle when they consider engaging in open innovation is getting employees up to speed on the skills that are required to be part of an open...

Why (Open) Innovation Requires a Why

by Stefan Lindegaard

Once they understand what open innovation is, many people conclude that it is the Holy Grail and they just jump aboard without asking this all-important question: Why is open innovation relevant to your company, its present situation, and its mission and vision?

If you haven’t answered this question thoroughly, you need to bring your feet back on the ground and remember that open innovation is just a tool, not a goal. The goal is to grow your company and make a profit.

You should also have in mind that open innovation is just a piece of the overall innovation strategy and it might not even work for all companies. So you have to start out by asking this question: Why do we want open innovation?...