Making Open Innovation Work

by Stefan Lindegaard

In the excitement to begin open innovation efforts, it is possible to overlook important groundwork that should be done that will help assure that things go smoothly over time.

This includes reaching agreement on goals and defining the desired outcome so that everyone is confident that the relationship will produce a win/win that is acceptable to both parties.

It also includes establishing boundaries, such as deciding up front how any disagreements will be settled as well as being very clear on what the expectations are as far as the resources that will be expected to be devoted to the project from both sides. This latter point is particularly important to protect the smaller partner since they are in the more precarious position regarding the expenditure...

Good Reads on Innovation, Social Media and Careers – May 27 Update

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of blog posts and articles on innovation that I have enjoyed recently. You can follow me on Twitter: @lindegaard

But first, I would like to mention a couple of upcoming conferences worth looking into:

3^rd Annual Open Innovation Summit, Chicago, August 10-12 – A GREAT CONFERENCE!

Social Business Forum, Milan, June 8^th

The Conference on Social Product Development and Co-Creation, Phoenix, June 27-28

World Innovation Convention, Cannes, Sep 28-30

UPDATED MAY 27:

The Busyness Trap by DeLong http://bit.ly/iYoYh4 – good inspiration for freeing up time, energy

Robust to Resilient for Innovation Thinking by @paul4innovating http://bit.ly/m8CXpe

The Thought Leader Interview: Henry Chesbrough on Service Innovation http://bit.ly/kN0pkM...

Is Your Business Social and Open?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I will be speaking at the Social Business Forum in Milan on June 8^th. It is an interesting conference that uses this quote to explain what it is about:

“An organization that has put in place the strategies, technologies and processes to systematically engage all the individuals of its ecosystem (employees, customers, partners, suppliers) to maximize the co-created value”

You can check out the conference here: Social Business Forum

I will talk about open innovation at the conference and I was asked the below questions as “warm-up” for this.

What’s your personal definition of “Open Innovation”? Sometimes this term is used as synonym of another terms such as Social Innovation, Crowdsourcing or Co-creation: what’s the correct definition?

There is no correct...

How Should We Measure Innovation?

by Stefan Lindegaard

A company in my Danish network group recently created a global innovation management department whose task it is to strengthen and systematize innovation and innovation processes in their Global Research unit as well as across the organization.

The ultimate goal is to enhance and make visible the value creation that happens through targeted research and discovery activities in the enterprise as a whole.

How can you set goals, which can monitor and quantify this value creation and thus boost innovation? This is a big challenge and it would be great to have a discussion that can help share insights and inspirations among the innovation community.

The company asked some questions that I think work well as discussion starters:

How do you assess the quality of...

What Makes CEO’s Good for Innovation?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I pondered on this question and decided to reach out to some of my friends at Psion, a leader on rugged mobile computing solutions.

Their CEO is John Conoley. He joined Psion in 2008 and he decided early on that open innovation was the way forward for Psion. He does a great job of sharing insights seen from the executive perspective on their efforts and one of his tools is to write frequently on his own blog.

I am impressed by his approach and I have enjoyed my interactions with him so I looked forward to the responses from my Psion friends on the above question. This is how they replied:

• Ability to balance the “here and now”...

Only 44% of Companies Innovate!

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have often wondered to which extent companies innovate.

I got some insights when I stumbled over some interesting facts in research reports by the Danish Chamber of Commerce and Statistics Denmark, the official statistical institution in Denmark.

They concluded that in the years of 2007 – 2010, only 44 % of Danish companies engaged with innovation activities on products, services and processes.

The Danish Chamber of Commerce also shared that:

• Only 21,3 % of the Danish companies have launched a new product or service in the last 3 years

• The share of innovative Danish companies has not increased in many years

• The share of companies that have launched a new product or services varies significantly between big and small...

8 Pointers for Building Corporate and Personal Strategies for Social Media

by Stefan Lindegaard

Not so long ago, I hosted an event together with Cheryl Perkins of InnovationEdge. The purpose was to bring together a group of innovation leaders and discuss social media and how to use this for innovation.

It was a great session and we were able to extract several interesting insights on how corporate people view and approach social media. These insights were useful in helping the participants start building corporate and personal strategies for their use of social media. I am sure they can also bring some inspiration to your thoughts on this and thus we want to share this overview of insights:

1. The group defined two aspects of social media:

• Communication of relevant messages
• Collaboration including sharing of...

In your opinion open innovation projects are to be executed, always, by a separate team or should be handled by the organization’s products machine?

I just red “Open Innovation Revolution” and the answer to the above-mentioned question is not clear for me. Namely in SME, radical innovation (even in a open innovation perspective) should always be handled by a specific team?

5 Ways to Gain Skills and Experience on Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

It can be difficult for smaller companies to find the time and proper methods to help their employees gain skills and experience on open innovation. Here are five suggestions on what they can do to build a stronger open innovation muscle. Other suggestions are highly appreciated.

• Corporate wild-cards: Many larger corporations invite smaller companies into what we can call wild-card sessions. These corporations understand the advantages of having smaller companies as part of their open innovation eco-systems and they often invite smaller companies to help with ideation, provide an outside perspective and to provide expertise in a specific area. This not only creates a great learning experiences for both sides, but it also provides a chance to get to know one another making it...

How You Should NOT Approach Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

“Innovation is the lifeblood of the consumer packaged goods industry.” This is the first sentence you meet at Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation website.

This is very true and we see lots of interesting innovation initiatives in this industry. Just think of P&G, Clorox, General Mills, Nestle and Unilever. Campbell Soup is not a good example. On the contrary, they seem to be a textbook example on what not to do.

Let me start out by going back to August 2009. Campbell Soup had just announced their new Ideas for Innovation website. This is how I reviewed their efforts: When Open Innovation Becomes A Gimmick: Lessons From Campbell Soup Company

Today, I read an article in which Asad...