Open Innovation: The View from the Top

by Stefan Lindegaard

Twitter Chat: Thursday, September 2 at 9.00am – 10.00am (New York time)

Topic: Top executives and their view on open innovation

What do top executives actually think of open innovation? How do they approach open innovation? What do they see as the biggest challenges? What advice would a top executive give to innovation directors in charge of implementing open innovation?

I really look forward to hearing the perspectives on these and other questions from three top executives from Psion, the maker of mobile computer products and technologies.

The executives are John Conoley (CEO), Mike Doyle (CTO) and Nick Eades (CMO). Check out the Psion executive team here.

John, Mike and Nick and their colleagues have initiated a corporate open innovation initiative named Open Source Mobility, which includes their Ingenuity Working community. They...

Open Innovation Intermediaries, Service Providers and Platform Developers

by Stefan Lindegaard

Philip Sorensen of Advanced Technology Innovations recently asked me some good questions on the role of intermediaries and platform and service providers within the open innovation ecosystem.

His questions went like this:

—— I recently came across inno-360.  Do you think more companies are going to be trying, like PG and GM, to use such companies to bring their own OI ecosystems in-house?  Does this represent a threat to InnoCentive, NineSigma, and other partners?  Or is it just an additive thing, i.e., one more tool for them to use? ——

For your information, inno-360 is a software company that helps companies built their own platforms for working with external collaborators.

This was my reply to Philip:

—— Hi Philip, I definitely believe that larger companies will develop their own internal systems to...

Social Media Tools in Open Innovation Efforts

by Stefan Lindegaard

Companies have begun using social media tools in order to further build their networks and engage with their innovation stakeholders.

This creates what we can call touch points – situations in which a person or company interact with their current and/or future stakeholders.

Here are a few touch point examples:

• GE has an app for their Ecomagination challenge, which gives them an additional touch point that interacts nicely with their website for the challenge.

• Chris Thoen @cthoen is an active twitter on P&G’s open innovation efforts and others things related to innovation. This can help Thoen and P&G build an innovation leadership position as the innovation community appreciates efforts to distribute knowledge and insights.

However, Twitter is just one touch point in order to reach such a position. Other touch points...

Open Innovation Characteristics: What Can You Add?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I really enjoyed facilitating a great think tank session together with Greg Fox, Cisco and Andrea Meyer, WorkingKnowledge at the Open Innovation Summit.

Our think tank participants were a nice, diverse group as you can see in the attached presentation. Open Innovation Summit Think Tank

Our objectives were as below:

• What are the top 3 characteristics that define an open innovation leader?

• Which companies come to mind as open innovation leaders?

We started out by developing this list of open innovation characteristics:

• Risk

• Proactively seek others virtually and IRL

• Opposite of “not invented here” & feeling comfortable with that

• Leveraging (external) others

• Adaptability / courage

• Collaborate to compete

• Customer-focused approach (focus on needs, both known & unknown)

• Persistence/ perseverance

• Communication

• Vision

We chose these as the top three characteristics:

• Adaptability (exemplified...

Don’t Do This Lesson on (Open) Innovation Challenges

by Stefan Lindegaard

There are some tweets flying around on the Management Education for Tomorrow (MET) Fund and their Ideas to Innovation Challenge.

One came from the MET Fund itself and it went like this: “We may not have $200 million in prize money as GE does but we’re still cool. http://bit.ly/dhJ4NS”

This is actually a nice way of framing their competition against grand-scale activities such as the GE Ecomagination Challenge. Unfortunately, the MET Fund Challenge just falls flat when they start off by making such a grave mistake such as the MET Fund does.

Try to click the official link for their challenge. (NOTE: There is a bit more text on the challenge on this link. This was added to the original post upon comments from others.)

It takes you directly to...

Top 10 Reasons for Open Innovation Failure

by Stefan Lindegaard

A recent 15inno Twitter Chat made me ponder on the worst and most common mistakes that companies do on open innovation. Here comes a list of my thoughts – still work in progress.

1. Companies do not identify proper business reasons for engaging with open innovation.

2. Companies copy competitor’s initiatives rather than creating their own unique initiatives that match their business reasons for doing open innovation.

3. Companies fail to make their employees, partners and customers understand what open innovation means to the company and they fail to explain the impact of such a new direction to the internal and external stakeholders.

4. The various organizational units – and in particular the operational ones – are not fully aligned with the innovation initiatives making it difficult to execute in...

The Future of Innovation: GE’s Ecomagination Challenge

by Stefan Lindegaard

GE got their share of the headlines in the innovation community last week. I think it is well deserved as they gave us a very good example on how innovation is shaping up in the corporate world with their Ecomagination Challenge.

The short story of what GE does is to connect internal and external resources and set-up a solid process that allows them to executive on the opportunities that arise from this combination.

This is exactly what we should expect to see in the future. A couple of years from now, this will not be something special or unique. It will simply be an integrated part of how companies innovate and it will work because it builds on three key elements for the future of innovation: it’s...

Top 5 Open Innovation Companies – July

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of my current favorite open innovation companies.

The list is by no means based on in-depth research. It is based on actions, initiatives or shared insights of these companies over the last month or so – and thus what I believe should inspire other companies.

1. GE – for leading the way with a $200 million challenge

GE shows us the future of innovation by assembling a great team of partners as well as the rest of us as they work to solve some critical issues. Their challenge is a great initiative that I will write more about in a separate post.

2. P&G – for addressing language barriers on their Connect+Develop platform

The more time I spent in places such as Brazil and China, I begin...

The End of Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I had an interesting session in Sao Paulo, Brazil yesterday when a group of about 40 people listened to my talk based on my book, The Open Innovation Revolution.

Brazil is definitely an interesting place and I appreciate getting the opportunity to develop new perspectives on my global understanding of innovation.

A question got us into a discussion on how companies should engage with open innovation activities. On this, I really try to emphasize that companies should not engage with open innovation until their internal innovation processes work well. Make order in your own house before you bring in the guests.

I have given this advice for almost two years now. I still think it holds true. However, the discussion got me to reflect upon that we are...

NEW TIME Twitter Chat: Getting Organizational Buy-In for Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

NEW TIME Next Chat: Friday, July 23 at 14.00 / 2pm (New York time)

Topic: Getting Organizational Buy-In for Open Innovation

- What does it take to get your employees ready for open innovation?

- What is the role of the executives to drive the right corporate mindset for open innovation?

- What are the best ways to get your partners ready for this change?

At this chat, we have a special guest in Todd Boone, Director, Market Development, Psion Teklogix.

Todd’s current role is focused on Psion Teklogix’ Open Source Mobility (OSM) business strategy. This includes both organizational activation across functional groups with respect to the new strategy as well as externally focused business development activities that include partner cultivation and the implementation and management of Ingenuity Working – Psion Teklogix’ new...