Why Titles of Innovation Programs Matter: C+D, Connected, Collaboratory

by Stefan Lindegaard

You can also watch the video below or on YouTube…

The reason for this topic is that the ability to communicate well on innovation efforts is becoming even more important as innovation turns open and global.

Innovation leaders and their executives need to convince employees as well as external stakeholders that they understand innovation and that their efforts are relevant and rewarding.

The name of an innovation programs reveals a lot. P&G calls one of the their key programs Connect+Develop, General Mills labels their efforts as Connected Innovation and Intuit runs a program called Intuit Collaboratory.

This states that they believe the future of innovation is about openness, external relationships and collaboration.

Open innovation is about finding other partners. However, it is just as much about letting potential partners find you and the title of your programs can help guide companies into your direction.

How should companies approach the naming of their programs? Actually, this starts by how they define the term innovation.

I have just had some interesting discussions on the term, innovation. Some people believe we should simply drop the term as it means so many different things to different people.

I think we are stuck with the word and we can just as well get used to it. It will not go away.

The big question is how companies will define innovation to their situation. It does not really matter how academics, consultants or others define it; each company need to define this in a way that makes sense for their company, their employees and their partners.

Then, they can start developing a common language on innovation that can help them build a strong innovation culture. When companies do this, I urge them to do it in a way that includes the open and external elements.

Why? I believe that in about 5 years of time, we will no longer talk about open or external innovation. It will just be innovation. P&G has already reached this level of innovation maturity and many others are about to follow.

I recall a recent session where the company I worked with had no definition of innovation. We looked into this and they first started to define innovation and then looked at open innovation. We quickly reached the conclusion that there is no need for two definitions. They can do just fine with one definition. The same goes for other companies, yours included.

Co-Creation Initiatives from BMW and 3M

by Stefan Lindegaard

The BMW Group has launched the Co-Creation Lab, which is a virtual meeting place for individuals interested in car related topics, eager to share their ideas and opinions on tomorrow’s automotive world with one of the leading car manufacturers.

Their first initiative is the BMW Group Idea Contest in which you can share your ideas for innovative mobility services in cities and metropolitan areas of the future. You get the opportunity to discuss and evaluate the ideas of others and win great prizes. By the way, the great prizes are not really that great, but perhaps real great prizes will just attract lots of junk ideas. Perhaps quality input comes from people who care more about kudos and recognition?

After a well-executed campaign, 3M in Austria and Switzerland launched the Zukunft Innovation initiative; a German-language platform that helps companies – not just 3M –get in touch with creative minds who want to help solve problems.

I like how 3M promoted the initiative through frequent pre-launch updates and a short video that demonstrated the initiative. This is another example that communication efforts are becoming increasingly important on innovation initiatives.

I can’t help notice that German-speaking countries seem to have many interesting open innovation-like initiatives. I look forward to visiting Germany soon in order to learn more. One company to visit will definitely be HYVE that pointed me to the BMW initiatives as well as other initiatives in the past.

Why Smaller Companies Should Embrace Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Open innovation at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) presents both great opportunities and great challenges. Forming open innovation relationships can give a growing enterprise access to resources that might normally are beyond their reach with the potential for greatly speeding up time to market. At the same time, working with larger–and in some case much larger companies–is not without its perils.

Let’s consider a growing startup or a small company that is on its way to become a mid-sized enterprise. The early phases are very much about executing on single, great product, idea or technology. However, as the company grows focus tends to shift towards control rather than keeping the visionary thinking and bold approaches that build the company. This must be re-ignited. Open innovation can be the vehicle for accomplishing this objective.

Because of the high level of risk-taking involved with young ventures, leaders of entrepreneurial enterprises often have healthy or even outsized egos; it takes a certain amount of hubris to believe you can defeat the high odds against the success of a new venture. This can lead you to believe that you and your people have the best ideas. But in reality, there is a strong possibility that the best people and the best ideas are to be found outside your organization.

One key reason for Procter & Gamble to initiate open innovation programs was that they learned that for each of their 7,500 R&D people there were 200 people outside the company with equal skills and competences. An ignorant – and arrogant – company would ignore these 1.5 million people, arguing they do not matter as they do not work for us. P&G did not ignore this. They understood they should connect their own organization with the best and brightest from the outside world. Given the limited size of smaller companies, this mindset becomes even more important.

As I wrote earlier, SMEs often start with one great product or service idea and as they grow they might fail to recognize that innovation is about more than just bringing the core product or service to market. Innovation can occur at all stages of the business process, from the business model itself through to the customer experience. By broadening their thinking about what actually constitutes innovation, SMEs can more easily see the wisdom of open innovation, which can help them innovate in areas where they may not have internal expertise.

I will post more thoughts on open innovation for SME’s this week. Let me know if you have any comments on this or if you know of smaller companies that have adapted open innovation. It would be interesting to get to know more about their processes, failures and successes in order to get a better understanding of how this is different from large companies. Since small and large companies meet on open innovation, they need to start learning more about each other on this.

Red Flags, Warnings on Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Building Blocks for Open Innovation: Lessons from Colgate-Palmolive

by Stefan Lindegaard

What does an open innovation strategy look like? I went through some of the presentations from the CoDev conference and I spent some time on the presentation given by Fabienne Jacquet, Director of External Innovation at Colgate-Palmolive. I was unable to attend her presentation, but she got great feedback : – )

Her presentation gives a quite clear description of the open innovation strategy at Colgate-Palmolive. Their overall external innovation mission is to embed the external world into Colgate-Palmolive and their strategy for this builds on four elements:

• create environment for open dialog
• “translate” between marketers and scientists
• build a winning external ecosystem
• become a “partner of choice”

Fabienne also stated that they evolved their external innovation by:

• creating new partnerships around consumer insights (consumer immersion programs, bring scientists closer to marketing and customers)

• integrating technology scouting (monthly forums for evaluating ideas and immediately determine next steps, cross-functional with all levels participating)

• connecting externally (programs with key partners and academia, global networks with open search providers and a submit your idea website – I have to say that I am not that impressed by the website which is also hard to find.

• building the appropriate external ecosystem (focus on partnerships that are in line with their corporate culture)

• successful alliance management (senior level sponsorship, R&D co-owns the relationship, trust and transparency with a focus on win-win)

I like what Fabienne and her team is doing. It is to some extent basic stuff, but basic stuff often works and I think this serves as inspirational building blocks for companies that want to implement open innovation.

Hopefully, I get a chance to meet with Fabienne soon and ask her how they plan to implement the next practices of open innovation at Colgate-Palmolive. That could be quite interesting.

How to Create a Networking Culture

by Stefan Lindegaard

In my previous post, Why a Networking Culture Is Important, I argued that a strong innovation culture requires a strong networking culture. But what does a good networking culture looks like?

It is such a new concept that there are not lot of examples available to illustrate it, but here are some key components of a good networking culture:

• Top executives and innovation leaders have outlined clear strategic reasons why employees need to develop and nurture internal and external relationships. This includes making clear how your company’s networking culture links with and supports your innovation strategy (which, of course, is an outgrowth of your overall corporate strategy.)
• Among the things to consider when developing your networking culture strategy is what types of networks you hope to build to support your innovation efforts. If your organization is moving toward open innovation, possibilities would include peer-to-peer networks for people working with open innovation in different companies, value – and supply – chain networks, feeder networks, and events and forums connecting problem solvers and innovators with your company.
• Leaders show a genuine and highly visible commitment to networking. Leaders must walk the walk, not just talk the talk. By making themselves available at networking events and by being visible users of virtual networking tools, they model the desired behavior and motivate others to participate. After all, who doesn’t want a chance to exchange ideas with the top brass?
• Leaders should also share examples of their networking experiences whenever possible. Spread the word about your own and others’ networking successes. Hearing leaders talk repeatedly about how networking is helping the organization in its innovation efforts will reinforce the message that this is important.
• Networking initiatives mesh closely with your corporate culture. This is not one-size-fits-all; each company’s networking efforts will differ. You can take bits and pieces, concepts and theories, knowledge and experience from others, but you still need to make it work for your own company.
• People are given time and means to network. Frequent opportunities are provided to help individuals polish their personal networking skills. Not everyone is a natural networker. But almost everyone can become good at it with proper training and encouragement.
• Both virtual and face-to-face networking are encouraged and supported. Web 2.0 tools and facilitated networking events maximize the opportunities people have to initiative and build strong relationships.

Let me know what you think and please feel free to add more components.

Open Innovation Examples and Resources

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have created a list of examples and resources that I find useful in my work with open innovation. I hope you can find some inspiration on this. Let me know if you believe something is missing.

Corporate websites – examples of open innovation and crowdsourcing-like initiatives:

• 3M Zukunft Innovation (in German)
• BMW Virtual Innovation Agency
• Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation
• Cisco I-Prize
• Clorox Connects
• Colgate-Palmolive
• Dell IdeaStorm
• DSM Licensing
• Ericsson
• General Mills G-WIN
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Hershey´s Ideaworks
• HP Labs Open Innovation Office
• IBM Collaboration Jam
• Huawei
• Intuit Collaboratory
• Intuit Labs
• Johnson Controls Open Innovation
• Kraft – InnovateWithKraft
• LG
• Medtronic
• Nestlé
• Netflix Prize
• Nokia
• Nokia Beta Labs
• P&G Connect+Develop
• Pepsi Refresh Project
• Philips
• SAP
• SAP – Sapiens (In German)
• Sara Lee
• Shell GameChanger
• Siemens
• Starbucks – MyStarbucksIdea
• Unilever
• Weyerhaeuser

Open innovation / crowdsourcing intermediaries and platforms:

• Big Idea Group
• Chaordix
• EdisonNation
• Exnovate
• Hypios
• Ideas4All
• IdeaConnection
• IdeaWicket
• InnoCentive
• InnoGet
• MillionBrains
• NineSigma
• Pharmalicensing
• TekScout
• Topcoder
• Yet2.com
• Your Encore

Open innovation / crowdsourcing software:

• BrightIdea
• Fellowforce
• Imaginatik
• Inno 360
• InventionMachine
• Spigit

Annual open innovation conferences:

• CoDev – Co-Development and Open Innovation
• Open Innovation Conference by Marcus Evans
• Open Innovation Summit

Why a Networking Culture Is Important

by Stefan Lindegaard

The reason for creating a networking culture is obvious once you look at the current and future direction of innovation. Let’s start by disposing of the myth of the lone genius — the Thomas Edisons and the Alexander Graham Bells of yesteryear — arriving at a breakthrough innovation on his/her own.

This model wasn’t true then, and even if it were, it simply does not hold true in today’s complex business organizations. Technology and the challenges that must be solved have become so complex that many — perhaps even most — companies can no longer rely solely on their own internal innovation geniuses, no matter how brilliant those people may be.

Innovation is increasingly about having groups of people come together to leverage their diverse talents and expertise to solve multi-faceted challenges that cross multiple disciplines. To make this happen within your organization — and beyond as you move toward open innovation — requires a networking culture that is designed, supported, and modeled by your company’s leaders.

Even organizations that are not ready to fully embrace open innovation are finding that employees ’ mindsets about networking must be stretched as more companies deploy internal R & D functions outside the corporate headquarters and around the world.

Employees start to wonder who should do innovation and where it should take place. Although this is positive, success in such situations depends heavily on the ability of the employees to initiate, solidify, and leverage external relationships.

Another key motivation for setting up networking initiatives is based on the simple fact that the knowledge of any company is inside the heads of the employees. Discovering and distributing this knowledge has always been a challenge, and now, more than ever, the ability to leverage a company’s collective knowledge and experience through virtual and face – to – face networks and communities is critical to innovation.

Furthermore, establishing the ability to bring knowledge and potential new innovation insights in from external sources demands a strong networking culture supported and modeled from the top.

In one of my next posts, I will give some advice on how to create a networking culture.

The Equation of Open Innovation: A + B = C

by Stefan Lindegaard

I stumbled over an interesting paper, Sourcing External Technology for Innovation, by the Alliance Management Group which has developed lots of great content including the below Want, Find, Get, Manage framework.

• Want: What external resource(s) does the firm want to access from the outside world to meet its strategic intent?
• Find: What mechanisms will the firm use to find these external resources?
• Get: What processes will the firm use to plan, structure and negotiate an agreement to access the resources?
• Manage: What tools, metrics and management techniques will the firm use to implement the relationship?

The article focuses on the Want element of this framework and what I in particular liked is the equation: A + B = C.  I have inserted the below snippets from the article in order to introduce you to the equation.

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We will define our terms. The variable A represents the firm’s existing ‘assets’ including its production equipment, core capabilities, intellectual assets, resources and perhaps even its market presence. The variable B represents assets that are complementary to the firm’s resource base and are only available externally. The variable C represents the new product or market offering that goes beyond what the firm is able to deliver utilizing its existing ‘assets’ alone.

C is a more valuable commercial result that comes from combining the firm’s existing ‘assets’ (the A) with those sourced externally (the B). This simple equation makes a simple point. If the firm does not access external technology (i.e. there is no B) then C will be limited to what can be achieved using existing capabilities and assets. In other words, C is determined by A.

The goal of the A + B =C equation is to find new value that the firm cannot identify using traditional planning processes. Internal resources (A) retain their prominent role and integrate with external resources (B) to enable a visionary market offering (C) that was unthinkable just yesterday.

When the organization purposefully moves in this direction, senior executives require project managers to redefine C as a variable, enabled by A and B. This is an uncomfortable change for some managers because C is ill defined, the variable B is fuzzy and A is the only known quantity.
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I believe open innovation is about bridging internal and external resources and to identify and execute on the opportunities that arise on this interaction. I like how The Alliance Management Group turns this into an equation and I wanted to share this with you.

Don’t forget to read the full article: Sourcing External Technology for Innovation

Open Innovation Lessons from Big Pharma

by Stefan Lindegaard

I often catch myself thinking that big pharma companies have serious challenges on innovation – and open innovation in particular.

It must be difficult getting beyond the R&D mindset of innovation when it takes 10-15 years to be able to market a product and even harder to open up to external partners given the high level of knowledge – and thus intellectual property rights – needed.

Thus, NEWMEDS, an international consortium of universities and pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Lundbeck caught my interest. The main objective is to develop new models and methods of drug discovery and development, paving the ways for novel treatments for schizophrenia and depression.

I like how Shitij Kapur, Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, describes the project. He said, “NEWMEDS is a joint response. It is not only scientifically innovative, but it is also an innovation, in creating a cluster of nearly 50 scientists from both sides to work together to achieve a common goal – better, safer and more effective medications – more quickly.”

The European Union is a key partner in the consortium and Kapur credits them for having created a neutral playground that brings together competing companies as well as developing a razor-sharp model that helps decide how to share the knowledge output.

I picked up a few lessons as I did some research on NEWSMEDS.

1. Use external, independent facilitators to develop neutral playgrounds when you want to innovate with your competitors.
2. Define clear objectives and goals upfront.
3. Have a strong process in place when it comes to sharing the output.

I think other industries can learn from this.