Innovation Culture: The Big Elephant in the Room

by Stefan Lindegaard

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We all talk about it. Some corporate innovation leaders claim to have the answers. Lots of consultants are sure they know. Most CEOs don’t really have a clue. It is just difficult developing a strong and sustainable innovation culture and one key reason is that a corporate culture in general is carved in stone during the first few years of the company’s existence.

After this, it becomes very difficult to change, and only two things can change things fast: a truly committed executive group (this is very rare), or a true burning platform in which everyone realizes that they need to change more or less everything in order to survive (not many companies are in such …

Top 5 Benefits of Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation: The Big Picture

by Stefan Lindegaard

As I am working on a talk for the upcoming Crowdsourcing Week conference, which takes place in Singapore on June 3-7, I got to wonder what the top benefits of crowdsourcing and open innovation have been for the general society.

Here you get my takes on the big picture:

1. Sharing is the new norm

Companies all over the world now have a different perspective on innovation in which sharing is the new norm. True, many companies do not yet get this and many others are struggling on how to make it work, but there is no way around sharing and collaboration when it comes to innovation any longer. This will definitely help bring out better innovation faster and as such this helps the …

Does Your Incentive Program Reward Results or Behaviors?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Who gets rewarded for innovating in your organization? Is it only those teams that manage to successfully carry an idea all the way through to a lucrative reality? What happens to teams that work on ideas that did not pan out? Are they heckled for their failure or do they also get some positive recognition when (if) they come away with valuable lessons that will help them (and other teams) do better next time around?

As Scott D. Anthony once noted in a blog post, “getting world-class at innovation requires moving beyond rewarding results to rewarding behaviors.” The thing is that when you reward only positive outcomes, people quickly learn to become risk-averse. By only rewarding success, you are apt to end up with a …

Google Glass versus Apple: Different Takes on Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Google is doing something different with their Google Glass project when it comes to innovation. In the consumer electronics industry, we traditionally see that new projects are kept under the radar and then get launched with a big splash. Apple is a master of this game.

However, as a clear sign of the changing game of innovation, Google early on realized that they needed to be open on their efforts with the Glass. They need an ecosystem that can help develop the apps that will make people buy and use the Glass.

Their take is something we are seeing more and more often in the corporate world. A big company teams up with one or two venture capitalist companies and perhaps also a couple of …

10 Great Reads on (Open) Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I hope you can find some inspiration in these (open) innovation stories that surfaced recently.

5 Ways to Build a Resilient Organization

… Today, says Zolli, it’s become essential for companies (and individuals) “to become more agile – not just in the face of the risks we know, but in the face of the ones we won’t see coming.”

Leadership Skills in Open Innovation: More Collaboration and Different Control

Open innovation must be led by people with high social intelligence…

Unlocking Talent is a Key to Organizational Agility and Innovation

Nilofer Merchant, in her excellent new book, 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, points out that in order for companies to be fast, nimble and innovative enough to survive in today’s …

Recommendations for Open Innovation Implementation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently did an open innovation workshop for the oil and gas industry in which I asked the participants to look into issues related to implementing open innovation within their companies. This revealed some interesting insights that are also relevant for many other industries.

Here we go…

The Internal Organization

– identify 5 key actions for preparing an organization for open innovation

1. Show top management success stories

2. Incentivize programs to recognize innovation

3. Identify stakeholders and define effective communication channels

4. Agreements with Universities and others institutions

5. Facilitate spaces to generate ideas

Value Pools in the Innovation Ecosystem

- Make a top 5 list of value pools (external innovation partners) that a large oil and gas company could tap into

1. National …

The Pain of Skeptic Executives: An Open Innovation Challenge

by Stefan Lindegaard

This should have been a short message to executives and other people in influentiel positions, who are skeptical towards opening up their corporate innovation efforts

…but I got think that they would not read this any so this is more like a piece of advice to corporate innovation teams having to deal with such people.

What I want to bring out here is that continuing to do the same things that you have been doing for the last couple of decades might keep you at your position for a longer period of time. Since you are already at the top of the firm and since you most likely believe that the skills and mindset that got you there will keep you there, you probably don’t …

Open Innovation Challenge: What to Do When You are in Doubt

by Stefan Lindegaard

I just listened to a great talk by Mike Helser on the Connected Innovation program at General Mills during the Driving Innovation for Food, Innovation and Nutraceuticals conference.

He mentioned several key challenges that they encounter with their Connected Innovation program. The last challenge was different and their response is quite interesting.

The Challenge:

When in doubt…

The response:

1. Move too fast

2. Share too much

3. Move into discomfort

4. Ask for forgiveness instead of permission

This was in particular related to changing the culture through open, connected or external innovation. I think this insight holds true for many companies….

Should You Go for Best Potential or Least Resistance? – An Open Innovation Dilemma

by Stefan Lindegaard

You should of course pick the projects and value pools (i.e. suppliers, entrepreneurs or universities) with the best potential, when you start out with the open innovation efforts in your company. Right?

Well, not always. At a recent conference for the oil and gas industry, which is a slow mover on open innovation, I was asked the question where a company should start with their efforts.

At first, I was inclined to give the response I started this post with – go where the best potential is – but since this was a company in an industry with lots of skeptics inside and as well as outside of the company, I held back and give this a quick thought.

Companies should not necessarily start out …

Advertising Industry Opens Up, Becomes More Entrepreneurial

by Stefan Lindegaard

We are seeing lots of changes in many industries, which is driven by the strong interest in and focus on open innovation and business model innovation.

The advertising industry is a good example.

Not long ago, this article was a hot read: How Ad Agencies Can Make the Shift to Open Innovation in which Michael L. Tushman shared some good examples on how advertising companies – and the companies using them – have begun using open innovation and crowdsourcing in a more structured way.

The advertising industry has been bugged by the situation in which they come up with great ideas for new products and services without having a client interested in them. Now, several companies are being serious about getting them to market in …