You Always Have to Sell Innovation!

by Stefan Lindegaard

As an innovation leader or intrapreneur, you always have something to sell. In the end it is a product or a service, but during the development of a revenue-generator, you have to sell a vision to internal and external stakeholders.

You communicate that vision by:
•   Developing a value proposition that can be adapted for various stakeholders, and then
•   Capturing the very essence of the value proposition in a short and brief elevator pitch that focuses on the recipients of the message.

In Geoffrey Moore’s classic book, Crossing the Chasm, he provides the term “value proposition” as a way to choose from among what is presented to us for consideration. Options include choosing nothing at all, if there are no choices that...

Philips: An Open Innovation Company

by Stefan Lindegaard

Many companies have learnt that the key element of open innovation is not a fancy portal or destination site, but the infrastructure within the company. The real work happens behind the scene and my interactions with Philips tell me that they are doing a good job here.

They seem to understand that open innovation is very much about preparing the organization to embrace external contributions to the innovation process. This is a long, tough journey and it is more about creating the right mindset than ”just” getting the right processes in place.

At Philips, signs of this mindset go back to the creation of the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven in 2003. This has been followed with the drive towards external input in...

5 Questions, Answers for Innovation Challenges

by Stefan Lindegaard

As I mentioned in this blog post, 5 Key Elements for Making Communities Work, I gave a talk at the recent HYPE Innovation User Forum.

At the forum, I met Colin Nelson from HYPE Innovation, who gave an interesting presentation in which he shared some good insights on how to make people participate in innovation challenges.

I especially paid attention to his comments that any individual that we invite to share ideas or expertise run through a series of mental checks before they spare their time. Colin states that these checks are carried out at lightening pace and often done subconsciously. However, if we understand what they are, the answers to such checks can be built into a communications plan.

Some...

Open Innovation Meets Social Media

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here are some of my thoughts and ideas on the intersection of open innovation and social media as I presented them in Sao Paulo on June 2.

You can find other good reads on this intersection in these links:

Social Media Tools and Open Innovation: An Overview – includes more links

8 Pointers for Building Corporate and Personal Strategies for Social Media

A Road Map on Social Media Tools and Open Innovation

Book a Workshop with Lindegaard on Social Media Tools and Open Innovation

Let me know if you can share other good insights on this.

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”...

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...

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...

3 Fundamental Questions on Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here are three fundamental questions that must be answered before embarking on a journey toward open innovation:

• What will open innovation do to your business model? In an open innovation world, you may end up working with anyone — even competitors. How will this impact your business model and alter your competitive landscape? This is perhaps less a concern for small businesses; however, if you have aspirations of growing your small business into a larger one, you should keep this question in mind.

• How will your organization change to accommodate open innovation? What kind of collaborations do you want to engage in? What common vision and mission will you share with partners? Systems, processes, values, and culture across the company will need to...

Big Vs. Small Companies: Where Are the Differences on Innovation?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Anyone who has worked for both a large corporation and a small, entrepreneurial company can talk endlessly about the differences in the two cultures and mindsets. The differences can be stark. Let’s look at a few that impact the way the two types of organizations approach open innovation:

• Speed of decision-making: Large corporations, with their abundance of silos and bureaucratic levels, often require considerable time to make decisions. Analysis paralysis is not uncommon, with decisions that seem simple to an outsider taking ages to make. In contrast, in smaller organizations decision making can be fairly rapid.

Thus, when these two types of organizations come together in open innovation, the smaller company may find the speed of progress frustratingly slow. At the same time, the...

Do Companies Really Need Internal Innovation Units?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Do companies really need internal innovation units in times where industry after industry has begun embracing open or external innovation?

The question was triggered by comments made to a couple of my recent blog posts. It did not take much reflection. Of course, we need internal innovation units as they deliver value by themselves and since they hold key future roles as facilitators and integrators of internal and external contributions.

A quick note on this is that companies need to establish systems and processes that allow and judge internal and external innovation opportunities on equal terms.

So yes, we do need internal innovation units, but it is fair to question what they should look like and what functions they should perform. Things are changing fast...