Five Reasons Why CEO’s Don’t Get Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here are five reasons why I believe CEOs and other top executives often don’t support innovation, even though the business climate of our time demands it:

• The demand for short-term gains nearly always wins the day. Top executives at public companies are under enormous pressure to produce strong financial results each and every quarter. This is the area where they are rewarded for producing results, and their job security increasingly depends on it.

• They missed out on innovation education. Many of today’s top executives got their business education before innovation was a significant part of the curriculum at many MBA programs. They could compensate for this with experience, but many also missed on-the-job training, because innovation training usually happens from the top down,...

10 Examples of Open Innovation in High-Tech and B2B Companies

by Stefan Lindegaard

I was recently asked for examples on high-tech companies that practice open innovation. It is a good question as we most often see open innovation examples among low-tech and fast-moving-consumer-good companies.

Nevertheless, open innovation is relevant for all industries and we are starting to see high-tech and b2b companies with open innovation-like initiatives that are visible to the public eye. Some examples:

Psion – www.ingenuityworking.com

Medtronic – www.medtronic.com/innovation/

Cisco – www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html

DSM – http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/dlc/home_dlc.htm

HP – www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/

SAP – http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/coil

Shell (GameChanger) – www.shell.com/home/content/innovation/

Xerox – http://open.xerox.com/

Weyerhaeuser – www.growingideas.com/#/innovation/

Intuit – www.intuitcollaboratory.com

It is important to notice that many of these companies...

When R&D Leaders Are a Threat to Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently had a discussion with a senior innovation leader in a mid-size high-tech company. The guy turned out to be pretty skeptical on open innovation and although I agree that open innovation to some extent is hype, I was still somewhat ticked off by his mindset.

Personally, I do not have much reason to care about this. Business is picking up again and there is a growing demand for insights on open innovation. However, people without an open mind simply should not have senior innovation roles. An internal focused mind-set might have worked in the past, but leaders today need to be able to build a bridge between internal and external resources. This goes for all industries – from consumer goods companies...

Top 3 Innovation Trends and Issues – April

by Stefan Lindegaard

What is happening in the innovation community right now? In this post, I give a quick overview of the top trends and issues based on the interactions and inspirations I have had over the last month or so.

1. User-driven innovation – does it work?

How valuable is user input for innovation? This is a classic discussion that picked up more steam with this article, User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and IKEA, by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen who states that companies should lead their users, not the other way around.

The article spurred lots of re-tweets, comments and a several counter-articles such as this one by Chris Grams, User-led innovation can’t create breakthroughs. Really?, and...

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Arcimoto and Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently interviewed serial-entrepreneur Mark Frohnmayer, who is now the founder and President of an interesting company called Arcimoto.

Their mission is to develop ultra efficient mobility solutions: vehicles, electronics and software, to catalyze the shift to a sustainable transportation system. Arcimoto’s first product, Pulse LT is an ultra efficient electric commuter vehicle that strikes a balance between utility, economy and pure electric fun.

Arcimoto is working on the cutting edge in many ways and I wonder what open innovation means to a company like this.

Mark started out by stating that “as a vehicle developer, Arcimoto works with a large collection of suppliers, large and small to develop our products. Since our primary role is design and integration, an open,...

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Open Innovation: The 15inno OI Roadmap

by Stefan Lindegaard

As I wrote in a recent blog post, I have noted a shift over the last couple of years. It used to be that the most-often asked questions on open innovation evolved around intellectual property rights. How can we do open innovation and still protect our intellectual property?

This is still a very important issue, but I have noticed that the questions are asked less frequently and the issue is no longer one of the main topics in the presentations you hear from corporate people presenting at conferences. The reason for the latter is that the leading companies understand that business needs to become before legal issues and they have gained experience in making this happen.

A few things on this include that legal departments...

Top 5 Open Innovation Countries

by Stefan Lindegaard

Last September I posted a list of companies that do well on open innovation and now it is time for an update. Here comes a list of countries that in my view do well.

1. United States. No surprise here. This is where it happens. We have the companies, intermediaries/service providers, top academics and all the best conferences. There are simply too many to mention here.

2. The United Kingdom. This is primarily driven by the work done by 100% Open, a consultancy that also offer interesting workshops and events and the IfM institute in Cambridge for their research and events. Among other UK companies I like Psion which is gaining traction with their Ingenuity Working community and  

Open Innovation Is Hyped – and Why This Is a Good Thing

by Stefan Lindegaard

I met with a new client last week. It is an interesting and successful company that has decided to look further into open innovation and how this can help them become even more innovative.

As we introduced ourselves, the CTO noticed that open innovation is very hyped right now. This is not the first time I have heard this in the recent months and I agree. Open innovation is hyped. This is a hot topic at conferences, in blogs and articles and now it also seems to be catching fire within companies.

Hype is often a bad thing because things that are hyped tend to overpromise and under-deliver. This could very well also be the case with open innovation. However, the current hype is also...

Metrics and Open Innovation: The 15inno Open Innovation Roadmap

by Stefan Lindegaard

This is a difficult topic. I believe what’s worth doing can also be measured and there is also truth in the adage of “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. However, I have seen too many examples in which smart people get side-tracked on what really matters –the output – as they try to develop metrics in order to satisfy executives further up in the system.

The development of metrics for innovation in general has been a major topic for more than two decades. Yet there is no clear guidance on how companies should approach this in a way that makes it possible to measure internally let alone across competitors and/or different industries.

One reason that it is very difficult developing metrics that...

What a Networked Innovation Culture Looks Like

by Stefan Lindegaard

In a recent post, 4 Key Elements for Open Innovation Success, I mentioned that a networked innovation culture is critical. But what does a good networking culture looks like? It’s such a new concept that there aren’t a lot of examples available to illustrate it, but here are some key components of a good networking culture:

• Top executives 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.

• 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...