What Kills Curiosity and What To Do About It?

by Stefan Lindegaard

This great topic was raised by Arthur Lok in a discussion in the Innovation Management group on LinkedIn. It made me wonder and reflect on my own level of curiosity, what this term means to me and how it effects innovation.

I think we lose our sense of curiosity as we begin to build a power base that we feel we need to protect. We have something to lose and then we begin to focus on how to protect this rather than expand and build further on what we have.

So are we just defensively minded? Such a mindset definitely make incumbents more vulnerable to new innovation brought to market by companies and entrepreneurs having nothing to loose.

I think this goes for products, services and thus corporate revenues as well as the knowledge base we build as individuals. If what we know today provides a good living perhaps we are not that open to challenge this and develop new points of view. Unfortunately, this does not work in times where just standing still is the same as getting behind – at a very fast pace.

It is fairly easy to point out what kills curiosity. I gave an example above and you can find others in the LinkedIn discussion. The more interesting question is what we can do to avoid killing our curiosity. I hope we can start a discussion on this here. Let me start off with one of my suggestions;

Try out new technologies. It took me years to get the value of cell phone texting and I am still not that good at it. In retrospect, I see this as a sign of me getting older and losing my curiosity. This lesson taught me to be open towards new technologies and not write them off as fast as I might have done.

Twitter is good example. I was initially annoyed but I stayed in there and today it gives me much value. TweetDeck is a great source of new insights – just use the search function.

What do you do to stay curious?

Open Innovation And Intrapreneurship For Small And Medium Sized Companies

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have been asked to present my views on how small and medium-sized companies can move to the next level by implementing open innovation and intrapreneurship.

I am still working on the presentation, but below you can see some bullet-points I plan to include in the 3 hour-long session. What do you think? Am I missing something important?

Besides hearing your comments here, it would be great to get out and share this with other companies, organizations and event organizers around the world. Let me know if you would like to discuss this

• The challenge. Growing a startup is very much about executing on a great product, idea or technology. However, as the company grows focus tend to shift towards control rather than keeping the visionary thinking and bold approaches that build the company. This must be re-ignited. Understanding open innovation and intrapreneurship can help do this.

• All the best people do not work here. 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 1,500,000 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 size of smaller companies, this mindset becomes even more important.

• People matter more than ideas. Innovation is not only about finding the right idea or developing a great technology. A company must also be able to identify and develop the right people who can be matched with these ideas at the right time.

• Innovation is about more than just products. Check the Ten Types of Innovation framework developed by Doblin. It is a great tool to broaden people’s mind on innovation.

• Think in terms of eco-systems. Today, one company does not compete against another company. Eco-systems compete against other eco-systems. Check this article by Hagel / Seely Brown to learn more: How SAP Seeds Innovation.

• Control or contribution? Big corporations can split their open innovation efforts on projects in which they are either are in control or just contributes with IPR or other resources. Smaller companies should only get involved in projects where they are in control or where their contribution is important and valued. The project should also fit the overall strategy of the smaller company.

• Big corporations can drain a smaller company. Signs of this include long planning periods, difficulties in identifying and working with the right people and too much time spent on patent lawyers too early in the process. If these tell-tale signs appear, a smaller company need to evaluate whether this will become a drain of valuable resources that could be better spend elsewhere.

• Where to look versus how to be found. Smaller companies need to be more active looking around whereas big corporation can focus more on being found and becoming a preferred partner of choice. Companies can look for projects and partners in their own networks (such as customers, suppliers and partners) or in external networks (such as universities, intermediaries and consultants).

• Is the company ready for open innovation? Any company must ask themselves why open innovation is relevant to them, how it should be defined to their situation, how it links with the overall strategy and how it can be implemented. Smaller companies must also prepare the organization for a cultural change, develop and implement a networking strategy and train their employees on innovation, stakeholder management and how to work with external partners.

• Open innovation is about communication. Companies must understand the importance of communicating internally as well as externally. New social media tools such as Twitter (search and share information) and LinkedIn (identify the right people, search and share information) must be understood and leveraged.

I am looking forward to your comments.

Why Clorox Ticks Me Off: Another Bad Lesson On Open Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

It has only been a few days since I lashed out on an open innovation initiative at Campbell Soup. This time Clorox ticked me off enough to write a similar post. Why? They wasted my time.

I explained in another post, Five Lessons On Twitter, LinkedIn and Innovation that Twitter is a great tool for research on open innovation. So when a tweet like this one pops up in my filters, I got a bit excited:

“Clorox just re-launched its Open Innovation site. Come check it out http://bit.ly/1IlIJG and be a part of the development process! CloroxTweets”

Interesting! They even ask me to join their development process. Why not check it out? The link is: The Open Innovation Virtual Network

The first show-stopper was the request to sign up for their initiative and create a profile. I always frown when I am asked to fill out yet another profile and I almost quit here. I really look forward to the day when LinkedIn opens up their profiles to initiatives like this : – )

The next show-stopper was the site itself. This is beta-testing at a very early stage. Not really what I expected from a re-launched site from a company such as Clorox. I am definitely no expert on setting up a beta test, but I can always chip in with what I experienced going through their site.

• The user experience is very confusing. What does Clorox want to achieve? What is in it for me?

• There are inactive or restricted areas. Why do I even get to see this?

• There is no activity. Why do you open up for the public without having anything to show?

This experience made me wonder whether they have made any progress since their initial launch. Is this really a re-launch? This is also where I felt they wasted my time by presenting such an un-finished project.

Does Clorox really think people will come back after having had such an experience?

Tips on getting a community to work

Greg Piche, the project manager at Clorox, wrote this on the site; “This group reminds me of a junior high dance..everything’s in place but the dance floor is still empty, even after the DJ spun Styx. ; )”

Getting a community up and running is really hard work and even when you do things right it might not even take off. I have learnt this working with network groups for many years and most recently with my Leadership+Innovation group on LinkedIn. I have just decided to open the group for everyone after a failed experiment to activate corporate practitioners and keep out academics and consultants.

Some of my tips on making a community work include:

• Focus on the need of your members before your intended outcome. Of course, your efforts have to pay off, but this will not happen unless you provide incentives for spending time in your community.

• Focus on quality rather than quantity; getting the right people who can contribute as well as gain from your initiative on board is more important than getting many people onboard.

• Mix virtual tools with real life meetings. We can do much with virtual tools, but nothing beats face-to-face interactions.

• Start with a core group that creates early quality activity in the community and let them act as ambassadors.

• You need a dedicated facilitator to make things happen.

Open innovation requires open communication

One reflection that I made during the visit to the Clorox website is that communication is really important on such initiatives. Clorox failed on this. They could have done a much better job on explaining the purpose of this initiative and how this is relevant to others.

Jennifer Ernst from PARC has just written a great post on why open communication is important for open innovation. Check this post: Opening Communication For Open Innovation – Should You Share Your Strategy?

Greg Piche and the other innovation guys at Clorox have a tough job ahead of them, but honestly; they are not making it easier for themselves. What do you think?

By the way: It would be great to write about a company that does really well with such initiatives. Leave a comment if you know of an interesting case besides Dell IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea as these are quite known by now. : – )

Good reads on innovation #4

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of reads, videos and podcasts on innovation that I have enjoyed and re-tweeted in the last couple of weeks. I hope you will enjoy this as well.

You can follow me on Twitter: @lindegaard

The Power of “Starting” Questions – a must read in which Scott Anthony says that the right questions can send you down the path to disruption.
http://www.innosight.com/innovation_resources/insight.html?id=619

The New, Faster Face Of Innovation – a must read that show us how technology is transforming innovation
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/business-insight/articles/2009/3/5131/the-new-faster-face-of-innovation/

Why Edison Was Wrong – a great read in which Steve Shapiro states that the ability to integrate is the most important skill for organizations getting into open innovation
http://www.steveshapiro.com/2009/08/07/failure/

Real Companies Must Innovate – Rowan Gibson argues that the real reason for innovation is to avoid the big and unexpected downside
http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2009/08/real-reason-companies-must-innovate.html

Are Cisco’s Committees A Better Way To Innovate – Scott Anthony chips in on new practices by Cisco
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/anthony/2009/08/are_ciscos_committees_a_better.html

Tweets Should Be Treats – Great read that gives us the five best practices for business tweeting
http://www.garfieldgroup.com/blog/2009/07/30/bestpracticesbusinesstweeting/

Great Ideas Aren’t Innovation – Mike Myatt explains why ideas not necessarily equals innovation
http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2009/08/great-ideas-arent-innovation.html

High Value Innovation: Innovating The Management of Innovation – Andrea Meyer sums up great points from Gary Hamel
http://workingknowledge.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/20/high-value-innovation-innovating-the-management-of-innovation/

Breaking With The Past – Rowan Gibson explains why divesting is needed for innovation and growth
http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2009/08/breaking-with-past.html

Can You Have Slow Innovation? – Jeffrey Phillips ponders on the speed of innovation and why this is important
http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2009/08/can-you-have-slow-innovation.html

Interview with Geoffrey Moore – Phil McKinney and Geoffrey Moore discuss a range of topics from the economy’s impact on innovation to the challenges of dealing with “corporate anti-bodies”.
http://www.killerinnovations.com/blog/2009/08/podcast_interview_with_geoffre.html

How Whirlpool Puts New Ideas Through The Wringer – insights on how Whirlpool makes innovation happen
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2009/id2009083_452757.htm?campaign_id=rss_innovate

5 Things Innovators Can Learn From Cirque Du Soleil by Gregg Fraley
http://www.greggfraley.com/blog/?p=200

You Aren’t Crazy, You’re Just An Entrepreneur – Pamela Slim explains the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/you-arent-crazy-youre-just-an-entrepreneur-pamela-slim

Five Lessons on Twitter, LinkedIn And Innovation

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have been an active user of LinkedIn for a couple of years. At first, I ignored Twitter. It was too superficial and did not bring any really value. Six months of getting to know Twitter has changed my view. Twitter and LinkedIn are great tools when you work with innovation.

So what have I learned in the last couple of years? I made a quick summary of this below. Perhaps you can find some inspiration in this or post a comment that can inspire me to new ways of getting value out of Twitter and LinkedIn in relation to innovation.

1. TweetDeck for Twitter is a great tool for inspiration and staying updated

I used to follow blogs through aggregation tools such as Bloglines.com. Not anymore. Today, I use TweetDeck for Twitter to find inspiration and stay updated on innovation. TweetDeck allows you to organize tweets into groups and searches. On the latter, I have set up specific searches such as “open innovation”, “china+india+innovation” and “silicon valley+boston+innovation”. You really need a filter to get value out of Twitter and TweetDeck is my tool for this.

I check my groups and searches almost daily and I am impressed by the number of tweets that direct me to blogs, articles and websites worth looking into. Actually, this works so well that I have not visited Bloglines.com for a couple of months. Twitter is where I update my knowledge on innovation. You should give it a try.

TweetDeck is also where I post my own tweets. This leads me to a question to the innovation leaders and intrapreneurs reading this. Your communication department most likely has a strategy for Twitter, but do you have a Twitter-strategy for the projects you work on?

We work in a global world where speed to market matters more than ever and where you need to constantly communicate with stakeholders and monitor the activity in your industry. Can you afford not to use Twitter?

2. Real-time searches? TweetDeck is the tool for the job!

Do you need to know what is happening on particular topics right now? Use the search tool on TweetDeck. While Google and Bing battle it out on traditional searches, TweetDeck is the tool to use if you need to know what is happening right now. Of course, this works best on global events, but as Twitter grows you can begin to get value out of this on more specific searches as well.

3. Groups at LinkedIn have limited effect, but long-term potential for knowledge sharing

I use the group function at LinkedIn to facilitate several groups including Leadership+Innovation by Stefan Lindegaard. This group is for people working with innovation in larger, established companies only. Imagine what 800 such people can learn from each other. But nothing happens. Such people are too busy and they have not yet realized the potential in virtual knowledge sharing.

However, I still believe LinkedIn has a great potential for knowledge sharing. The key reason is that almost everyone already has a profile on LinkedIn and I think people prefer to do as many things as possible (display profile, build a virtual network and share knowledge) in one place.

So if you start a group, be prepared for a long-haul especially if you decide to do this without the key interaction drivers such as academics and in particular consultants.

4. Groups at LinkedIn are great for sharing news and starting discussions

This one might seem contradictive to the previous lesson. However, if you join groups rather than starting them you get access to a lot of people and you do not even have to buy a premium membership to be able to contact them directly.

In these groups, I use the News-function to share my blog posts and the Discussion-function to get input on different issues. This works very well so check out the search-function for groups and join those that are relevant for you.

Warning: Be aware that in groups with thousands of members and no facilitation you will find a lot of spam…

5. Use LinkedIn and Twitter to identify people with specific knowledge

Granted, we cannot get access to every bit of knowledge that makes real innovation happen just through virtual tools as much of this knowledge still resides in the heads of people or in propriety databases.

However, besides the vast amount of knowledge directly available to us, we can use virtual tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Google to identify and track the people and organizations to get access to the “hidden” knowledge. The speed of connecting the dots is amazing and it just seems to become faster and faster and it makes you wonder what you should do – as a company as well as an individual – to gain the upper hand on this.

As with any tool, Twitter and LinkedIn are only as good as the effort you put into it. Figure out your reason(s) for using Twitter and LinkedIn and then decide on a strategy for using it based on those reasons. I have found great value in using these tools and I hope you will too.

Good reads on innovation #3

by Stefan Lindegaard

Here comes a list of reads, videos and podcasts on innovation that I have enjoyed and re-tweeted in the last couple of weeks. I hope you will enjoy this as well.

You can follow me on Twitter: @lindegaard 

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation -  a must-read interview with Karim R. Lakhani

Winning The Contest Of Ideas – examples of cash prize contests to spur innovation from Netflix, X Prize and Cisco

How Does China Compare To Europe and US in Innovation? – podcast with Kevin Ryan

A Look Behind the Silver Lining – Boris Pluskowski’s honest and helpful review of The Silver Lining book by Scott Anthony

Buying, Not Making Innovation – good thoughts on Google by Joel West

Why Segway Failed To Reshape The World: Focused On Invention Rather Than Innovation – a post by Mike Masnick

Implement Open Innovation Strategy: Focus On Input – Rob Veldt urges you to focus on the input side of open innovation

The Open Minded Professor – Erich Von Hippel on open source, lead user and open innovation

Video With John Hagel On Innovation In Emerging Countries

How Customer Co-Creation Is The Future Of Business – Graham Hill presents a series of principles that guide our thinking about what co-creation is (good focus on life-time usage)

Why Creative Leaders Are So Rare – insights by Navi Radjou

How Knowledge Can Hurt Innovation – Scott Anthony focuses on the “curse of knowledge”

The Next Step In Open Innovation – McKinsey looks into the direction of knowledge creation

Today´s Disruptions Are Tomorrow´s Incrementals – Jeffrey Phillips writes about two significant challenges for disruptive innovation; danger and time

The Crowd Is Wise (When It’s Focused) – great piece in New York Times; one of the most tweeted articles on open innovation

Enjoy!