Social Media Tools and Open Innovation: An Overview

by Stefan Lindegaard

According to Wikipedia, a common thread running through all definitions of social media is the blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value. This fits well into what I see as the underlying concept of the intersection between social media tools and open innovation; it is about how we can involve various stakeholders in creating better innovation outcomes.

Kaplan and Haenlein, two researchers, state that there are six different types of social media: collaborative projects, blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual communities.

Within these categories, I find the below tools to be the most relevant for open innovation efforts:

LinkedIn: Knowledge is the key element to innovation and LinkedIn is a great tool...

Social Media Tools: How Do We Deal With the Information Overload?

by Stefan Lindegaard

I just read an interesting article in USA Today, Social Media Users Grapple With Information Overload. It addresses the hardship of keeping up with a constant barrage of tweets, texts, blogs and instant messages.

The concerns are real enough. However, social media tools will be key for making innovation happen in the future so we need to find ways of coping with this.

My advice is quite simple:

Reason: Find out what you want to get out of the tools. Is it to gain or share insights or both? If you put some thought into this, you are better prepared when you look into the many options.

Focus: Once you know what you would like to get out of social media tools, you...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...