That is the question Philips ask in their current open innovation challenge. Here students, entrepreneurs, and other budding inventors are encouraged to innovate around specific business challenges defined by product categories within the Consumer Lifestyle division at Philips.

Entrants are offered the chance to win a trip to Amsterdam to attend the finalist event, at which they can participate in an innovation masterclass given by Philips innovation specialists and the opportunity to present their innovation to Philips executives.

I am giving this a shout-out because my interactions over the years with Philips tell me that they are doing great things internally to develop an open innovation culture. We just don’t hear that much from Philips and I am thus glad to learn about…

Stefan Lindegaard

This is the second post in a series where I look into how you can use the four leading social media tools – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube – to advance your innovation agenda. You can read mypost on Twitter here and find my free book on how to use social media for innovation efforts here.

The use of social media to promote and market the outcomes of innovation (products and services) is widespread. This is not the focus of these descriptions as I want to focus on how corporate innovation units can use social media in their efforts to create these products and services.

Here we go with LinkedIn… Continuar leyendo «LinkedIn: How it Can Be Used for Innovation Efforts | @lindegaard»

i360institute.com

With so much attention on innovation these days, it’s easy to find articles and blog posts on the topic. What’s harder to find is valuable information on innovation that sheds new light on the subject, educates or inspires. With this in mind, Innovation 360 would like to offer a monthly round-up of the best innovation articles we have come across.

Below you’ll find 10 innovation articles from March that are worth a read (listed in date order starting with the most recent). If you know of an article or post we missed, feel free to add it in the comments. Continuar leyendo «Top 10 Innovation Articles – March 2012»

Time to Redefine «Innovation»

Yes, this is an exciting, forward-thinking conclusion, but it is also a daunting one. The ante has been upped: no longer is it enough to want to create «the iPod» of a given industry and follow in Apple’s much-admired, design-worshipping footsteps. Companies have to «think different,» as Steve Jobs always encouraged his team to do.

Of course, simply copying how a successful company does things «different,» won’t automatically ensure parallel results. You have to rethink what «think different» really means in 2012–for you. Are your company’s innovation efforts really resulting in unique work? Do you have original human resources policies to retain your top performers and to recruit—and retain–the next generation of leaders? Will your own management style help define, or at least reflect, the winning business strategies of the 2010s, and not the outdated leadership tactics of the 2000s?

These questions, which can be tough to confront and to answer, are not only good for innovating your offerings, but they’re also generally good for business too. Daring to be different and not just think different can reap long-term dividends. In other words, doing business as usual means you could be out of business sooner then you think. Straying from tradition–conducting business as unusually as you can– might keep you in business longer than your critics and competitors have expected–as IBM and Google have proved.

By Doreen Lorenzo -http://designmind.frogdesign.com

Despite the many case studies and op-eds you might read on the importance of «innovation» as a strategy, in real life many businesses are struggling to be innovative. It doesn’t mean that they can’t come up with enough new ideas or that they don’t have creative people on staff. Instead, executives might find that they cannot implement innovation within their company’s structure, or that they get bogged down by distractions that only seem to be taking them on the path to inventions that are timely–and potentially profitable.

In addition, many of the barriers to corporate innovation are forces that are much bigger than internal ones. These hurdles range from the economic challenges in Europe; entire industries dying or at least experiencing troubling states of transition (print and television media, for example, or investment banking); and the shifts in global financial power that are taking place (the rise of China and India, among other «emerging» markets). Continuar leyendo «Time to Redefine «Innovation»»

How to not go it alone when it comes to transforming ideas into innovations | POST DESTACADO

Co-innovation is where two organizations come together in a 50/50 contribution of resources with the relationship having the following charactersics:

Each party has IP (intellectual property) to contribute
The two parties have an agreed upon area of strong mutual interest
There is agreement on the target (who is the market for the innovation, what is the innovation and how we go about creating and launching the innovation).
Neither of the organizations can deliver the innovation alone thus a mutual dependency.
The partners agree to deliver a real innovation to the market is an aggressive timeline (e.g. 24 months) where the innovation will have real and meaningful impact to both organizations
To lean how to setup co-innovation relationships, the lessons learned from having run +30 of these relationships and the pitfalls to avoid, listen to the podcast.

http://philmckinney.com

PHILMCKINNEY | MARCH 12, 2012

Download the Co-Innovation As A Unique Type of Innovation podcast

Co-Innovation As A Type Of Innovation

One of the areas that is overlooked by most organizations is the opportunity for a new type of innovation: co-innovation. Co-Innovation is different from what most organizations call joint R&D, joint ventures (JV) or customer driven innovation.

What is co-innovation?>>> Continuar leyendo «How to not go it alone when it comes to transforming ideas into innovations | POST DESTACADO»

The Idea Game helps teams ‘battle’ to produce the best ideas

The need was to be able to handle inexperienced groups without too much facilitation, especially when you have groups of 25 to 50 participants. The use of the idea game was successful and organizations wanted to use it on a larger scale throughout the organization. Based on that input and the experience from playing with over 6,000 people we designed a lower-end version that had even less need for a facilitator and that clients and others could use on their own.

We have so far shipped over 4,000 of The Idea Game, which is this simpler version.

Frey: Why is a game like this important today? How is it better than an ordinary group brainstorming session?

Hagbard: If you have a game you also have a process, a step-by-step process for running your brainstorming session. The concept of a game is well known and people feel safe and encouraged to participate and contribute with their ideas. The ideas you generate are strongly linked to the idea cards that you view for provocation. The cards give payers the ability to “hide” behind the card, blaming the card for their weird ideas. That way we get more ideas and more out of the box ideas on the table.

The game also encourages the group to do parallel thinking, which means that teams not only develop the ideas, they also «battle» them to come to a consensus on the best ones. So the ideas are developed and refined by the whole group, which dramtically increases idea ownership, which in turn eases the implementation of these new ideas.

http://www.innovationtools.com
By Chuck Frey

The Idea Game is a new group brainstorming tool that corporate teams can use to generate fresh ideas and insights. Developed by Swedish creativity consulting firm Realize AB, it provides a variety of creative stimuli using a card deck and game board to generate ideas, and «idea battles» to help identify and improve upon the best ideas.

Realize AB’s core business is conducting creativity and brainstorming workshops, so developing creativity tools and software is a natural extension of this focus. According to its website, since its founding in 1998, Realize AB has led over 340 workshops and trained more than 8,500 people in creative practices. Its list of more than 130 clients includes a Who’s Who of leading European companies, including Volvo, Ericsson, DHL, TUI, AstraZeneca, SCA, Electrolux and IKEA.

To date, the company has produced the brainstorming functionality for the popular mind mapping software program, MindManager and a stand-alone software program based on it called Effective Mind. An iPhone app is to be released next month… Continuar leyendo «The Idea Game helps teams ‘battle’ to produce the best ideas»

To Innovate You Must Live With Uncertainty

If you can’t deal with uncertainty, you end up wanting to jump straight to the last bit – where we have conclusions, decisions and action.

But if you do that, you spend very little time on the first step, where you really explore the range of possible questions and ideas. And you don’t get into the middle bit at all, where you experiment, think, and prototype.

The kicker on these projects is that we have to move through this process twice. First in defining the problem to solve, and then in again in trying to actually solve it. So just when we reach a point of certainty, we’ll be thrown back into uncertainty in the second loop – and this is the real danger area.

Innovation requires uncertainty. Uncertainty is what leads to variation in ideas, and this variety is necessary for finding the best answer to whatever problem you’re trying to solve.

This is why I’ve said that the single most important management skill to develop is a tolerance for ambiguity.

If our students can do that in the course of these projects, then they will be successful.

If you can improve your tolerance for ambiguity, you will be a better innovator too.

This post was written by Tim.
http://timkastelle.org

I’m starting up a couple of live consulting projects with some of our MBA students. Even though we are very early in the projects, they have already reminded me of just how critical it is to develop the ability to live with uncertainty.

This is the fundamental point that Jonathan Fields makes in Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance.

Fields contends that you can only do innovative and creative work by learning to live with, or even embrace uncertainty.

For the artist, entrepreneur, or other creator, the outcome-centric approach to visualization that’s most commonly offered can be an exercise in both futility and frustration. Actually, it’s worse. Because if you are someone who’s capable of creating a highly specific definition of your precise outcome in advance and you follow the straightest line to that outcome and remain utterly committed to that vision, you’ll get there faster. But you’ll also increase the likelihood that the very same blinders that send you on a beeline toward your planned outcome will lead you to completely miss a host of unplanned paths and options that, had you been open to seeing them, would have markedly improved your final creation. You’ll get exactly what you wanted, then realize it’s not what it could have been. Continuar leyendo «To Innovate You Must Live With Uncertainty»

Don’t Be First to Market, Be First to Scale

Often when people have an idea for a great new product or service, they rush to be first to market with it. We keep hearing about first-mover advantage and how you need it.

The only problem with first-move advantage is that it doesn’t seem to exist. The academic research on the topic shows that there is no such thing.

The first definitive work on this was done by David Teece in 1986 (pdf version of the paper here). He found that innovators capture about 20% of the profits generated by their new ideas. Followers and imitators capture slightly more. Suppliers get some of the benefit, but the big winners are customers, who get about 40% of the benefit of new ideas.

The study was done 25 years ago, but subsequent work has consistently found similar results.

Part of this is because innovations diffuse across an S-Curve – and this usually takes longer than we expect it to.

http://timkastelle.org/blog/

-.-

Often when people have an idea for a great new product or service, they rush to be first to market with it. We keep hearing about first-mover advantage and how you need it.

The only problem with first-move advantage is that it doesn’t seem to exist. The academic research on the topic shows that there is no such thing.

The study was done 25 years ago, but subsequent work has consistently found similar results.

Part of this is because innovations diffuse across an S-Curve – and this usually takes longer than we expect it to.

How can innovators try to capture more of the profits generated by their great ideas? It’s not by being first to market. In his excellent new book Sidestep & Twist: How to create hit products and services that people will queue up to buy,James Gardner suggests that one way to address this problem is use network effects to accelerate the S-Curve – to be the first to scale. Continuar leyendo «Don’t Be First to Market, Be First to Scale»

Reflections on Open Innovation and Intellectual Property

Intellectual property rights (IPR) used to be the key topic at open innovation conferences a few years back. Although still an important topic, this is no longer the case as companies mature on open innovation and find ways to solve these issues.

This development led me to downplay the significance of IPR when it comes to open innovation. Maybe I went a bit too far on this. I am reflecting on this after a session in my Danish network group in which we had a great visit by Jørn Vestergaard-Jensen, a Danish lawyer with good insights on IPR issues for open innovation.

Here I share some of the insights gained and reflections made by myself and the other participants.

by Stefan Lindegaard
http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2011/12/10/reflections-on-open-innovation-and-intellectual-property/

Reflections on Open Innovation and Intellectual Property Intellectual property rights (IPR) used to be the key topic at open innovation conferences a few years back. Although still an important topic, this is no longer the case as companies mature on open innovation and find ways to solve these issues.

Here I share some of the insights gained and reflections made by myself and the other participants.

Business Before Legal

I was glad to hear that Vestergaard-Jensen had a business mindset. One of his key points was that the business case should take lead over legal issues, not the other way around. He also said that in his world – the lawyer community – good/skilled people have this mindset implicating that less skilled people might focus on reducing risks rather than seeing opportunities in open innovation. I suspect we could agree that there are less good/skilled people than the opposite…

Don’t Be Too Naive

We had an interesting discussion on how “naïve” you can afford to be in open innovation partnerships. Many people in the Nordic region (myself included) take pride in our fairly open and trusting approach in which we believe in the best of people and do not always see reasons to be suspicious and thus protect yourself legally. Some cultures – probably led by the US – have a different mindset on this.

I still believe that the open minded approach is the best in the long run as innovation is moving from a more transactional to a relationship-based approach, but the discussion did prompt several of the participants to consider whether their approach to legal protection should be adjusted. Continuar leyendo «Reflections on Open Innovation and Intellectual Property»

End of Year Innovation Questions

As you may have already guessed, John and I are mentally wiped out right now and are taking a short break from blogging. We’re saving up ideas and posts and will be ready to go again once the new year starts.

In the meantime, here are a few questions to consider. If you’d like to answer them in the comments, it would be fun to have a discussion on these issues:

1. What’s the most innovative thing you’ve done this year?
2. What will you do next year to build on this year’s success?
3. What is your greatest innovation challenge right now?

Thnxs to Tim Kastelle & John Steen | Innovation Leadership Network
http://timkastelle.org

In the meantime, here are a few questions to consider. If you’d like to answer them in the comments, it would be fun to have a discussion on these issues:

What’s the most innovative thing you’ve done this year?
What will you do next year to build on this year’s success?
What is your greatest innovation challenge right now? Continuar leyendo «End of Year Innovation Questions»

10 innovation experts to whom you should be listening

http://www.innovationtools.com/weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?articleid=1218

As the publisher of the world’s largest innovation website, I have the opportunity to hear from and read the thoughts of many innovation experts. These are ten of the people whose insights have had the greatest influence on my thinking. Most of them publish articles and/or blog posts on a regular basis on the subject of innovation:

Jeffrey Phillips – Author of the Innovate on Purpose blog and the new book, Make Us More Innovative.

Steve Shapiro – Author of the 24/7 Innovation blog and the book of the same name, as well as the developer of the new Innovation Personality Poker card deck.

Jeffrey Baumgartner – Author of the excellent and frequently thought-provoking Report103 e-newsletter and founder of the JPB innovation consultancy.

Mitch Ditkoff – Creative guy extraordinaire; author of the eclectic and creative Heart of Innovation blog, the marvelous business fable Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling in an Uphill World and numerous creativity and idea management tools… Continuar leyendo «10 innovation experts to whom you should be listening»

Great readings about innovations | Por jabaldaia

You have wanted to read about innovation?

http://abaldaia.wordpress.com/

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Rethinking the Role of Human Resources – Design Thinking

Por jabaldaia

Recognize and reward creativity

“Fortunately, companies can now prepare itself for the changed dynamics of hiring that lie ahead. All you have to do is stop acting like big companies bureaucratic and impersonal, and begin to create a fast moving and a vibrant atmosphere. Companies will need to mimic the rise in small businesses and provide entrepreneurial initiatives as a natural thing. Teams will be smaller, flatter organizations , and the values of honesty , informality and innovation should be introduced into the culture. People will need to feel that what they say matters, regardless of the classification and title. Perhaps most important, is that organizations need to understand that when the recovery comes, the stars will no longer wait around for them to be given the authority to make decisions or to be promoted. The alternative of running your own show has a very strong appeal. “- Jack Welsh – Business Week

Is not innocent the meaning behind these words of JW

It’s a warning to all those responsible for Human Resources, which has long been filling his professional life , not just with pictures of discouragement produced by a culture that has always favored the to be rewarded for doing well what was established and never rewarded creativity.

The Human Resources as part of the organizations have been looking at and have been left looking like weak elements in the chain of organizational values.

People involved in the traditional Human Resources feel confronted with more fluid business environments with multiple implications of evaluations, awards and contracts.

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HR’s Strategic Role in Innovation by Deb Mills-Scofield

Historically, HR has not played a very strategic role in innovation. This needs to change. HR needs to support the culture change to enable innovation; and the upcoming generation isn’t going to settle for an ‘administrative-only’ role.

On happiness and value innovation by JORGE BARBA

I’ve been thinking about and pounding you in this blog with the idea of not wasting people’s time (also see here). I found out two things today, one is that I’m not the only one thinking about it and second that recent research says that in order for people to be happy we like to spend a certain amount of time on some activities.

Why smaller companies should embrace open innovation by Stefan Lindegaard

Open innovation at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) presents both great opportunities and great challenges. Forming open innovation relationships can give a growing enterprise access to resources that might normally are beyond their reach with the potential for greatly speeding up time to market.

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Will SME feed the large companies in Open Innovation ?

Por jabaldaia

A Portuguese case

Small and medium enterprises, around the world are the drivers of global technological innovation and economic development.

It is likely that its importance has been obscured by the shadow of large multinational companies. In fact the news and exchange of opinion almost always fall into the issues of concern to companies like Microsoft, Apple and IBM among others.

If we imagine that these companies with the size of IBM are large trees in a dense forest, you’ll find around them small businesses that feed and make possible the majestic visibility of companies like Apple or Microsoft.

Are small and medium-sized plants that remain alive and strong the big trees!

These ecosystems are a good analogy with the open innovation with regard to the participation of each firm in the innovation process of a product or service.

SMEs embrace open innovation mainly for reasons related to the market, such as answering customer requirements (often large companies) or to remain in competition with competitors.

To live in an environment of unequal size SMEs face challenges as the most important challenges organizational and cultural issues. These challenges are a consequence of having to deal with the increase of external contacts.

Open innovation can be seen from several perspectives that are based on a combination of absorption and transfer of knowledge and / or technology.

– Companies use licensing of intellectual property as a way of obtaining return.

– Companies set of co-development partnerships as a means to innovate the business model that allows increasing the innovation performance in business.

– Companies establish cooperation with scientific and technological system. This connection enables the research undertaken in universities and institutes of R & D meets the industrial requirements, allowing the expertise of each entity and hence generate returns for both parties.

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Do not wait for the generation y! Become a design thinker!

Por jabaldaia

(Text in Portuguese after this )

Profound insights

Most companies have had their lives guided by the principles of maximizing of the existing as the best way to get the maximum profit. Their leaders have no concern with what is valid and reject the possibility to take the risk by establishing a dialogue to reach a decision.

Thus these companies will never be able to deliver to the user or consumer products under the brand “Wow!”

Here are three assumptions to develop a response according to Gary Hamel- “W

You have wanted to read about innovation?

http://abaldaia.wordpress.com/

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Rethinking the Role of Human Resources – Design Thinking

Por jabaldaia

Recognize and reward creativity

Is not innocent the meaning behind these words of JW

The Human Resources as part of the organizations have been looking at and have been left looking like weak elements in the chain of organizational values.

People involved in the traditional Human Resources feel confronted with more fluid business environments with multiple implications of evaluations, awards and contracts.

_____________________________________________________________________________

HR’s Strategic Role in Innovation by Deb Mills-Scofield

On happiness and value innovation by JORGE BARBA

Why smaller companies should embrace open innovation by Stefan Lindegaard

The CEO’s Innovation Nightmare – BusinessWeek

What is to be done?

Some Helpful Tips

We know this column could come across as a bit cynical. But we are truly hopeless optimists, so let’s get to some solutions. If you are a bullish CEO or a bullish innovator within the ranks, here are few tips that will absolutely make your corporate life better—and more fulfilling.

Let’s start with counsel for the CEOs:

Recruit believers. Henry Ford said, «If you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.» If you have people on your staff who don’t really believe change is possible or that the old way is good enough, for God‘s sake, release them to find a more fulfilling destiny. If you don’t have the guts to do it, then please stop saying you are going to change the world. Because your people simply won’t let it happen, and you are going to look like a fool.

Hire objective senior managers. This is a nice way of saying you should bring in leaders from outside your industry.

Full article:
The CEO’s Innovation Nightmare – BusinessWeek.

Ideas Are Cheap

The problem for innovation isn’t that we don’t have enough ideas. We might not have enough good ones, but there are always plenty around.

But to innovate, we need great ideas, we need some way to figure out which ones to pursue (a selection process), and we have to figure out how to get the ideas to spread. Successful innovation takes all three.

I’ve got some ideas about how to get better ideas, but before I write them up, I have to figure out which ones are the good ones. Then I have to write them up in a way that makes sense.

About the author
http://timkastelle.org

http://timkastelle.orgYou can contact us through Tim at: t.kastelle@business.uq.edu.au

I’ve said it before.

Andrew Hargadon has said it too – and in doing so he quotes Malcolm Gladwell saying it too.

Now one of my favourite current authors Charlie Stross says it as well: ideas are cheap.

Ideas are cheap.

They’re so damn easy to come by that I have difficulty understanding why so many people seem to want to ask me where I get my ideas from. All I do is read widely, and periodically bang a couple of random ideas together until I get a spark. It takes, on average, six to nine months to write a novel; but in brainstorming mode I can come up with half a dozen book-sized ideas in a week.

I have more ideas for books than I have time to write them. Also, some of these ideas are of … dubious, shall we say … commercial value. Continuar leyendo «Ideas Are Cheap»