Innovation – Gabriel Catalano®

The Essential Element of Trust in Open Innovation

What are the barriers against building trust and relationships with stakeholders in your ecosystem

* Most organizational structures foster an internal rather than an external perspective.
* Most companies view external partners as someone paid to deliver a specific service rather than a source of co – creation and open innovation.
* Most companies are more focused on protecting their own knowledge and intellectual property rather than opening up and exploring new opportunities. They play defense rather than offense. This should not come as a surprise as one of the main objectives for corporate lawyers is to minimize risk, and it is fair to say that opening up to the outside world increases the risk element.
* Forging strong relationships takes time and personal commitment. We are just too busy to make it happen and it does not help that most companies do not provide the necessary time, resources, and encouragement to make this happen.

by Stenfan Lindeegar
http://www.15inno.com/

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What are the barriers against building trust and relationships with stakeholders in your ecosystem

Most organizational structures foster an internal rather than an external perspective.
Most companies view external partners as someone paid to deliver a specific service rather than a source of co – creation and open innovation.
Most companies are more focused on protecting their own knowledge and intellectual property rather than opening up and exploring new opportunities. They play defense rather than offense. This should not come as a surprise as one of the main objectives for corporate lawyers is to minimize risk, and it is fair to say that opening up to the outside world increases the risk element.
Forging strong relationships takes time and personal commitment. We are just too busy to make it happen and it does not help that most companies do not provide the necessary time, resources, and encouragement to make this happen.

What should you do to foster an organizational mindset that supports the building of trust?

Read this article:
http://www.15inno.com/2010/10/05/essentialelement/

The Open Innovation in the European Union (EU) environment

Everyone is being affected by this change from SMEs to Government organizations, but it seems that Europe has not changed enough.

R. Hudson says it takes:

– Focus on Excellence. If Europe wants to compete has to have the best research and ideas available.

– Focus on clusters. We need to focus resources on areas of high technology in order to attract bright students to its universities and companies for their rich business parks .

– Free SMEs. Small businesses are a major driver of ideas to the markets. We must encourage them financially.

– Buy smart. We need to provide the public services with the ability to purchase innovative products and services.

– Regulate smart. The setting is a sign of obligation and can lead to innovation.

Since 2009 it became clear that:

– It is essential to invest in new skills (people) and not only in technology (tools).

– The environmental concern is no longer exclusively green to be too gray and white in reference to creative thinking.

– “The new thinking” can be provided (with help), as is the case presented by Hudson, in terms of policies and regulations.

– The interdisciplinary team (economists, engineers, psychologists, designers, etc.) have guaranteed future. Everyone can create, conceptualize and implement ideas.

http://abaldaia.wordpress.com

Contagious or by the law!

In November 2009 an EU Manifesto targeted focus on funding and the competences and could read:

“The ambassadors believe that a comprehensive innovation policy , along with increased investment in science, technology and design, will help make Europe more competitive . “

At that time Jean -Philippe Courtois, President Microsoft International, said that the future of Europe depends on the imagination of its people and urged political and business leaders to create a environment that encourages creative thinking.

He said that the technology has the potential to radically transform society and create new jobs, but investment in skills is essential.

“The acquisition of IT skills, for example, is as fundamental as reading and writing, “said Courtois, who spoke on behalf of the 27 ambassadors.” Continuar leyendo «The Open Innovation in the European Union (EU) environment»

What is Open Innovation? | Crowdsourcing? | User innovation? | Co-Creation?

What is co-creation? Here Wikipedia states that co-creation views markets as forums for firms and active customers to share, combine and renew each other’s resources and capabilities to create value through new forms of interaction, service and learning mechanisms. It differs from the traditional active firm – passive consumer market construct of the past. I like how C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy argue that “value will be increasingly co-created by the firm and the customer, they argued, rather than being created entirely inside the firm.”

These terms overlap which leaves plenty of room for confusion, but I hope this short overview helps.

By Stefan Lindegaard

15inno

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Many people ask what open innovation is. I suggest that you should view open innovation as a philosophy or a mindset that you should embrace within your organization. In a more practical definition, open innovation is about bridging internal and external resources and act on those opportunities. The value proposition this gives companies that get it right is simply too good to miss out on.

I also like this quote from Henry Chesbrough; “Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology”

This still leaves three other questions:

What is crowdsourcing? Wikipedia states that “crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.” I view crowdsourcing as a tool that can be used to bring external input into your organizations.

What is user-driven innovation? I view this as a technique in which companies gain insights from users, which can then be used in the innovation process. I think that a key element in user-driven innovation is the observation of users rather than the use of questionnaires and focus groups. Erich von Hippel is an important influencer with his contributions on lead-user innovation. Continuar leyendo «What is Open Innovation? | Crowdsourcing? | User innovation? | Co-Creation?»

Companies Need All The Innovation They Can Get

by Sheldon Laube | Innovation Office, PwC

In a recent Bloomberg article entitled “Why Companies Need Less Innovation“ Pat Lencioni makes the case that companies should not be asking employees to be innovators. He goes as far as to say that leaders should not even be open to more ideas from their employees and that only a few people really need to innovative. He suggests that rank and file employees should not try to innovate but simply “do their jobs and satisfy customers in the most effective and charismatic way possible, but within the bounds of sound business principles.”

Lencioni has a far too limiting view of innovation. Let’s start with the definition of innovation itself. While this is widely debated, I always fall back to the simple dictionary definition:

Something new or different introduced

by Sheldon Laube | Innovation Office, PwC

In a recent Bloomberg article entitled “Why Companies Need Less Innovation“ Pat Lencioni makes the case that companies should not be asking employees to be innovators. He goes as far as to say that leaders should not even be open to more ideas from their employees and that only a few people really need to innovative. He suggests that rank and file employees should not try to innovate but simply “do their jobs and satisfy customers in the most effective and charismatic way possible, but within the bounds of sound business principles.”

Lencioni has a far too limiting view of innovation. Let’s start with the definition of innovation itself. While this is widely debated, I always fall back to the simple dictionary definition:

Something new or different introduced Continuar leyendo «Companies Need All The Innovation They Can Get»

Is Corporate Venture Dead? Is Open Innovation the New Thing?

Once upon a time, we had many corporate venture units that invested in external projects as well as in internal projects from the corporate groups that they belonged to.

The number of units declined steadily during the last decade and it continues to do so in the aftermath of the financial crisis. One company that I have always admired is Danfoss Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm of Danfoss, a group with 26,000 employees working with refrigeration, air conditioning, compressors and more.

Unfortunately, Danfoss Ventures – my role model on corporate venture – is now dead. According to Executive Vice President at Danfoss, Nis Storgaard, this is about prioritizing resources where they make most impact.

Once upon a time, we had many corporate venture units that invested in external projects as well as in internal projects from the corporate groups that they belonged to.

The efficient use of ideas

Every significant «leap forward» in the span of human consciousness has coincided with a significant change in the efficient use of a significant resource. For example – the transition from nomadic life to farming. This transition came about because people learned to till the ground and grow food that was dependable and sustaining. The fact that people could stay in one place and have a consistent food source meant that they could take on other tasks. The more efficiently they used the soil, the more crops they could grow, and the more time available for other activities.

Every significant «leap forward» in the span of human consciousness has coincided with a significant change in the efficient use of a significant resource. For example – the transition from nomadic life to farming. This transition came about because people learned to till the ground and grow food that was dependable and sustaining. The fact that people could stay in one place and have a consistent food source meant that they could take on other tasks. The more efficiently they used the soil, the more crops they could grow, and the more time available for other activities.

Other «leaps» forward include the efficient use of labor (thanks Frederick Taylor) and the efficient use of capital, which has eventually brought us to the problems with financial engineering that we’ve encountered recently. All Taylor cared about was understanding how to get the most, best, productivity out of the labor of individuals, while bankers, financiers and CFOs have their own metrics about the efficient use of capital – return on invested capital as an example.
Continuar leyendo «The efficient use of ideas»

In Innovation, Culture Trumps! Learnings from P&G

Quick – what company do you think of when you hear «Open Innovation»? Many think of P&G – they were, and are, at the forefront of Open Innovation (OI) and the results are now case studies at business schools around the world and benchmarks for many. I had the chance to talk with Chris Thoen, P&G’s OI guru, at the 2nd Annual OI Summit. It seems that everyone has interviewed him and if you google him, you’ll find a lot of great learnings on how P&G has grown their OI initiatives and made it a part of their culture. Of course I wanted to ask him something original, so, being interesting in how we learn, and apply, from failure, I asked Chris what he thought was one of their key failures and what they learned from it. The answer surprised me.

Quick – what company do you think of when you hear «Open Innovation«? Many think of P&G – they were, and are, at the forefront of Open Innovation (OI) and the results are now case studies at business schools around the world and benchmarks for many. I had the chance to talk with Chris Thoen, P&G’s OI guru, at the 2^nd Annual OI Summit. It seems that everyone has interviewed him and if you google him, you’ll find a lot of great learnings on how P&G has grown their OI initiatives and made it a part of their culture. Of course I wanted to ask him something original, so, being interesting in how we learn, and apply, from failure, I asked Chris what he thought was one of their key failures and what they learned from it. The answer surprised me. Continuar leyendo

Social Media Tools in Open Innovation Efforts

Companies have begun using social media tools in order to further build their networks and engage with their innovation stakeholders.

This creates what we can call touch points – situations in which a person or company interact with their current and/or future stakeholders.

Here are a few touch point examples:

• GE has an app for their Ecomagination challenge, which gives them an additional touch point that interacts nicely with their website for the challenge.

• Chris Thoen @cthoen is an active twitter on P&G’s open innovation efforts and others things related to innovation. This can help Thoen and P&G build an innovation leadership position as the innovation community appreciates efforts to distribute knowledge and insights.

However, Twitter is just one touch point in order to reach such a position. Other touch points could include a blog or a LinkedIn group focused on P&G’s corporate innovation capabilities.

• Whirlpool recently launched such a group on LinkedIn.

Companies have begun using social media tools in order to further build their networks and engage with their innovation stakeholders.

This creates what we can call touch points – situations in which a person or company interact with their current and/or future stakeholders.

Here are a few touch point examples:

• GE has an app for their Ecomagination challenge, which gives them an additional touch point that interacts nicely with their website for the challenge.

However, Twitter is just one touch point in order to reach such a position. Other touch points could include a blog or a LinkedIn group focused on P&G’s corporate innovation capabilities.

• Whirlpool recently launched such a group on LinkedIn.

• Through their Intuit Collaboratory website, Intuit – among other things – announces events in which they interact physically which startups. At their latest event in August, we saw lots of tweets and although they did not deliver much learning, it was still nice to see how they have begun using Twitter.

• Psion experiments with Twitter Chats in which they share insights on their open innovation efforts. Continuar leyendo «Social Media Tools in Open Innovation Efforts»

Top 3 Innovation Trends and Issues

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 I have had over the last month or so.

1. Communication

At the recent Open Innovation Summit, communication in a more holistic perspective was a key topic.

Jeff Boehm of InventionMachine gave a great presentation titled Marketing Innovation in which he argued that innovation success requires internal communication. He’s right and I will share more from this presentation in a later blog post.

At a Think Tank session during the summit, we also identified communication as a key characteristic for open innovation leaders. Some keywords on this were internal & external communication, consistent behavior & messages, deliberate strategy, top-down modeling, confidence to share what you know.

You should check out this post by Andrea Meyer: Unilever, Cisco, Whirlpool: Communication in Open Innovation

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 I have had over the last month or so.

1. Communication

At the recent Open Innovation Summit, communication in a more holistic perspective was a key topic.

You should check out this post by Andrea Meyer: Unilever, Cisco, Whirlpool: Communication in Open Innovation Continuar leyendo «Top 3 Innovation Trends and Issues»

Innovation Dilemma: Open Up or Shut Up?

: Image via Wikipedia

In a recent post, Where Big Companies Fail on Innovation, I argue that big companies fail to communicate well on their corporate innovation capabilities.

I believe this is a problem as most industries have begun adopting open innovation practices in which a key goal is to become the preferred partner of choice. This requires a significant higher visibility for corporate innovation departments.

Michael Fruhling and Kevin McFarthing contributed with comments in which they argue that companies can still do well with innovation – even open innovation – without communicating much about their efforts. Continuar leyendo «Innovation Dilemma: Open Up or Shut Up?»

Fail at innovation is a normal act! What should be the attitude?

Open Innovation and fear of failure

In the last post I said, “Companies need to address the changing needs and only be able to do that through innovation, which implies a clear development of new information flows and management of connections increasingly demanding and diverse.”

But “When failure is intolerable” besides being an excellent article by Scott Anthony in HBR, is a good starting point to verify the extent to which our connections and information flows are well suited to our needs.

Whilst the communication processes owe their quality to the attitudes and skills of partners and are thus also of court behavior, innovation will only find the right path after removing certain obstacles.

It is true that these obstacles denser when the connections and interactions are made with outside organizations.

Although Scott did not call obstacles, but rather, failures, there are bumps are cracks, failure is part of the barriers to innovation and more acutely open innovation. He identifies three salient flaws:

* When someone knowingly does the wrong thing.
* When someone could have easily discovered that they were doing the wrong thing.
* When someone spent a lot of time and money researching something that could only be learned through experientially.

And why these three obstacles can be significant when we think of open innovation?

por jabaldaia

Open Innovation and fear of failure

It is true that these obstacles denser when the connections and interactions are made with outside organizations.

When someone knowingly does the wrong thing.
When someone could have easily discovered that they were doing the wrong thing.
When someone spent a lot of time and money researching something that could only be learned through experientially.

And why these three obstacles can be significant when we think of open innovation? Continuar leyendo «Fail at innovation is a normal act! What should be the attitude?»

10 Basic Principles of Innovation

Today’s post is from Matthew Greeley, Founder and CEO of Brightidea, the global leader in On-Demand Innovation Management software. Prior to founding Brightidea, Matthew consulted for Wrenchead.com, helping them raise over $100 million in venture funding from investors. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and studied Creativity and Marketing at Stanford University. In addition to his role at Brightidea, Matthew sits on the board of directors of ClearDay Technologies.

After 10 years of working in the trenches of innovation, I have attempted to distill down the ten MOST important concepts that I believe anyone working in this field should be aware of:

Posted by Erica Templeman

Today’s post is from Matthew Greeley, Founder and CEO of Brightidea, the global leader in On-Demand Innovation Management software. Prior to founding Brightidea, Matthew consulted for Wrenchead.com, helping them raise over $100 million in venture funding from investors. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and studied Creativity and Marketing […]

Today’s post is from Matthew Greeley, Founder and CEO of Brightidea, the global leader in On-Demand Innovation Management software. Prior to founding Brightidea, Matthew consulted for Wrenchead.com, helping them raise over $100 million in venture funding from investors. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and studied Creativity and Marketing at Stanford University. In addition to his role at Brightidea, Matthew sits on the board of directors of ClearDay Technologies.

After 10 years of working in the trenches of innovation, I have attempted to distill down the ten MOST important concepts that I believe anyone working in this field should be aware of: Continuar leyendo «10 Basic Principles of Innovation»

5 Steps to Have an Innovative Brainstorm

For every project I embark on, be it professional or personal, it all starts with an idea and a brainstorm. But how does one go about planning what can be a freeform and creative process based on flighty inspiration? Can you plan out how you will innovate?

I think not, but you can set yourself up for success. You can steer your way towards innovation. And the best place to start, is the beginning at the brainstorm. Here are the steps that I follow:

1. Ideate. Throw ideas around, free of reality restraint. Go for the game-changer than will fulfill any lacking. Be as creative and innovative as possible.
2. Vet. Give your idea a healthy dose of reality—what could stand in your idea’s way? What are sticking points and stumbling blocks? This is where you anticipate and plan how to navigate obstacles.

Posted by Erica Templeman

I think not, but you can set yourself up for success. You can steer your way towards innovation. And the best place to start, is the beginning at the brainstorm. Here are the steps that I follow:

Ideate. Throw ideas around, free of reality restraint. Go for the game-changer than will fulfill any lacking. Be as creative and innovative as possible.
Vet. Give your idea a healthy dose of reality—what could stand in your idea’s way? What are sticking points and stumbling blocks? This is where you anticipate and plan how to navigate obstacles. Continuar leyendo «5 Steps to Have an Innovative Brainstorm»

Top 5 Innovation Trends and Issues

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

1. Intrapreneurship

How can we establish – or improve – programs that makes us better at identifying and developing ideas and let our own people (intrapreneurs) – turn them into revenue and profits?

I have had two requests on this within a few weeks after a long time with almost no focus on this. A new trend? Perhaps. It also comes with a new twist as some companies finally try to combine this with their open innovation efforts. Very interesting…

Check this article to get an idea of intrapreneurship programs: Driving Innovation In Large Corporations

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

1. Intrapreneurship

How can we establish – or improve – programs that makes us better at identifying and developing ideas and let our own people (intrapreneurs) – turn them into revenue and profits?

Check this article to get an idea of intrapreneurship programs: Driving Innovation In Large Corporations Continuar leyendo «Top 5 Innovation Trends and Issues»

IT innovation: How to avoid being a one-hit wonder

Computerworld – There were no big brainstorming sessions, rah-rah team meetings or executive committees convened to devise a plan to drive FiOS TV customers away from using call centers in favor of self-service ordering, the more cost-effective option.

How top IT organizations come up with bright ideas, time after time

By Mary K. Pratt

: Image via Wikipedia

Instead, a junior programmer came up with the idea to build a click-to-order option that viewers could use instantly with their remotes. The programmer approached his manager and got the OK to build a prototype, which he delivered within months.The click-to-order feature, which started rolling out in 2007, boosted self-service orders from 5% to 55% in just one month, cutting costs and inspiring click-to-order uses in other areas of the FiOS lineup too.

«He hit a gold mine,» says Shaygan Kheradpir, CIO at Verizon Communications Inc.

Kheradpir says the junior programmer’s ability to run with an innovative idea wasn’t a fluke; Verizon’s IT shop is designed to enable that kind of innovation to happen again and again.

«The underlying mission for Verizon IT is to look for opportunities where IT can make a quantum leap in performance for the business,» Kheradpir says. Continuar leyendo «IT innovation: How to avoid being a one-hit wonder»