by Stefan Lindegaard The reason for creating a networking culture is obvious once you look at the current and future direction of innovation. Let’s start by disposing of the myth of the lone genius (the Thomas Edisons and the Alexander Graham Bells of yesteryear) arriving at a breakthrough innovation on his/her own. This model wasn’t true then, and even if it were, it simply does not hold true in today’s complex business organizations. Technology and the challenges that must be solved have become so complex that many, perhaps even most, companies can no longer rely solely on their own internal innovation geniuses, no matter how brilliant those people may be. Innovation is increasingly about having groups of people come together to leverage their diverse talents and expertise to solve multi-faceted challenges that cross multiple disciplines. To make this happen within your organization, and beyond as you move toward open innovation, requires a networking culture that is designed, supported, and modeled by your company’s leaders. Even organizations that are not ready to fully embrace open innovation are finding that employees’ mindsets about networking must be stretched as more companies deploy internal R & D functions outside the corporate headquarters and around the world. Employees start to wonder who should do innovation and where it should take place. Although this is positive, success in such situations depends heavily on the ability of the employees to initiate, solidify, and leverage external relationships. Another key motivation for setting up networking initiatives is based on the simple fact that the knowledge of any company is inside the heads of the employees. Discovering and distributing this knowledge has always been a challenge, and now, more than ever, the ability to leverage a company’s collective knowledge and experience through virtual and face-to-face networks and communities is critical to innovation. Furthermore, establishing the ability to bring knowledge and potential new innovation insights in from external sources demands a strong networking culture supported and modeled from the top. In one of my next posts, I will give some advice on how to create a networking culture. Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group! Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

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Why a Networking Culture Is Important

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One of the common themes of the speakers at the recent CoDev Open Innovation Conference was the importance of developing exceptional communication skills. In the age of open innovation, when partnering with firms outside of your organization in the pursuit of great ideas will become the norm, cultivating this capability will be essential to your success. Let’s take a closer look at the specific skills that will be needed.

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The importance of communication in open innovation

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There are three levels of open innovation maturity: externally aware, fully integrated and ecosystem orchestration. Innovation and growth performance improve as maturity increases.

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Three levels of open innovation maturity

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Companies are experimenting with the concept of open innovation, which let them reach out to talent beyond the firm. It is an innovative concept but faces lot of challenges.

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Open Innovation: The new strategy for firms to get talent

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Open innovation has been hyped in the media and by some consulting firms over the past few years as the next new thing and is just giving a term to an activity that has been underway in business for a long time. Simply put, open innovation is partnering to gain leverage and build barriers to competition.

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Is open innovation over-hyped?

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The world if filled with incredibly smart people. If you can locate them and convince them to partner with you, they can help to drive your open innovation efforts forward. Stefan Lindegaard shares several strategies for making that happen.

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How to find potential open innovation partners

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by Mark Prus Which Is Better? A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet. If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company. Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while “home grown” innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas. I love Apple (full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a big fan of their products). However, I am not sure that the “elitism model of innovation” is one that can be expanded to a lot of companies. I believe that Steve Jobs is a true visionary, and that people like him come along far too rarely for this to be a workable model of innovation. It does work for Apple… but how many other companies can implement it? Your thoughts? Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group! Mark Prus is a marketing consultant who offers a name development service called NameFlash SM .

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Crowdsourcing Innovation vs. The Economics of Elitism

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In this interview with Chuck Frey at the 2010 CoDev and Open Innovation conference, Gene Slowinski from Rutgers University shares insights on how to set up and manage open innovation alliances.

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Gene Slowinski of Rutgers University shares insights on open innovation alliances

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by Stefan Lindegaard In a 2006 article, P&G’s New Innovation Model , P&G stated that their open innovation program – along with improvements in other aspects of innovation related to product cost, design, and marketing – made their R&D productivity increase by nearly 60 percent since 2001. When I listen to P&G talks on innovation today, the innovation productivity has nearly doubled and open innovation is a key reason for this. Every company would like to increase their innovation productivity significantly so I am looking into how companies can do this. I am still researching and it would be great to have a discussion here on my blog. A few conversation starters: What does innovation productivity mean? In this video , P&G gives us some insight on innovation productivity including this quote from A.G Lafley: “…the other obvious way we measure innovation productivity is how much innovation do we generate per person and how much innovation do we generate per dollar invested in innovation.” You can read a transcript at the link. Which other metrics can we use to track innovation productivity? Maximizing Innovation Productivity In this article , PRTM focuses on four areas of opportunity that offer high potential for productivity and innovation leverage but are often overlooked or underutilized by development organizations: platforms and architectures, resource management, information automation, and cross-functional teams. To which extent does your company apply this? Does it deliver results? What else do you do? I look forward to hearing your thoughts and input on this. Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group! Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

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Increasing Innovation Productivity

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by Stefan Lindegaard The “not invented here” culture is a problem at Sony. James Surowiecki addressed this in a 2005 article in which he stated that the Betamax video tape recorder failed in part because the company refused to cooperate with other companies. Sony was also late in making flat-screen TVs and DVD recorders, because its engineers believed that, even though customers loved these devices, the available technologies were not up to Sony’s standards. And Sony’s digital music players didn’t play MP3s, which is a big reason that the iPod became the Walkman’s true successor. Again and again, Sony’s desire to control everything kept it from controlling anything according to Surowiecki. Over the years, Sony CEO Howard Stringer has been working hard to crack this staunch “not invented here” culture. As the company bets big on a 3-D revival, it seems as if they starting to get it. In a Wall Street Journal article, Stringer says that getting to market quickly takes priority over making everything in house. This led to Sony reaching a licensing deal with an outside supplier for an essential component of 3-D televisions. Things are definitely changing at Sony. Things are also changing for Daiichi Sankyo, one of Japan’s largest pharmaceutical groups. In a Financial Times interview, CEO Takashi Shoda talks about how a growing influence of western practices and the broader need for greater openness in order to innovate impacts his company. “The era of trying to do everything in-house is gone,” he says. “Innovation means open innovation: partnership, networking, relationship with academics. There used to be an NIH – not invented here – syndrome. If a drug project did not begin in-house, we were not interested. That is changing now. Management is constantly encouraging outsiders,” Shoda says. What is the message here? The future of innovation is open and global. Companies need to get this or they will lose out. And when even very tradition-driven, Japanese companies get it, everyone needs to pay attention. Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

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Pay Attention When Sony and Japan Embrace Open Innovation

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