innovation.net

Leveraging creative minds to solve traffic congestion

My good friends and partners at Spencer Trask have just announced an exciting project with IBM and ITS America.  It's a global innovation challenge, focused on solving traffic congestion.  Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The ITS Congestion Challenge is the first global competition to identify the best ideas to reduce congestion and mitigate its impact on the economy and environment. The competition is open to entrepreneurs, commuters, transportation experts, researchers in all fields, universities, and citizens around the world.

All ideas will be reviewed, discussed and rated by an open global community. The best ideas to solve the problem of traffic congestion will be selected and the winner will be announced during the 16th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Stockholm, Sweden, September 21 - 25, 2009. The winner will receive a cash investment of $50,000 USD in addition to development and implementation support so that the winning idea becomes a real-world solution.

Exciting application of open innovation toward making a real difference in the world.  Check it out at:

http://www.itsa.org/challenge

 

Collaborative Communities vs. Competitive Marketplaces

 

Good article in the recent MIT Sloan Management Review on Managing Outside Innovation.  It's written by Kevin Bougreau (London Business School) and Karim Lakhani (Harvard Business School).    To me one of the first interesting things about this article is that it's part of the next wave of discussion of open innovation.  The leading thinkers (and leading companies) are way past the discussions of should be have an 'open innovation' initiative and how to do basic scouting. Now, as this article discusses, it's about how best to structure open innovation as an element of strategy... and there's no one right answer.

So the crux of the article is the discussion of when it's appropriate to use collaborative communities (Threadless, Google Android) for open innovation versus competitive marketplaces (e.g. Innocentive, eBay, Topcoder).  In the article the authors discuss the questions that drive the decision on approaches...

What type of innovation? In well established technology areas, competitive marketplaces make sense (kind of obvious).  In less developed areas, and when cumulative knowledge is important, collaborative communities are appropriate.

What's the motivation? If you're trying to connect with individuals or groups that are driven by extrinsic rewards (the money!) then open/competitive markets make sense.  If on the other hand you're connecting with people or groups that are in it for the passion, the fun, changing the world, then collaborative communities often work better.

What's the business model?  This is a question that's not asked often enough, so I'm glad to see that authors addressing it.  They discuss models ranging from 'integrator platform' to 'multi-sided platforms'.  You'll have to read the article for a full explanation, but it's really about trade offs of risk and control.

Not a ton of actionable recommendations, but it's a very timely article and one you should be thinking about for your company as you move beyond the obvious 'shopping' at online marketplaces and begin to build your own ecosystem of partners, collaborators and suppliers to support your open innovation efforts.

Collaborative Communities vs. Competitive Marketplaces

 

Good article in the recent MIT Sloan Management Review on Managing Outside Innovation.  It's written by Kevin Bougreau (London Business School) and Karim Lakhani (Harvard Business School).    To me one of the first interesting things about this article is that it's part of the next wave of discussion of open innovation.  The leading thinkers (and leading companies) are way past the discussions of should be have an 'open innovation' initiative and how to do basic scouting. Now, as this article discusses, it's about how best to structure open innovation as an element of strategy... and there's no one right answer.

So the crux of the article is the discussion of when it's appropriate to use collaborative communities (Threadless, Google Android) for open innovation versus competitive marketplaces (e.g. Innocentive, eBay, Topcoder).  In the article the authors discuss the questions that drive the decision on approaches...

What type of innovation? In well established technology areas, competitive marketplaces make sense (kind of obvious).  In less developed areas, and when cumulative knowledge is important, collaborative communities are appropriate.

What's the motivation? If you're trying to connect with individuals or groups that are driven by extrinsic rewards (the money!) then open/competitive markets make sense.  If on the other hand you're connecting with people or groups that are in it for the passion, the fun, changing the world, then collaborative communities often work better.

What's the business model?  This is a question that's not asked often enough, so I'm glad to see that authors addressing it.  They discuss models ranging from 'integrator platform' to 'multi-sided platforms'.  You'll have to read the article for a full explanation, but it's really about trade offs of risk and control.

Not a ton of actionable recommendations, but it's a very timely article and one you should be thinking about for your company as you move beyond the obvious 'shopping' at online marketplaces and begin to build your own ecosystem of partners, collaborators and suppliers to support your open innovation efforts.

Collaborative Innovation for the Post-Crisis World

Paul Stoffels, Group Chairman of Pharma R&D for Johnson & Johnson, authored an article on open innovation in the Feb. 2 issue of the Boston Globe in which he speaks about the trend and importance of open and collaborative models for innovation.  Two things in particular impress me about this article:

1. He articulates open innovation in clear and compelling language, spoken from someone who truly understands its value and has walked the talk...  especially impressive coming from senior leadership at J&J

2. Also impressive since he's in an R&D function and obviously sees open innovation as a tool for increased leverage and productivity, and not as a threat as some R&D leaders do

Great read, so please check it out.  Thanks to Check Frey at the excellent Innovation Tools for pointing me to this article.

Innovation Award Winners from CGT

Consumer Goods Technology today announced its winners for 'most innovative product' and 'most innovative company'.  The Nintendo Wii was selected as the most innovative product.  No wonder, it really has revolutionized gaming... and more importantly the idea of family health made simple.

And congratulations to Kraft for being selected as the most innovative company!  What a coup for a company that makes frozen pizzas and cheese to win this award.   I love to see these examples of what some would call 'commodity' products being reinvented.  It just proves what many of us already know... that there is not a single category that can not be innovated!

Very interesting to me was how much mention was made in the write-up about Kraft's open innovation efforts.  This is a company that is approaching open innovation in ways beyond basic technology scouting... and really driving connections and collaboration through multiple avenues.  Check out www.innovatewithkraft.com to see some of the ways they are connecting.

Protection Beyond Patents

There's a long running debate about the importance of patent protection in defending innovation.  Certainly speed-to-market and agility will often trump I/P protection... And when it comes to launching innovation directly, I fully agree that speed is the most critical component.

But when it comes to in-licensing and out-licensing of innovations and technology, patents and intellectual property become much more important.  As our I/P attorney used to tell me when I was a corporate executive looking in license in an invention or technology... "if the inventor doesn't have good protection, you're paying for something that others can have for free".  Makes sense, and in my current open innovation services company, Venture2, we definitely review the strength of patents and/or patentability as an important determinant of interest in a new idea.

But there are other ways to protect ideas beyond just patents.  Full disclaimer: I am NOT a patent attorney and the following is not to be construed as legal advice (Am I off the hook now?).  I've seen and heard several interesting things in recent weeks and months that you might want to consider as you evaluate your own technology or others'. 

For example, according to a recent release by Ron Epstein, CEO of iPotential (an I/P consulting firm)...

VC’s seek out patent expertise from companies like IPotential to avoid litigation, a threat that could cost young businesses $500,000 per claim if brought to trial and reduce the probability of receiving venture capital financing. Trade secret suits, on the other hand, cost from $300,000 to $500,000, and thus make intellectual property in the form of a trade secret more attractive to VC investors than a “weak” patent that may be open to litigation.

Here's another example of obtaining strong I/P protection in the form of a 'trademark' from none other than Apple for their iPod.  In this MIT Sloan Review article entitled The Shape of Things to Come, Apple was actually granted protection via a trademark for the 3-dimensional shape of its iPod and thumbwheel design.

So while intellectual property protection remains important in creating a 'currency' of open innovation, it's not just about patents anymore.

Putting Your Brains to Work

Yet another twist on the trend of creating networks of experts for collaboration, problem solving and innovation...

Mensa Process has put together a bunch of MENSA members and made them available for client work and problem solving.  It's an interesting approach, that brings new meaning to capturing the 'the wisdom of crowds'.  It's simply a very smart crowd!

The concept is simple.  A pre-selected and recruited panel of Mensa members and subject matter experts are available on a consulting basis to tackle tough problems, build brands and invent new products and ideeas.  Mensa Process (which has licensed the rights from Mensa International) claims that they screen not just on brainpower, but also on creativity (not sure what their criteria is).  I'm not totally convinced that using geniuses (or is it genii?) (That's why I'm not a Mensa member) guarantees better answers than you'd get from generally creative and passionate innovators. 

But I would have to agree from my own experience that in brainstorming sessions, not all participants are created equal.  In my experience, collaborative innovation and brainstorming is often about building upon others' ideas.  Wonder how well this well-endowed group does in that category?

Any experience with this group from readers?

Grabbing Lightning

Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation written by Gina Colarelli O’Conner, Richard Leifer, Albert Paulson, and Lois S. Peters.  Their work provides an interesting look at how some large companies are working to make breakthrough innovation a core part of corporate strategy and a core business capability.  The authors claim their work shows innovation is no longer a fad, but is in the process of becoming a core business function, like marketing and finance, and my own experience with Venture2 over the last several years helping leading companies with open innovation shows this to be true as companies continue to progress in their OI efforts.

Based on more than four years of research, the authors followed twelve leading companies that had a declared strategic intent to develop a sustainable ‘breakthrough innovation’ capability including 3M, GE, J&J Consumer, and others.  From their study of this group they developed a set of findings, and tested these against another second group of ten firms including Hewlett Packard, Intel, and P&G, and developed best practices.

Their premise, familiar to most of us and experienced personally by some, is that the management processes developed by large companies to provide incremental innovation will kill off breakthrough innovations, and that companies must develop fundamentally different methods of managing breakthrough innovations.  The lessons learned are synthesized and presented in a clear framework with three distinct competencies Discovery, Incubation, and Acceleration.  Discovery is focused on the creation or recognition of opportunities, incubation involves evolving the opportunity into a business proposition, and acceleration involves ramping up the new business to stand on its own.

While the general framework is likely to be familiar to many of us, the authors are to be commended for their comprehensive approach to laying out their different management system needed for each of these phases.  For each phase they lay out an appropriate management system including structure, mandate, leadership, roles, processes, and metrics. This approach, avoiding the easy answers and platitudes about innovation, gets to the heart of the changes necessary for a company to develop the capacity to bring serial breakthrough innovations to market.  Filled with interesting case studies, but recommended for those who desire for a deep understanding of the different skills and management systems needed for each phase of developing and bringing to market a breakthrough innovation.

SAP's Co-Innovation Lab Spawning Success

I've been speaking a lot recently about the next wave of 'open innovation' -- it's the need and the trend of companies moving beyond purely 'transactional' approaches to open innovation toward a new frontier of creating collaborative networks of external partners (whether other large companies, suppliers or startups/inventors).

SAP had established its "Co-Innovation" Lab in 2007 as an experiment with a select 'ecosystem' of partners to collaborate on solving industry-specific challenges via SAP's platform.  It's both a physical space and an open platform for collaboration, but done in controlled fashion.

Unlike many 'open social' platforms where anyone can contribute and the results are common property, SAP's approach is more focused, evidenced by its being sponsored and initiated in cooperation with HP, Intel, NetApp and Cisco.

In their most recent press release in June, SAP claims many projects are emerging including a collaboration workspace, support for service-oriented architecture (SOA) management a disaster recovery solution, a real-time reporting solution for manufacturers, and solutions that help companies improve business performance.

While this SAP ecosystem example is fairly narrow, and clearly focused on further penetrating/enabling the SAP platform, I think it's another clear example of where many companies are headed -- toward private, invitation-only collaboration with select partners.  I don't see this replacing other open innovation efforts, but its an important step in ensuring meaningful, measurable and faster results from collaboration. 

Expect to see a lot more of this over the next few years.

One Savvy Entrepreneur - Nagesh Challa in Fast Company

I often speak about how success in open innovation requires more than scouting for technologies.  Large companies who are leaders and winners in this game recognize the need to build relationship-based networks of external innovators.  It's easier said than done, because of the many barriers (legal, cultural, firewalls, etc.) that keep executives and entrepreneurs from truly collaborating on an ongoing basis.

(photo: Suzy Polling via Fast Company)

So it was refreshing for me to read about Nagesh Challa in the June issue of Fast Company. In an article entitled The Mad Scientist of Mobile Phones, author Elizabeth Svoboda paints a picture of a truly visionary mobile software entrepreneur, often well ahead of the curve of emerging technologies.  In the 1990's he invented the Media Stick, a 2MB storage device for PC's and mobile phones.  "People didn't know what to do with that much storage" Challa explains.

According to Svoboda's article, in 2004, the demand for more mobile applications and 3G networks ability to carry high-volume data, allowed his 'push to talk' technology to be adopted into all of NEC's and Panasonic's phones.  That may have been the turning point for his company (Ecrio), but it's his savvy personal approach to building relationships with leading mobile technology companies that really caught my attention.

Start-ups all over the world are pushing their technologies on these large companies.  Here's an excerpt from the article that demonstrates Challa's difference in approach:

What secures Ecrio's place at the mobile vanguard is Challa's unusual willingness to cater to his clients and to truly understand not just their needs but their culture -- including singing karaoke. "I've dealt with take-it-all-style negotiations with other U.S. companies," says Tetsuya Mori, who heads the technology venture-capital practice at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. "Japanese companies feel refreshed when they deal with Nagesh. His style resonates here -- he knows how to make things win-win. I've heard people say, 'I can't say no to Nagesh. I want to find a way to come to terms with him.'" Several years ago, Challa also taught himself Japanese from scratch, listening to language CDs and practicing vocabulary in stolen moments between meetings.

He has developed personal relationships with the CEO's of these companies -- he understands their strategies and needs and he targets his innovations and approaches to their future needs. Elsewhere in the article Hide Tanigami, CEO of semiconductor distributor Marubun/Arrow says... "We always joke, Hey Nagesh, you don't need to invent things five steps ahead of everyone else, only about one and a half.  You can still make money that way".

Nagesh demonstrates a trait other start-ups and entrepreneurs should emulate... Connecting directly and deeply with the large companies who are your likely partners and directing your innovation efforts at their emerging needs.

NTT DoCoMo and other Japanese telecom giants demonstrate a trait other large companies should emulate.... Nurturing and guiding the best entrepenuers in your business.  And building relationships that can actually become a real source of competitive advantage!