innovation.net

TekScout - A new approach to online technology matchmaking

The field of open innovation continues to gain momentum, with an increasing number of leading companies (consumer, B2B and service) looking outside for ideas.  The current business climate of 'doing more with less' is driving the trend as well.  In response, more and more service providers are re-configuring and expanding their offerings to position themselves as emerging leaders in the field of innovation in general and open innovation in particular. The newest entrant is TekScout, an online marketplace created by UTEK -- a technology transfer company with its roots in connecting university based research tech transfer. 

TekScout enters a crowded field:

Innocentive just closed on a $6.5 million round of financing to expand their online marketplace.  Their business model, as the name hints, is a rewards-based approach to open innovation.  Problem solvers post technical challenges to Innocentive's network of 140,000 technical solvers.  Winning solutions are rewarded via cash awards, usually small, but with the potential of up to $1,000,000. 

Yet2 is a global marketplace that lists both "technology needs" and "technologies available".  Yet2's software engine drives many of the corporate open innovation marketplaces (DuPont, P&G, etc.).

NineSigma has expanded into both Europe and Japan, and also gained new investment of $4 million to capitalize its growth. NineSigma has probably been the most successful of the bunch by leveraging a singularly focused approach of posting well-defined tech briefs (needs) to it global network of solvers. 

Now comes TekScout, aimed at connecting companies (TekScouts) and scientists (TekExperts) together.  In their press release announcing the site, the company cites its relationships with over 2000 academic institutions around the world, in addition to the TekExperts who join the site directly.

So does the world need yet another online marketplace for matching technology seekers with technology providers?  In the case of TekScout, I say yes -- Here's why.

What seems to be unique about TekScout's approach is the following:

• Their unique strength and relationships in university-based research and problem-solving (they have the entire UTEK network available to provide deeper solutions beyond those who happen to look on the site)
• A subscription model that provides flexibility and potentially 'value' over project fee based approaches
• The responses to challenges/problems are more 'vetted' since the UTEK network is comprised of professional scientists (this is a big advantage, since I hear a LOT of frustration from companies who solicit ideas and receive too many unqualified responses)
• Finally, choice.  They offer both 'supported' searches with TekScout staff providing advice and screening, and also 'self-service' options for those who either don't need the help, or are budget-sensitive

In speaking with Ed Weisberg, VP and GM of TekScout, I went from being skeptical about yet another online marketplace, to becoming a believer that this is a unique approach that will find a place in the market.

So, if you're a company just beginning the open innovation journey, or an established player in the market, you've got a new tool to accelerate your efforts.  Similarly, here's a new outlet for your expertise if your a credible, creative brain in search of problems to solve.

Collaboration - Key to innovating in tough times

Innovation has been and continues to be in vogue (and rightly so)... it will be interesting to see how many companies stay the course during the current and future tough economic times.  So, as the innovation revolution enters another 'do more with less' phase, not too surprising that another word is showing up with increasing frequency: collaboration.

I've long felt that 'open innovation' is a recession-resistant trend, largely because it really does allow companies to 'do more with less'.  While it's not the same as outsourcing, there's definitely a benefit in leveraging external resources in being able to improve your companies R&D efficiency (more innovation at the same expense level, or equal innovation for less investment). 

Here are a couple of recent examples of the collaboration dialogue accelerating...

• Jeneanne Rae's BusinessWeek online column A Ripe Time for Open Innovation where she makes the case for open innovation in recessionary times (I'm quoted in this one).  Jeneanne makes a good case for why companies that haven't previously embraced open innovation ought to get on board now, for the sake of getting more done through co-development.
• The World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland's 2008 Conference (Jan 08) which had the theme entitled The Power of Collaborative Innovation. It provided some interesting topics including 'competing while collaborating' and 'aligning interests across divides'. 
• A new book by C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan entitled The New Age of Innovation (subtitled Driving Co-created Value through Global Networks).  C.K. Prahalad has written seminal books on innovation such as Competing for the Future.  In his new book, he writes "The new game is about more efficiency and more innovation".  Global collaboration networks are a key part of this new approach.

Are you ready?:

Is your organization easy to access and work with from the persective of external partners? 

Are you considered a 'partner of choice'?

Does your culture and do your organization practices support collaboration? 

Do you at least consider colllaboration as a path to implementation in your strategic initiatives?

Collaboration has always been important.  It's going to become even more important in the challenging period of global competitiveness and change in front of us all.

Tuned In

Although not available until June, Tuned In, Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities that Lead to Business Breakthroughs, written by Craig Stull & Phil Myers of Pragmatic Marketing, and David Meerman Scott, provides a clear reminder for all of us to keep our focus on customers and their needs from the beginning, and throughout, the innovation process.

The authors argue, rightfully so, that understanding expressed and unexpressed customer needs is what enables innovators to develop products that will 'resonate' with customers, and that doing so will lead to success with far less effort and expense than trying to market and sell a product that does not resonate with customers.  Of course, laid out this plainly makes it seem overly obvious, but in my own work with entrepreneurs at Venture2 and through countless real world examples it’s clear many entrepreneurs and companies become hooked on their own idea and fail to look realistically at consumer needs and marketplace opportunity when developing their product, business plan, and commercialization strategies.

For those who are interested, the book offers a well-developed framework for a six-step process to "tune in" and to develop products that will connect with customers.  The book is a little repetitious in its presentation of the main theme, likely derived from its basis as material for their seminars series, but it does offer some interesting examples of the process being used to create successful innovations such as QuickBooks and Zipcar.

The Game Changer by A.G. Lafley

While not available until April 8, A.G. Lafley (P&G CEO) and Ram Charan (consultant) have written a book about driving revenue and profit through game-changing innovation. 

Take yourself back in time to, say, 8 years ago.  If I told you then that the CEO of P&G was publishing a book on game-changing innovation you'd either chuckle or shake your head in disbelief.  P&G had lost its luster -- it was slow moving, losing share and its stock losing value and its culture being ripped apart by the tumultuous reign of Durk Jager.  In the past 8 years, Lafley has led an amazing feat of reinventing a staid, though highly disciplined, behemoth into a global innovation powerhouse, more agile than many start-ups (okay that might be going too far!)... But for such a giant bureaucratic company, they have have become amazingly agile. 

So I've become a fan of P&G, and in particular their Connect & Develop program which really legitimized and mainstreamed the whole 'open innovation' movement.  And P&G's results have been impressive... through Connect and Develop and other innovation initiatives, P&G has seen double digit sales growth, grew their margins to over 50% and accelerated the new product pipeline while taking their R&D spending from 4.8% to 3.2% of sales during the same period.

I'll certainly read the book and let you know what I think.  Hope you'll do the same.

Collective Innovation by Design (Firms)

Great article in last week's Business Week online.  The article "Building Expertise Through Collective Innovation" focused on a recent design conference/event in Rotterdam called the Raymond conference.  The theme was open innovation and it brought together leading designers from firms and corporations.  Rather than the traditional talking head event, they structured teams and activities among the invitation-only attendees to invent new solutions and new ways of working.

I'm continually impressed by how broadly and completely the open innovation movement is being adopted across industries, functions and regions.  Leave it to the designers to come up with a creative twist on open innovation and its applications.

Eureka!? Or Not?!

Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work. So goes the title of this New York Times article discussing the reality of innovation.

We want to believe, writer Janet Rae-Dupree says, “that creativity and innovation come in flashes of pure brilliance, with great thunderclaps and echoing ahas. Innovators and other creative types, we believe, stand apart from the crowd, wielding secrets and magical talents beyond the rest of us.”

The truth, she says? It’s not about creativity and it’s not about innovation (not sure I agree with that). It’s slow, it’s painstaking, it’s a process. “Just as an oyster wraps layer upon layer of nacre atop an offending piece of sand, ultimately yielding a pearl, innovation percolates within hard work over time.”

A 2007 book entitled The Myths of Innovation prompted this article. Author Scott Berkun, quoted in the NYT article, puts it this way: “To focus on the magic moments is to miss the point. The goal isn’t the magic moment: it’s the end result of a useful innovation.”

Everybody talks about those “aha moments.” And certainly, they exist. Sometimes, in a flash, we do come up with an implementable and relevant idea or innovation. After the moment or the flash of the great thought, though, comes the real work, logistics, trying, falling flat on your face, thinking some more and trying again.

After the moment of flash comes, in a word, the reality of innovation.

Author Berkun goes so far to say that epiphany = myth.  Yes, epiphanies happen. All the time. But they won’t ever take the place of innovation, a very real and sometimes complicated process.

When it comes to ideas, be open or lose out (part 2 of 2)

In my last post, I discussed a well-written, no-nonsense article by Max McKeown in which he discusses fear and other reasons why some organizations still hesitate to go beyond their walls for new ideas and approaches.

Fear of venturing outside your walls, resistance to new (and seemingly radical) ways of developing and commercializing ideas – these are all reasons that good ideas are often, sadly, “shelved if they aren't a direct fit to existing product plans and roadmaps.”

What’s more, in what I see as a harsh but, again, fairly accurate assessment of the ongoing slow pace at which corporations venture out of the proverbial box,: “Corporate deadlines are demanding enough without volunteering to take risks on orphan ideas.” Why take on a rogue idea or approach when it’s easier to do what’s safe and stick with the same-old-way of operating?

Some companies do a great job of seeking out ideas and idea people, of integrating their unique ways of doing and thinking into an existing environment, all the while benefiting from the differences in culture and approach. At the very least, McKeown  writes, the ones who are the most fearful of new ideas need to “be open to those ideas when they come to your attention.”

Case in point:
In 1944, a small and “obscure” producer of photographic paper, Haloid, took on an idea that had previously been rejected by the likes of General Electric, IBM and RCA. Haloid renamed this new idea "xerography." Long story short, Haloid’s photocopier took on the name Xerox and two years later, the company's revenues were $60 million.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Be open to ideas. Be open to new ways of developing those ideas. Just be open.

When it comes to ideas, be open or lose out (part 1 of 2)

This is a straight-forward “plain English” article explaining why the best and brightest never, ever rely only on their own ideas. Call it open innovation, call it delegation, call it foresight, call it whatever you want – just be sure to not only understand it, but to implement it as well.

“If you are even remotely creative,” starts author Max McKeown, “you'll never use all your own ideas. And even if you are very creative you will never create all the ideas that you need.”

That’s a pretty simple but accurate explanation of all of the reasons why open innovation works and why it needs to be a key component of any organization’s overall plan.

“Ideas cannot stand alone…,” the article continues. “…any serious [or semi-serious] attempt to improve, innovate, or invent – from a back-of-the-napkin session in a restaurant to a multibillion dollar research and development lab – will produce too many good ideas to use and not enough good ideas to meet all your objectives.”

So it’s about more than just ideas, it’s about turning those ideas into something real. And it’s about more than just turning those ideas into something real. They need to be something real that works within your objectives, your corporate culture, your mission and vision.

His assessment of the more “old-school” research approach is direct but mostly right-on: “Traditional corporate researchers tend to invent and discover for themselves and hope vaguely, if they think of it at all, that their ideas will be developed and commercialised. Meanwhile, traditional corporate development likes to have ideas ready for prime time – and to favour incremental improvement of existing ideas over radical anything in particular.”

In my next post, I will talk more about this article and a case-in-point study of how Xerox machines came to be.

What does the "greening" of Walmart mean for the innovation pipeline? (Part 2 of 2)

There's no question that the trend toward green initiatives has already entrenched itself into many aspects of business and into the realm of open innovation and the innovation pipeline in particular.

Take GreenOrder, a consulting firm that specializes in teaching Fortune 500 clients how going green leads to more green, more prospects and membership into the new (and soon to be only) way of doing business and seeing business. In this CNN/Money article, one of the firm's principals is quoted saying that there will never again be a building built in New York City that is not a green building.

So back to the original question of what does the greening of retail, of consulting, of the Fortune 500 world -- of all business, really -- mean for open innovation and the innovation pipeline?

What we're seeing is companies that can't get by simply by "talking the talk" -- walking the walk is the norm, not the exception. So, perhaps more than ever, bigger corporations will be forced to cultivate the lands outside their buildings (green or not) and develop real relationships with those smaller companies, entrepreneurs and idea people who can effectively bring in the green piece of the pie in a way that works on a number of levels, culturally, economically, socially and otherwise.

The trend of innovating in very real, workable and highly profitable way that is closely intertwined with green initiatives is not new, nor is a flash in the pan. This is just the beginning -- first WalMart, then the world.

The Innovation Experts Panel

Wanted to let you all know about InnovationTools.com, a great website and resource that fits well with many of the themes I cover in this blog.

Chuck Frey, my colleague who runs this site, tells me that The Innovation Experts Panel he recently formed with Hitendra Patel of Monitor Group is taking off. (Learn more about the panel here.) 

This panel of experts and practitioners is tackling its first issue: innovation itself. Questions like: How do you define innovation and how can you make it understandable and saleable to your organization’s senior management team were asked and results were recently published here.

I recommend taking the time to read this report – the panel did a great job of taking the definition or theory of innovation and applying it to the every-day life of a business or a team.

To be notified of future reports (about every other week), click here.

And stay tuned for the panel's next question: How do you source and manage ideas to come up with the best innovation opportunities for your company?

Feel free to send any answers, input or feedback to me or to Chuck.