Open Innovation

A Profile of Open Innovation Managers in Multinational Companies

Open innovation is widely used in large companies and we know increasingly more about how to manage this process. In contrast, we know virtually nothing about the managers and practitioners who are driving open innovation in large companies. Who are the managers operating in open innovation teams or units? What is their profile? How long do they stay in an open innovation job, and what is their tenure in the company? This report tries to answer these questions based on an investigation of open innovation managers on LinkedIn.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:24:23-07:00March 9th, 2017|Categories: Open Innovation, Report|Tags: case study, download, enterprise innovation, Henry Chesbrough, in-depth article, linkedin, manager, MNC, report, research, talent management|

10 Skills You Need to Nurture in Your Innovation Group

Organizational innovation requires discipline. And like any other discipline, it requires monitoring and training to make sure that you’re on the cutting edge of your capabilities. But what skills should you focus on building and how can you track your progress?

Rob Hoehn2021-12-14T06:36:20-08:00February 13th, 2017|Categories: Leadership, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: accountability, Collaboration, Employee Engagement, goals, implementation, Innovation Culture, innovation fitness, innovation skills, innovation team, leadership, Open Innovation, reporting, skills management, trend|

Collaborative Innovation – Hamburger Style

Often I read articles or books about top-down vs. bottom-up innovation and why one approach would be better than the other. After spending more than five years in the collaborative innovation space, I would advise going hamburger style!

Ideascale2021-12-14T06:34:14-08:00February 7th, 2017|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management, Open Innovation|Tags: bottom-up, bottom-up innovation, campaign team, collaborative innovation, Communication, Creativity, crowdvoting, executive sponsor, Ideation, ideation contests, innovation champions, Innovation Strategy, question, suggestion box, synergy, top-down, top-down innovation, workshop|

What Do Innovators Look Like?

Crowdsourced innovation is a tactic used more and more often by government organizations as well as enterprise corporations. This means that innovation teams need to add a new skill set to their resumé: communications.

Rob Hoehn2021-12-14T06:29:23-08:00January 23rd, 2017|Categories: Enabling Factors, Open Innovation|Tags: Collaboration, Communication, consumer demographics, Crowdsourcing, demographics, diversity, gender, IdeaScale, innovation champion, innovation skills, innovation team, marketing, personality types, research, skills, target audience, team building, team diversity, Technology, USA|

Picking the Right Stakeholders for Open Innovation

What external stakeholder groups can you tap into to build value for your innovation initiatives? Are your relationships with these external stakeholder groups solid or do you need to do additional work to build good, mutually beneficial working relationships? Are there potential stakeholder groups that you have not yet tapped at all? If so, what is your plan for reaching out to organizations within these pools so that you can further expand your innovation ecosystem? Are your channels for communicating with your external stakeholders strong or do they need further work?

Ideascale2021-12-14T06:27:35-08:00January 19th, 2017|Categories: Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Competition, ecosystem, enterprise innovation, external collaboration, innovation partnership, MNC, Open Innovation, partnership, relationships, SME, stakeholder management, Stakeholders, strategic partnership|

A Quick Guide to External Collaboration

Working with external partners to bring better products and services to market faster and/or develop better intellectual property has never been more popular in the world of business than what we see today.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:16:52-08:00January 6th, 2017|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Leadership, Open Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, collaborative innovation, Communication, definitions, ecosystem, executive sponsor, HR, mindset, Stakeholders, strategic partnership, supplier enabled innovation|

The Four Essential Steps Towards Open Innovation Success

Although ‘open innovation’ is the talk of the town in R&D circles, leveraging external sources of innovation remains challenging for most companies. In 2013, researchers Dr. Joel West (Keck Graduate, Institute of Applied Life Sciences) and Dr. Marcel Bogers (University of Southern Denmark) suggested a four-phase model for inbound innovation projects. They emphasized that open innovation needs to go further than just obtaining external ideas. Integration, commercialization and the interaction between the firm and its collaborators are just as important. This post explores the four essential steps towards open innovation success.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:16:39-08:00January 2nd, 2017|Categories: Enabling Factors, Open Innovation|Tags: co-creation, Henry Chesbrough, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, R&D, strategic partnership|

Is Open Government the Same as Open Innovation?

For many years, companies were convinced of the competitive advantage of closed research and development. They jealously protected their intellectual property behind closed doors and dramatically revealed it to the public after years of development. This old model has since been replaced by open innovation.

Rob Hoehn2021-12-07T16:14:24-08:00December 5th, 2016|Categories: Column & Opinion, Enabling Factors, Open Innovation|Tags: challenge driven innovation, clean energy, Crowdsourcing, energy, Henry Chesbrough, IdeaScale, innovation policy, open government, Open Innovation, public policy, public sector, public sector innovation, R&D, solar energy, sunshot, transparency, USA|

Three Types of Networkers and the Roadblocks for Corporate Networking

As you determine how to build a networking culture within your organization, it’s important to understand how networking actually works. One of the most knowledgeable people on organizational networking and—how this supports innovation—is Rob Cross, a professor in the management department of University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:06:51-08:00November 9th, 2016|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, corporate networking, Employee Engagement, enterprise innovation, expertise, innovation networks, innovation team, networking, personality types, roadblocks, social networking, soft skills|

Building an Innovative Nonprofit: the Value of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is often associated with start-ups and blue-chip companies who are trying to innovate, but it has the potential to reach far beyond those with seed money and infinite endowments. The beauty of crowdsourcing is that it is rooted in grassroots fundamentals—an environment that is ideal for non-profit businesses.

Rob Hoehn2021-12-07T16:04:04-08:00October 17th, 2016|Categories: Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: Collaboration, crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing, crowdvoting, Employee Engagement, engagement, micro tasking, nonprofit, nonprofit innovation, social business, strengths and weaknesses|

Defeating the Corporate Antibodies

Change is frightening to many elements inside the typical organization. Change threatens people’s power, their status, their egos, and, in some situations, even their jobs. Change can make someone’s expertise obsolete and thereby make them obsolete as well. Because people are afraid of change, innovation efforts often cause the eruption of corporate antibodies that fight to kill innovation and maintain the status quo.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:04:10-08:00October 13th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Open Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Change Management, Communication, company culture, corporate antibodies, corporate politics, innovation blockers, Innovation Culture, status quo bias|

Metrics and Measurements for Open Innovation and Ecosystems

Given the difficulties in developing and working with metrics and measures for open innovation and ecosystems, I have pulled together some inspiration and insights from several articles.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:03:50-08:00September 29th, 2016|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: analytics, branding, collaborative innovation, Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, ecosystem, ecosystem happiness, innovation metrics, innovation networks, innovation success, innovation value, leadership, measure innovation, metrics, Open Innovation, organizational capability, ROI, scorecard, sustainable growth|

The Next Level of Open Innovation: Is Your Organization Ready?

Getting started with open innovation and developing the right foundation for open innovation has been a key challenge at many companies in the last three to five years. Now, internal as well as external forces are moving these companies towards the next level of open innovation in which we go beyond just products and technology and start to explore how a more open and collaborative mindset can be applied to all more business units and functions. Think procurement and engineering as examples.

Ideascale2021-12-07T16:01:07-08:00September 13th, 2016|Categories: Open Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Change Management, culture change, executive sponsor, industry innovation, Innovation Management, Innovation Strategy, innovation training, leadership, Open Innovation, Product Development, transparency|

From Bankruptcy to Industry Leading Success – The LEGO Story

LEGO has earned the right to celebrate. Not only are kids playing with more mini LEGO people than there are human beings on the planet (Delingpole J, 2009) but in 2015, they were nominated by Forbes as the most powerful brand in the world. For a company which was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2004, the toy maker has made an amazing turnaround. They restructured, hired a new CEO, and forged more licensing partnerships than ever before. Most importantly, they discovered the secret to some of the world’s most successful, low risk innovation strategies.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:57:54-08:00July 11th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: case study, Crowdsourcing, enterprise innovation, innovation success, LEGO, software|

Why Crowdsourcing is Critical to the Future of Education

Educational institutions have the reputation of being slow-moving behemoths, but this label is undeserved. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the educational sector worldwide is more innovative than it gets credit for.

Rob Hoehn2019-10-15T15:22:06-07:00May 16th, 2016|Categories: Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: academic innovation, Collaboration, community, Crowdsourcing, data, education, engagement, gamification, IdeaScale, industry innovation, online education|