And then there was One And then there was one. From a competitive standpoint, this phrase conjures up images of one champion left among the many fallen. One champion bold enough, strong enough, and resilient enough to outlast everyone else. The immortal words of Hall of Fame Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi come to mind: “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour — his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear — is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” However, in a networked age, is this mindset still relevant, or does the phrase “And then there was one” take on a completely different connotation? Humans across the globe continue to assemble into one giant interconnected network, a network of one. It’s imperative to recognize that this didn’t just happen with the creation and growth of facebook, or my space, friendster, or geocities before that. In addition, this rapidly assembling network isn’t just humans.
- StumbleUpon Crowdsourcing is not just for new entrants challenging established players; the latter can also leverage crowdsourcing to their advantage, enabling users to design new products and testing the demand at the same time. And for the younger generation, this is simply a normal way of doing things. That’s the key lesson I learned this morning as I heard my youngest son explain the genesis of his Lego Minecraft set. Agility Lego is not exactly a start-up. Transparency The rules of the game are simple: any user can submit a product design, which other users will be able to vote for. Efficiency Meanwhile, Lego enjoys unprecedented benefits from this crowdsourced product development process: 1. 2. Back to the Future What I found most striking as I listened to my 10-year old story of how Lego Minecraft came to be, is how natural it all feels to him. image credit: pcgamer Wait! Choose how you want the latest innovation content delivered to you:
Top 5 Countries for Open Innovation – Nov 2012 I have the privilege to travel the world in order to meet with corporate innovation teams and work with them on their issues. This gives me a pretty good understanding on what is happening with open innovation globally so here comes a list of countries that in my view do well. 1. United States. No surprise here. 2. 3. Germany also seems to be the place in Europe (together with the Netherlands) with the most relevant conferences and events although several of those are in German language only. I did not have much trouble naming the U.S., the Netherlands and Germany for the top three spots. 4. 5. One big disappointment is the Nordic region and in particular Denmark (with the exception of LEGO). Back to the number 5 spot… Should your country be on the list? inShare38
Open Innovation | Innovation We want to create a better future – for consumers, for the environment, and for our business. To achieve that vision, we need to innovate – to improve existing products and create new ones. We have world-class research and development facilities, making breakthroughs that keep Unilever at the forefront of product development. We call this way of working Open Innovation. Small actions, big difference By working with us, you could help change the world – even if it is a little at a time. We’re looking for help in achieving our most important ambition. We want good technological ideas to become reality quickly – whoever thought of them first. Often we will have specific challenges we'd welcome your collaboration on: a new formula, a new technique, new packaging or a fresh design solution to a product we already have in mind. The formal submission process requires you to complete a ‘Submitter Information Form’ and provide a certain amount of non-confidential information about your submission.
If You Were the Next Steve Jobs... - Umair Haque …what problems would you try to solve? Let me answer that by telling you a story. Every writer will tell you: first, find a good café. After a few days, James, the barista, noticed that I’d come in, order a flat white, write like a man possessed for an hour or so — but never finish my coffee. Now, this might sound entirely trivial. Imagine, for a moment, that you (yes, you) were the next Steve Jobs: what would your (real) challenges be? Whether you’re an assiduous manager, a chin-stroking economist, a superstar footballer, or a rumpled artist, here’s the unshakeable fact: you don’t get to tomorrow by solving yesterday’s problems. To solve today’s set of burning problems, you just might have to build new institutions, capable of handling stuff a little something like this… Singularity. Consider: Starbucks will make your coffee to their specifications (extra-hot triple venti soy latte with caramel!). Sociality. Spontaneity. Synchronicity. Solubility. So let me put it this way. NB.
Academic representations of crowdsourcing, co-creation and open innovation As part of my work as a PhD student, I read lots of papers about open innovation and/or participative marketing. These papers are highly interesting but, I must admit, sometimes a little repelling with huge chunks of texts, references and citations. Visualizations of the described phenomena are greatly helpful to understand some of this information… I thought it would be interesting to gather a couple of visualizations of my research interests: crowdsourcing, co-creation and open innovation in a blog post ! This is not only quite entertaining, but might help people out there find new sources. Here we go… Crowdsourcing has first been defined as “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call” (Howe, 2006). Whitla, P. (2009). Schenk, E., & Guittard, C. (2010). The above visulization is drawn from a paper I recently discovered. Lampel, J., Jha, P.
40 Examples of Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing We can call it open innovation, crowdsourcing or co-creation – or something else. In short, it is about bringing external input to an innovation process and this is no longer a buzzword. Companies are learning that they must embrace this paradigm shift of innovation in order to keep up with the competition and those that are lagging behind, well, they will find themselves to be in big trouble in the coming years. This list of corporate initiatives is worth looking into if you want to get an idea of what is happening with the open innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation today. NOTE: The process of bringing external input into an innovation process requires lots of work that is often not visible to the public. Audi Production Award In this competition, Audi asks questions such as: How will people work in production? Akzo Nobel Open Space BASF Future Business An entry site for getting in touch with BASF with regards to joint innovation efforts. Beiersdorf Pearlfinder Clorox Connects Lego Cuusoo
Turning Customer Intelligence into Innovation - Scott Anthony by Scott Anthony | 9:00 AM August 20, 2012 It’s a paradox of the information age. The glut of information that bombards us daily too frequently obscures true insight. Thoughtful companies intertwine customer intelligence throughout the three phases that characterize most successful innovations. While companies are increasingly using detailed analytics to fine-tune pricing, packaging, and product performance, analytics have their limits when it comes to finding the next big idea. Procter & Gamble is famous for its deep commitment to these kinds of anthropological approaches. Insight in hand, innovators next blueprint a solution to address the identified problem. There are substantial opportunities to generate real-time intelligence by involving customers in the blueprinting process. The final stage in the process is to iteratively test an idea by executing smart experiments to test key assumptions. There are a number of ways to generate this kind of real-world input.