Comments on: Opening communication for open innovation: Should you share your strategy?

By: Inject knowledge to address Open Innovation in SMEs (Intuinovare)

Inject knowledge to address Open Innovation in SMEs (Intuinovare) — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:17:11 +0000

[...] ” Both of these companies have decided that working with external communities is an important part of getting where they want to be. And they’ve learned those same external communities can do a lot more to help them, and help them efficiently, if they communicate what they really want.” -PARC [...]

By: Smart technology scouting – Part 1 - PARC blog

Smart technology scouting – Part 1 - PARC blog — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:40:35 +0000

[...] The best opportunities are created when internal and external parties are willing to have candid discussions about what they are trying to accomplish and what each believes they can contribute. This degree of openness does not come easily for many companies, but I believe it’s an essential factor when dealing in emerging technologies. [See my earlier post on "Opening communication for open innovation: Should you share your strategy?"] [...]

By: Jaycee

Jaycee — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:52:58 +0000

I totally agree with you that open communication is very important to create open innovation. I feel that ideas become more important when it combines with other thoughts. Nice post; I like it.

By: Bijjou

Bijjou — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:41:58 +0000

I think an employee must recognize that he has to personally benefit if he share his Idea. The sharing of Ideas should be considered for rating his job performance. A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, lets his scientists and engineers present how they share their Ideas in the “Innovation Review”. People get the same recognition, and don’t care if they share their ideas or pick up Ideas. For the company, the value of a customer must be what he does with knowledge whenever, and not what he knows.

By: Jennifer Ernst

Jennifer Ernst — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:29:14 +0000

We have definitely seen this as a trend across industries. Consumer product organizations seem to be more public about their programs, and I suspect there are a couple reasons. First, their source of differentiation is in manufacturing, distribution, and brand power — essentially, scale and consumer reach. So I suspect it’s easier to conceive introducing new products that someone else has worked on, and much of what they do is take existing products and re-brand them (resonates with the Swiffer product story).

For the type of companies PARC works with, they tend build more on the supplier/customer ecosystem because of the product complexities. The ability to have strong cross-company collaborations is crucial, because so much integration has to be done — implying a less public face to their initial programs.

We’ve seen Open Innovation offices being set up in all sorts of companies, though, around the globe. Much is going to be happening in this space in the coming years. It’s really in its infancy.

By: Stefan Lindegaard

Stefan Lindegaard — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:09:37 +0000

Hi Jennifer,

Nice post and good follow-up comments. I agree on your points with regards to setting up filters.

I have noticed that it is mostly consumer products companies setting up initiatives that you describe. Do you see similar initiatives among B2B companies in the PARC network?

Stefan

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Opening communication for open innovation: Should you share your strategy? - PARC blog [parc.com] on Topsy.com

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:36:35 +0000

[...] Opening communication for open innovation: Should you share your strategy? – PARC blog blogs.parc.com/blog/2009/08/opening-communication-for-open-innovation-should-you-share-your-strategy – view page – cached PARC — the Palo Alto Research Center — is a premier source of innovation and scientific research for technology companies. Previously Xerox PARC. — From the page [...]

By: Jennifer Ernst

Jennifer Ernst — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:28:34 +0000

Just saw some tweets about the reward structures for opening up communication, and thought I'd share some thoughts. For programs like those at P&G and Merck, it's largely about increasing efficiency. Having declared themselves open to external innovation (and in P&G's case, very aggressively promoted it), they get an enormous number of submissions. This creates a dilemma. If a company courts external partners, but ignores most of them, they get a bad rap. If they respond to all of them, they create a very high burden on the scouting team. By declaring "we want to hear about this, and not this," innovation sources can self-filter. And those that choose not to can be more politely ignored. For inventors submitting their ideas, of course, there are different reward structure issues. Prize-based mechanisms have gained popularity. The approaches provide two paths: (1) "Send us ideas without compensation" which is really meant to encourage dialogue with their customers. You know... the times we say "I just wish someone would make X." Reward is, maybe, someone will actually make it and make my life easier. (2) For inventors who have patented inventions and are seeking a market outlet. This works more like a magnet. One person mentioned his metric for success is getting to see a good idea before the company does. PARC's approach to this has been creating and incubating concepts with market-savvy entrepreneurs. (See our SolFocus case study example or how to work with us for such engagements.)

By: Terri Griffith

Terri Griffith — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:56:03 +0000

Jennifer,

Great post (saw the link on Twitter). I had a related conversation with someone from EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) yesterday as they think about how to support innovation. Looking forward to sending my Technology & Innovation Management students here.