Okay, let’s take a moment to review some futures concepts.
At LF2020 we’re avid subscribers to an open innovation future and the great possibilities it can have for us all. Like it’s precursors in open source code and crowd-sourcing tactics, open innovation isn’t a fad – it’s a sociological phenomenon, a signpost of the present, leading into the future. But what should we make of it? Well, anything we want. That’s the whole point, really.
The concept of open innovation was coined back in 2003 by Henry Chesbrough as a ‘paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology.’ The closed, internal idea-generating model of business is like a castle, where innovation is controlled and bounded by walls of secrecy and probably a moat for good measure.
This hoarding of ideas, and deliberate blindness to other options, hinges on the control of patents and profits. It’s about money, and it limits true progress. But open innovation shakes up this decidedly feudal state by throwing down the draw-bridge and inciting the public, the people, to help shape and expand our vision of the future.
If this all sounds new to you, then just sneak a peek at the iPhones app store and you’ll see open innovation in action. The thousands of externally developed applications all hitting the market through the iPhone portal are what Brad Stone, of the New York Times bits blog, cites as the ‘big reason why the iPhone continues to maintain its lead against up-and-comers like the Palm Pre.’ Open innovation is a powerful business tool, but it also means that the future is being shaped by popular opinion outside the bounds of business.
Other great examples are the BMW Customer Innovation Lab, where customers were given an online toolkit and encouraged to develop ideas to innovate car design, and the General Mills Worldwide Innovation Market, which sought out public innovation to create healthier food products. These endeavours certainly generate good publicity for the companies, but the up-shot of all this is that knowledge – that crucial commodity of the modern world – is being unshackled from the control of the feudal state and released back to the people.
Knowledge, and the power of change that it wields, now lies more so than ever before in the hands of the employees, the suppliers, customers, competitors and universities. And it all just makes good business sense. If institutions choose not to make use of this increasingly diverse pool of knowledge, then someone else will. Open innovation is a bold new strategy for progress, and fortunately it’s a popular and extremely viable one too, which can only bode well for us and our mutually shaped future.
But it still has a long way to go. For example, while Apple’s iPhone app store is a hallmark of this new vision, the R&D that led to its creation was exclusively in-house. How then can a company that claims not to believe in market research for its product development, generate such a positive influence on open innovation? What do you think of this disparity, and of its consequences? Are there other issues like this with open innovation?
More importantly, though, is this a forum for presenting a measured judgement on a complex issue, or for shouting about exciting new ideas from the rooftops and letting you decide? The very principles of open innovation would suggest the latter to be the case, and I’m inclined to agree. Tell us what you think.
It’s not yet complete, and it’s not foolproof, but a shifted focus to open innovation feels like a bold step closer to a more collaborative, cohesive, and co-created future. And that’s surely a step in the right direction.
Nick Pond
For more stay tuned to LF2020, and check out: http://www.openinnovators.net/list-open-innovation-crowdsourcing-examples/
