The expansive reach of collaborative technology can bring together expertise and expedite innovation. This was common underlying conclusion by many industry leaders that presented at “Achieving Innovation through Collaboration” symposium. This symposium was hosted by the Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology at the W. P. Carey School of Business.
One of the interesting company that was profiled at the symposium was Phoenix Arizona, U.S., based Bulbstorm.com (Read the article at Knowledge @ W.P. Carey). Bulbstorm.com, enables its clients to air their ideas and get feedback not only from other inventors, but also from marketers, designers and even manufacturers. This helps accelerate the innovation process according to Bart Steiner CEO of Bulbstorm.com. Steiner points to a study “How Communities Support Innovative Activities,” conducted by the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and the MIT Sloan School of Management, showed that 37 percent of people in the U.S. report having conceived an innovation, and 9 percent of these report building product prototypes or even marketable products. Thus Bulbstorm.com business model is to aid “regular people to innovate”.
Also, check out the video on the insights by the presenters on the impact of collaborative opportunities on their companies.
Innovation has always been a proprietary activity conducted largely inside the organization in a series of closely managed steps. Ideas, product design were closely held secrets because innovative and radical design has always provided competitive advantage to the company. The firms by patenting the design/ideas usually created a high barrier for competitors to emulate their strategy. Now, Executives in a number of companies are considering the next step in this trend toward more open innovation. This is according to the McKinsey article “The Next Step in Open Innovation”. The article also states that companies also hopeful in getting their customers into the act of co-creating and co-innovating. If a company could use technology to link these outsiders into its development projects (think social media, Web 2.0 technologies), they may come up with better ideas faster. Its one way to manage talent right?
This collaboration strategy towards innovation sounds good but in reality it has limitations. Do customers know what the next radical solution is going to be? Henry Ford once famously quipped “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse”. Do you think open innovation using collaboration technology would have enabled Ford or any other car company to build and develop an automobile? If Steve Jobs asked the customers for a radical game changing phone, the customers would have still come up with phones with buttons (Who would have imagined that you could have a phone with no buttons to press). It’s very difficult for the customers to envision a solution. Remember they also need to know the constraints that exist around technology and environment to design and innovate a product.
I am not arguing that open innovation is a good idea. But it has its limitations. If the product needs to be improved, made more user friendly then customers have better insight on what they want. They will definitely help in design improvement of the product. That’s where co-creation and open innovation can be exploited. But if it’s a radical new product, customers will be of little help. Many researches, tests and surveys point to the fact that non-experts or ‘crowd’ in general fail to think radically different. To think ‘outside of the box’ we need experts. Bottom line is if the idea is evolutionary, then crowd sourcing is just fine. If the idea is revolutionary then expert sourcing is a must.
Open Innovation – Is it really the next step?
August 22, 2008 by Raj Sheelvant
Innovation has always been a proprietary activity conducted largely inside the organization in a series of closely managed steps. Ideas, product design were closely held secrets because innovative and radical design has always provided competitive advantage to the company. The firms by patenting the design/ideas usually created a high barrier for competitors to emulate their strategy. Now, Executives in a number of companies are considering the next step in this trend toward more open innovation. This is according to the McKinsey article “The Next Step in Open Innovation”. The article also states that companies also hopeful in getting their customers into the act of co-creating and co-innovating. If a company could use technology to link these outsiders into its development projects (think social media, Web 2.0 technologies), they may come up with better ideas faster. Its one way to manage talent right?This collaboration strategy towards innovation sounds good but in reality it has limitations. Do customers know what the next radical solution is going to be? Henry Ford once famously quipped “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse”. Do you think open innovation using collaboration technology would have enabled Ford or any other car company to build and develop an automobile? If Steve Jobs asked the customers for a radical game changing phone, the customers would have still come up with phones with buttons (Who would have imagined that you could have a phone with no buttons to press). It’s very difficult for the customers to envision a solution. Remember they also need to know the constraints that exist around technology and environment to design and innovate a product.
I am not arguing that open innovation is a good idea. But it has its limitations. If the product needs to be improved, made more user friendly then customers have better insight on what they want. They will definitely help in design improvement of the product. That’s where co-creation and open innovation can be exploited. But if it’s a radical new product, customers will be of little help. Many researches, tests and surveys point to the fact that non-experts or ‘crowd’ in general fail to think radically different. To think ‘outside of the box’ we need experts. Bottom line is if the idea is evolutionary, then crowd sourcing is just fine. If the idea is revolutionary then expert sourcing is a must.
