Open Innovation = “Never Invented Here”?

An article in The Economist (Oct 13th-19th, 2007 p.16-19) titled “The love-in: The move toward open innovation is beginning to transform entire industries” This article discusses the interesting dynamics of open innovation and how some industries embrace it, while others simply do not.
Henry Chesbrough, wrote “Open Innovation” and “Open Business Models” and is largely credited with popularizing the concept of open innovation. He is a professor at UC Berkeley, and the article states that he “observes with a smile that ‘this is the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love’.” Berkeley, “at the very heart of the anti-establishment movement of the 1960s”…spawning “plently of radical thinkers”, seems a natural birthplace for concepts and ideas in relation to innovation.

Open innovation results in organizations sharing and gleaning ideas with individuals and organizations outside their own. Bright ideas are openly shared and used resulting in more agile corporate development. Fast failure and getting products to market more quickly, reduced internal R&D expeditures are potential benefits. Losing the proprietary technology necessary to mantaining a competitive edge is a possible downside.

Here are some surprising stats:

All in all it is a pretty interesting article and makes compelling arguements both for, and against, open innovation. You can read it here.

And the picture of the stethoscope at the top of the page is from Bang & Olufsen. I just like their design process. They collaborate with students and universities a lot. Smooth design.

Strategy for Strategy

Consulting consultants.  Strategy for strategy.  An extra layer for complexity for my project.  Certainly, I have increadible resources at my fingertips.  Guidance and windom at my disposal (I hope).  In a lecture today we learned of the sociological thoughts on networks and networking, in contrast to the economic perspective we are comonly exposed to.  Of course there was mention of Chesbrough’s theory on “open innovation” and how networks function in that context, however the sociological appoach was far more squishy and fluid.  The lecturer likened a network to a snapshot of a film.  In other words, it is everchanging.  Everytime a new connection is made via an existing connection, the power position changes as does the network’s structure as a whole.  (This, by the way, is all in realation to the startup phase of small high-tech firms.) It was interesting to hear a philosopher’s point of view on the subject and it is completely relevant to my consulting project.  I immediately got her card, put her in my network and hope to find an opportunity to seek her counsel.