What Does It Take To Lead In Open Innovation

We've mentioned the benefits of open innovation on this blog before. We're fans of it if used correctly, which isn't all that easy sometimes. When established organizations attempt to innovate, they usually go down the tried and true path of structured, bureaucratic, top down innovation, from brainstorming to launch.

This is, as we know, not always effective in producing truly innovative results. Pure innovation is often the purview of entrepreneurial firms with no structure of which to speak and a rough and tumble environment. Out of this very model has come though, a prototype for effective leadership in an open innovation system

...open innovation communities provide an opportunity to develop theories of human and social capital in a novel context that lacks pecuniary incentives, hierarchical authority, and formal structure.

A post, Leadership in Open Innovation Communities, builds upon that opportunity and discusses several types of leaders that are present in open innovation communities and takes a stab at which is more effective.

Leadership in such communities depends more on the trust and mobilization of peers than on approval of superiors. To wit, members cannot be fired or forced to participate in any activity, nor can they be compelled to pay attention to any other member. Ascendancy in such relationships relies purely, to borrow a phrase from politics, on "the power to persuade"

The post goes on to discuss "brokers", calculating and politically-savvy operators those most likely to have made it to the top of traditional organizations. And "boundary-spanners" defined as well respected guardians who redirect crucial information both within and outside the firm. Each of these leadership styles has its merits, but boundary-spanners tend to be more respected in an open innovation environment.

This is, of course, obvious. In an open innovation situation, where leadership is determined by the group rather than by upper level management, participants will be most likely to look to the one who garners the most respect AND has the ability to lead.

Unfortunately, far too often, those with a repository of knowledge are not in leadership positions in a corporation, which means for open innovation to truly work, the management structure needs to be broken down. Participants need to disregard title and seek knowledge and innovative thinking, which may be why creative product development groups in corporations tend to be people with young employees not yet as aware of the hidden power structure within the corporation.

Is it possible to change this paradigm? Can we create open innovation working groups in large corporations by assigning group members from various functions and expect them to ignore position and title?

Well. Yes. Maybe. The make-up of the team, in terms of personality and ability to lead or follow plays perhaps a bigger role than in traditional work terms where expertise is valued. In some ways a Machiavellian approach to putting together a team of personalities seems to be in order. Careful consideration of how team members will interact and who might emerge as a leader seems appropriate.

Does this follow true to the spirit of open innovation? I don't know, but it's one avenue for large, established corporations to follow.

User-Generated Innovation - Nokia does it You Can Too!

Many people think of innovation as occurring when one genius, alone with his or her thoughts, suddenly leaps into the air with an, "A Ha!" and heads down the path to success. Most of those of us involved with innovation know that this is rarely the case.

In truth, innovation, as we mention in our book, happens in lots of different ways. Though coming up with a unique idea in that "light bulb" moment is the romanticized idea held of innovation, in fact, most good ideas and many of the great ones, result from obtaining input from a variety of different sources, including consumers.

Soliciting and then acting upon user input can not only produce new ideas it can make good ideas great ones. At Nokia, an experiment with opening up a new application, Sports Tracker, for user input turned into a whole new way of streamlining the product development process for the Finnish cell phone maker.

Sports Tracker, designed to benefit runners and cyclist, allowing them to use Nokia phones' GPS capability to capture workout data was downloaded by over one million users when a beta version was posted on Nokia's web site. What surprised Nokia and led to a new way of thinking about the innovation process was the sheer variety of people who downloaded the software - from paragliders to balloonists - and how they used it. Users, it turned out found hundreds of different uses for the software, uses well beyond those the developers had considered.

As a result, Nokia developers are realizing that aiming the application at amateur athletes was too narrow. They are thinking of rebranding the application as a kind of life-tracker.

Since Nokia launched their Beta Labs site, where Sports Tracker was featured as the first application, Tom Vilkarmo, manager of Nokia Beta Labs has a happy problem - managing all of the feedback generated by the over 1 million page views the site garners each month.

But, to Vlkarmo, his managing all of that feedback adds one more step to the process of getting consumer feedback to the software developers. Though he currently blogs about Nokia's new products,

Vilkamo's plan is to turn blogging responsibility over to software developers, so they have direct contact with customers. "Before, there were too many middlemen between developers and users," he says.

This is just one example of a company harnessing the power of the internet to create community, drive innovation and provide direct support to those responsible for innovation. While it's not uncommon for software companies to solicit key users or developers for beta testing, Nokia's strategy of encouraging anyone with an interest in the product, which, incidentally tends to be heavy users, led to more creative thinking, created a community of users and is currently breeding even more new product ideas.

An inventor sitting alone in a room or even discussing new ideas with like-minded colleagues is at a disadvantage when a whole world of ideas is just a mouse click away. Rather than worrying about theft of a good idea, true innovators should worry more about missing the great idea that soliciting user input can reveal.