Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Berkeley-Fraunhofer Study on Open Innovation

Our collegues of Fraunhofer IAO and University of Berkeley (Henry Chesbrough and sabine Brunswicker) have surveyed large firms in the US and in Europe about whether or not they actually practice open innovation. The results are very interesting. Here are some key findings:          

• Among companies with sales larger than $250 million annually, 78% practice open innovation
• Among those companies, 71% report that top management support for these activities are growing
• 82% of firms report that open innovation is more actively practiced now, compared to three years ago
• None of the companies in the survey have abandoned open innovation as of now.

For the full report as well as many additonal details please visit the official website at Fraunhofer IAO.

#OUI2013 Conference Summary in One Picture

The OUI 2013 conference just started at the University of Brighton. Many of the core people from the community will be presenting their research here during the next three day.

While Joel West probably will cover the event much better than I do, here the entire conference in three graphs, as presented ny host Steve Flowers in the opening talk:

- Top and minor themes in the papers.

- Tags pro-duced from the titles

- The sociale network of topics

[OIA Market Study 2013] Who Participates in Open Innovation: A Solver and Community Perspective on the Market for Open Innovation

In a series of postings, we introduce some key figures and results from our 2013 OIA Study – A Market Report & Comparison of more than 160 Open Innovation Accelerators (OIAs) -- intermediaries, brokers, platforms, and consultancies for open innovation and customer co-creation.

OIAs build on the involvement of a community. OIAs connect clients through their communities with a variety of external actors, most of them are new and unknown to the client (this "looking out of the box" is exactly the value of open innovation).

OIA services differ significantly regarding their community composition. In average, we find that OIAs have an existing pool of participants (their "community") of 20,000 members. But OIAs specializing on ideation or technical contests often have community of more than 100,000 members.

The general level of expertise of the community significantly differs among the different services. OIAs offering technical search services in form of technology scouting, for example, have access to high level expert communities, while OIAs focusing on ideation and concept generation often have a broad, very heterogeneous community of "average" consumers.

From this pool, about 200 members finally join a particular project (in the case of contests, this number is 300). Again methodological aspects of the services influence the total participant number. Workshops have a natural limit for participants to be able to generate meaningful output. 

To join the pool of participants, prospective participants have to accept general terms and conditions, but in general do sign not a formal contract. This is a core difference of open innovation via OIAs compared to traditional forms of R&D networks or alliances.

Our study clearly shows that managers have to take large care when selecting an OIA.T the composition in terms of expertise and heterogeneity of the community offered by different OIAs is very heterogeneous and demands special attention – in the end, the task have to fit the community.

We find a general focus on applied sciences. Yet expertise background is influenced by project targets. Services like technical search involve individuals with expertise preferable in natural and applied sciences and less in social sciences or arts. On the contrary community members for contests, e.g., design contests, or market search are characterized by experience in the field of arts or social sciences. Similar to the characteristic by background of expertise is the characteristic by the level of expertise. Problem solving projects demand a higher expert level than projects focusing on consumer insights.

 THIS IS THE LAST POST OF SELECTED FINDINGS FROM THE OIA 2013 STUDY.
Find all earlier postings here.

For the full picture, refer to The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey, with many more details, authored by Kathleen Diener & Frank Piller, 2nd edition, May 2013. Lulu Publishing: Raleigh, USA

Check all options how to get the study at study.open-innovation.com

[OIA Market Study 2013] Who purchases Open Innovation services? Non-profits and public agencies are coming up

In a series of postings, we introduce some key figures and results from our 2013 OIA Study – A Market Report & Comparison  of more than 160 Open Innovation Accelerators (OIAs) -- intermediaries, brokers, platforms, and consultancies for open innovation and customer co-creation.

In our 2013 market study, we also investigated who is using the services offered by the OIAs. First, we find that clients are served globally, and at the same time, OIAs often have the opportunity to also search and call globally for participation. The U.S., however, still is clearly leading the OI field of applications.

  

Open innovation is not focused on special industries. We were surprised by the breadth of industries covered by the OIA's client lists. Especially the electronics industries are strong. Agriculture could benefit from a larger attention for OI.

However, within all industries, clients from SMEs are still the minority. OI still is a game of global organizations with a dedicated innovation management function.

Interestingly, we today find rather larger share of non-profit organizations among the clients of the OIAs. NGOs and clients from the public sector are strongly increasing. This may be the outcome of recent "Open government" trend.

 

For the full picture and many more details, including detailed profiles of 160 Open Innovation Service Providers, refer to The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey, co-authored by Kathleen Diener & Frank Piller, 2nd edition, May 2013. Lulu Publishing: Raleigh, USA

Check all options how to get the study at study.open-innovation.com

[OIA Market Study 2013] Ideation contests dominate the Market for Open Innovation

In a series of postings, we introduce some key figures and results from our 2013 OIA Study – A Market Report & Comparison  of more than 160 Open Innovation Accelerators (OIAs) -- intermediaries, brokers, platforms, and consultancies for open innovation and customer co-creation.

According to our research, service providers for open innovation (OIAs), can be structred along two fundamental principles: (1) The kind of information required and (2) the method to identify and initiate the collaboration with an external actor:

(1) The type of information searched by clients:

• Market information is information about customer and market needs, i.e. information about preferences, needs, desires, satisfaction, motives, and etc. of the customers and users of a new (potential) product or service offering.
• Technological information is information on (technological) solution possibilities, i.e. information about how to apply a technology to transform customer needs into new products and services best.

Our research revealed a significant difference between OIAs and the methods applied for projects searching for market/need information, compared to those searching for technological/solution information. Solving of specific technological problems favors different approaches than searching for need information. Also, both kinds demand very different kinds of participant communities and incentive schemes.

(2) How to initiate the coordination with external participants:

• An Open Call refers to a problem statement that is publicly announced, directed to a heterogeneous, and generally large, network of external actors. Potential solution providers ("solvers") decide via self-selection whether they want to participate in the process. The "seeker", i.e. the entity issuing the call, then selects the best submissions.
• Open Search refers to a broad search for information and sources, conducted by the OIA with neither too concrete pre-assumptions about information aspects nor source details. A core idea is to actively seek for potential external contributors using advanced sampling methods, engaging in pre-screening specific characteristics (e.g., "lead user" characteristics), using social networks or network analysis to identify central actors from different domains.
• In addition, our study revealed a third form of finding partners and initiating collaboration: a selective call. The selective call is a hybrid between call and search. OIAs applying this mechanism follow a two-step procedure. They pre-select a number of potential external actors who might hold the desired information and then call for participation within this sub-sample.

Combining these two general principles, we can distinguish between different methods for open innovation. We call those "OIA services", as these are the services and solutions offered by the OIA (look at this earlier post for a table):

• Contests: Generating contributions to a technical and/or market related task with the objective to identify the "best" submission in response to an open call.
• Workshops: Generating technical and/or market information by performing workshops.
• Open market search: Searching and observing defined areas for market information (e.g., Netnography in online forums).
• Technological search: Searching and observing defined areas for technical information (patents, technologies, user bases).

Among these categories, we find in our 2013 market study that the majority of OIAs focus on providing ideation contests or other contest for technical problem solving.

 

For the full picture and many more details, including detailed profiles of 160 Open Innovation Service Providers, refer to The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey, co-authored by Kathleen Diener & Frank Piller, 2nd edition, May 2013. Lulu Publishing: Raleigh, USA

Check all options how to get the study at study.open-innovation.com

[OIA Market Study 2013] Market for Open Innovation Services to Top $6bn in 2014

In a series of postings, we introduce some key figures and results from our 2013 OIA Study – A Market Report & Comparison  of more than 160 Open Innovation Accelerators (OIAs) -- intermediaries, brokers, platforms, and consultancies for open innovation and customer co-creation.

The market for open innovation is still growing. Almost monthly, new OIAs enter the market. They are attracted by the growing market size for OI services. A self-assessment by the OIAs participating in our study reveals an estimate of the recent market volume of €2.7 billion.

OIAs expect that this volume will double within the next two years (until 2015) to €5.5 billion.

 

When comparing our 2013 data with data from an earlier study in 2010, we find that about 20 percent of the 2010 OIAs do not exist any longer or have been acquired by other players. We expect an even stronger wave of acquisitions and mergers for the coming years.

At the same time, we realize that growing competition also means lower prices, especially when comparing reported project costs with our 2010 study.

This is especially true for ideation contests (idea contests for customer co-creation), where new web-service based offerings start to take substantial business from established full-service players.

The average price for an OI project for a client of an OIA is €43,000. But project costs differ widely, ranging from €12 (for a basic monthly description of an OIA web-service) to €164,000 EUR (for an OI consulting service).

The main project cost driver is personnel capacity. In the end, OIAs are no IT services or "self-service internet platforms", but knowledge-intensive service businesses. Recruiting experienced project managers and analysts becomes a major challenge for many OIAs.

For the full picture and many more details, including detailed profiles of 160 Open Innovation Service Providers, refer to The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey, co-authored by Kathleen Diener & Frank Piller, 2nd edition, May 2013. Lulu Publishing: Raleigh, USA

Check all options how to get the study at study.open-innovation.com

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[OI Market Study 2013] Key Results – Global Market for Open Innovation Support

When engaging in OI, organizations face the challenge of creating the internal ecosystem that allows them to profit from external input in an efficient and effective way. Professional assistance is offered by Open Innovation Accelerators (OIA)

OIAs are intermediaries, consultancies, and agencies helping their clients to accelerate an open innovation project by providing dedicated tools, methods, access to an established community of solvers or participants, but also education and process consulting.

 With more than 160 players, the market for OIAs however is getting complex and difficult to navigate. Hence, we reached out to 160 providers of (inbound) open innovation services to join a 90 min survey investigating the OIA’s business model and environment, productivity, services offered, project specifics, and characteristics of their participant pool. In addition, we asked about estimates for the development of the open innovation market.

59 (37 percent) of the OIAs contacted provided us with a complete data set. For the remaining companies, we used secondary data sources.

In total, our study is the largest inquiry of the global market of open innovation services. In the following, we will provide some high-level results.

OIA Market Structure

We find that the market for open innovation is getting mature. On average, OIAs have already conducted a high number of client projects, many of them 200 and more. Still, the market for OIAs shows continuous growth. 

Ideation contests are seen as the most promising open innovation format. They cover almost 80 percent of the entire open innovation market. Secondary services like software support, consultancy, or executive education enhance the offerings of many OIAs.

But we find that OIAs also increasingly reach out to functions beyond new product development. The core idea pattern of open innovation to engage an open, undefined network of people in form of an open call or open search activity seems to be transferrable to a variety of tasks, including marketing, customer service, recruitment, knowledge management, and HR.

When comparing our 2013 data with data from an earlier study in 2010, we find that about 20 percent of the 2010 OIAs do not exist any longer or have been acquired by other players. We expect an even stronger wave of acquisitions and mergers for the coming years.

The average cost for an OI project with an OIA is €43,000. But project costs differ widely, ranging from €12 (for a basic monthly description of an OIA web-service) to €164,000 (for an OI consulting service). The main project cost driver is personnel capacity. In the end, OIAs are no IT services or "self-service internet platforms", but knowledge-intensive service businesses. Recruiting experienced project managers and analysts becomes a major challenge for many OIAs.

OIA Services & Methods

In general, OIAs differ, first of all, regarding their approaches how to tap into an external knowledge space. These approaches can be differentiated according to the way how contributors for a specific project are selected and the collaborative process is being initiated. We find three options:

• Open Call: Calling for individuals to identify themselves by contributing to a given task;
• Open Search. Searching for relevant information or individuals according to a given task
• Selective Open Call: Calling for individuals, but within a pre-defined set of potential participants (a hybrid between the previous two options)

These three options also help to structure the service types that OIAs offer when we add the type of information requested by the client: information about market needs or information about technical solutions:

 

Table: Open Innovation Approaches and practical examples

 

Working with an OIA

Picking the right intermediary depends, first of all, on the type of task and the nature of the innovation problem. Not all OIAs are suited for every open innovation challenge. OIAs further differ with regard to the breadth, scope, and structure of their pool of potential participants, and the options for clients to control access to this pool and the interaction within a given project. Furthermore, outcomes of an OIA project can range from raw ideas to sophisticated concepts – and selecting an OIA very much depends on the expected outcome and preferred degree of outsourcing the OI function to the OIA.

From a client perspective, the OIA business has two major characteristics, distinguishing it from conventional innovation consultants. These two characteristics also should be key decision criteria when selecting an OIA:

First, software plays an essential part of any open innovation venture. Web 2.0 and social software technologies allow OIAs to operate globally and integrate large numbers of participants without high transaction cost. In 90 percent of all cases, OIAs offer a distinct software solution. Hence, selecting an OIA also means deciding whether the software solution should be implemented in-house (following a traditional license model) or using it as a web-service or via a hosted service of the OIA.

Secondly, OIAs build on the involvement of a community. OIAs connect clients through their communities with a variety of external actors, most of them are new and unknown to the client (this "looking out of the box" is exactly the value of open innovation). OIA services differ significantly regarding their community composition. In average, we find that OIAs have an existing pool of participants (their "community") of 20,000 members. But OIAs specializing on ideation or technical contests often have communities of more than 100,000 members. To join the pool of participants, prospective participants have to accept general terms and conditions, but in general do sign not a formal contract. This is a core difference of open innovation via OIAs compared to traditional forms of R&D networks or alliances.

Between communities, the general level of expertise of its members differs significantly among the different services. OIAs offering technical search services in form of technology scouting, for example, have access to high level expert communities, while OIAs focusing on ideation and concept generation often have a broad, very heterogeneous community of "average" consumers.

For the full picture, refer to The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey. authored by Kathleen Diener & Frank Piller, 2nd edition, May 2013. Lulu Publishing: Raleigh, USA (available via study.open-innovation.com).

Check back from more updates and key results from the OIA 2013 market study!

Just Released: Completely New 2013 Edition of Our Open Innovation Market Study

Fresh from the press! For the second time, our open innovation study explores that market of open innovation accelerators (OIA), organizations that help their clients to include external experts in all stages of an innovation project.

Open innovation today has become a core tool in innovation management. But which is the right method for open innovation? Which are the criteria to plan an open innovation project? Which intermediary or service provider has specific knowledge and expertise in, e.g., crowdsourcing, the lead user method, Netnography, idea contests, technology scouting, or broadcast search? This totally updated, 2013 edition report provides a comprehensive analysis of the providers and platforms for open innovation.

We take a detailed look on the methods, cost, project and community structures, and market size. Our purpose is to support strategic decisions when planning an open innovation venture. Managers will gain an overview of the intermediaries available for open innovation and will get advice how to identify partners for their project.

We invited more than 160 intermediaries to join our survey investigating the OIA’s business model and environment, productivity, services offered, project specifics, and characteristics of their participant pool. In addition, we asked about estimates for the development of the open innovation market. Besides a lot of highly interresting findings about the market for open innovation in general and the intermediary's role in it, we were also able to compile 188 detailed accelerator profiles.

In the following weeks, we will post a series of articles with selected findings from the market study!

The study is available via Lulu.com in both a paperback and an ebook version.

A preview can be found here.

[Participate] Konferenz Effizienter Staat 2013 | 15.-16. Mai | Berlin, Germany [In German]

In wenigen Wochen beginnt in Berlin die 16. Konferenz "Effizienter Staat" mit dem diesjährigen Motto: "Moderne Verwaltung: offen, vernetzt und effizient". Am zweiten Tag der Konferenz (16. Mai) findet parallel die 2. Open Government Data D-A-CH-LI-Konferenz (ODG) statt.

Neben vielen weiteren interessanten Referenten wird auch Prof. Dr. Frank T. Piller sprechen und sich der Frage widmen, ob Open Innovation in der öffentlichen Verwaltung als große Chance oder doch letztlich nur Utopie zu betrachten ist.

Das Gesamtprogramm beginnt am Mittwoch (15. Mai) um 9.00 Uhr im dbb forum berlin, Friedrichstraße 169-170 (Anfahrtsskizze unter www.effizienterstaat.eu), endet gegen 18.00 Uhr und wird am nächsten Tag um 9.00 Uhr fortgeführt (Ende gegen 17.15 Uhr).

Weitere Informationen zur Konferenz finden Sie bitte auf der offiziellen Website.

[Interview] Don't Tell Stories, Seek Solutions: The Story of the Problem Solution Conferences

We have been reporting on the format of teh "Seeks Solution" conferences before. The idea is both simple and surprisingly effective: turn a scientific conference upside down: Skip the presentation of successful research and undertakings and focus, together, on what is really interesting for everybody: challenges yet unsolved.

The event in question is, of course, the by now fairly popular series of "Seek Solutions" conferences.

Since the first conference in Quebec, things have evolved and been refined. Christophe Deutsch of En Mode Solutions, the organization now planning and executing solution-seeking conferences in innovative hubs around the world, has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions on the concept, its evolution and the future - and how you can be part of it.

 

FTP: Christophe, your "seek solutions" program takes a slightly different approach to problem solving than usual. Can you explain in some brief words how it works and what makes it special?

CD: We have developed a 4-Step Process that has given, over the years, great results!

1 -Call for Problems: The promoter of the event asks his community to submit complex problems that defy the standard analyses of his experts in the field.

2 - Formulate Selected Problems: We help the promoter to select the problems most likely to garner interest at the event and to formulate them so that they can be more easily shared. An expert of the problem’s domain, called an ambassador in our case, is put in contact with the solution seeker. Just by asking some basic questions, the ambassador is able to help the solution seeker further define the problem and ensure that the description that will ultimately be posted on a web-based platform is sufficiently clear and broad.

3 - Disseminate to a wider community – Problem broadcast: We disseminate the problems to be addressed to a vast range of specialists in a variety of fields. They can provide a different outlook on the problems raised, ask preparatory questions and participate in the event. Broadcast is done through a web-based platform including as much information as possible, such as figures, references, or details of failed solutions.

Two strategies are employed during the problem-broadcast step. A general broadcasting approach ensures that everyone who thinks they could help has the opportunity to participate. A targeted broadcast to specialists based on expectations about what type of expertise might be relevant to a particular problem is also used in parallel.

4 – Seeking Solutions Events: The last step is what differentiates the Seeking Solutions approach from other open innovation techniques, because it involves a real event where non-virtual collaboration arises. Solution seekers and problem solvers come together during a full-day session to focus on the selected problems. Careful preparation is required to ensure maximum output from the event. The collaboration process is divided into three phases: i) divergence, ii) exploration, and iii) convergence. Our facilitation methods allow for significant and creative interaction with experts who are normally not part of the same networks, and take full advantage of the “cross-pollination” of brainpower effect.

You’ll be surprised to see that creative solutions have been found to your complex problems in environments completely different from your own.

FTP: From your website one can tell that you have been organizing a number of solution seeking conferences in the past. What did you learn from these? (How) did the concept evolve over time?

CD: The call for problems for the first event – Quebec Seeks Solutions (QSS) – was launched in June 2010. Ten problems were submitted by nine industrial companies from the Quebec City area. The problems were broadcasted online in early November 2010. On December 14, 2010, 175 people gathered at the Convention Centre in Quebec City to attend the first problem-solving conference (Quebec Seeks Solutions).

For this first event, the largest perceived gain was:

• Networking outside the "normal" network,
• The generation of new ideas for applications
• A better understanding of the problem
• Initiation of research contracts with real benefits and return on investment for the companies

A second edition of Quebec Seeks Solutions took place in May 2012. Nine solution-seeking companies and 162 problem solvers participated in the two-day event. The outcomes were as good as the first edition with some very nice success stories as a bonus.

In June 2012, we conducted a workshop on the same basis at the ISPIM Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The process was slightly adapted to the duration of the event and the context of the conference. The workshop lasted less than two hours and the call for problems was for innovation management issues only. Thirteen problems were submitted and 5 were selected for the workshop. The solution seekers appreciated the experience even though it only gave them a preview of what could be achieved in a full-day event.

What we first learned so far is that the intellectual-property issues that our detractors raise are not a problem, mainly because the event in itself is an exploration where everybody feels free to contribute. Intellectual-property challenges typically arise "downstream" from this initial exploration.

Secondly, there is a real value in local open innovation. Some people say “Why connect locally when you can connect easily to the world nowadays?” The answer is simple. Because a combination of open innovation and collaboration on a local scale brings most of the benefits… without the potential inconvenience of cultural differences! Often the seeker and the solver need to engage in collaborative research activities to achieve the solution. Here, a regional conference offers much better opportunities than a worldwide web platform.

Finally, it’s the importance of the collaboration process in itself. The animation of such a conference cannot be done in a conventional manner. The animators have to be experimented with large groups and able to adapt depending on what happens.

Our approach is in constant evolution and we still experiment during each event. For example at some point in 2012, we tried a two days event in order to see if the evening could bring some special collaborations or new ideas. And in November this year, we will introduce a technology push through a technology platform that local R&D centers possess in our Quebec Seeks Solutions event. This may give ideas for new problems or technology transfer and generate even more results!

FTP: You have three new conferences planned for 2013, in June, September and November. Can you tell us a bit about these? What to expect? Any big changes?

CD: Yes, indeed, the Seeks Solutions approach is spreading around!

• 2^nd ISPIM Seeks Solutions, June 18, 2013 – Helsinki, Finland. A large conference is a great place to explore problems because you have experts from all around the world that can participate. I predict that you should see a lot more of these workshops in the future in numerous conferences because they offer a great way to collaborate and network!
• Polymères en mode solutions, September 26, 2013 – St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada.  Sponsored by the Quebec Plastic Industry Consortium tihis one day event will focus on this industrial sector only. Plastic companies will submit problems they experiment but we may also have other industrial companies that submit problems which could be solved by the plastic industry.
• 3^rd Quebec Seeks Solutions, November 5-6, 2013 - This is where it all started! And in addition this year is the Seeking Solutions Summit - Methods and Policies Creating a Local Ecosystem for Technology Transfer, Collaboration, and Local Innovation. This is where we hope the open innovation world community will meet this fall!

Several other events are in the midst for Canadian cities, industries and conferences! Stay tuned!

FTP: Pretending I was a company with a problem I would like to have solved. What do I do to profit from "seek solutions"?

CD: It’s very easy. You submit your problem to any upcoming event we have on our calendar at www.enmodesolutions.com/en or contact Yahya Baby ([email protected]) to discuss about holding your own event in your area.

FTP: In my understanding you are offering to organize problem solving conferences internationally, not only in Canada. How can communities or administrations contact you for talks about hosting a conference? How does the organizational process work?

CD: Yes our team is ready and eager to work a lot more overseas even though we are very busy as it is. The best way to engage into this process is to contact Yahya Baby via email [email protected] or by phone at 581-996-6778. Once we become involved, we help the promoters organizing a successful event every step of the way.

FPT: From your experiences so far, do you think that this and other forms of open problem solution concepts are already well-accepted? Do they work? Or: what needs still to be done to unleash their full potential?

CD: Open innovation and open problem solving approaches require a change of mindset to reach full potential. A change of mindset most often requires a pain or an enormous challenge to work it’s way. The current economical context in Europe and North America is a good enabler I would think! Because status quo is not an answer for anyone, in any type of industry and in any country right now!

Many problems that the companies are facing today are complex because they mix technical, environmental, social, and political issues. To face this growing complexity, classical problem-solving methodologies are no longer appropriate. The Seeking Solutions approach has the potential to address the complex challenges of the next decade and we believe that it can help us to migrate from a collection of intelligences to a real collective intelligence. The next step is to encourage more and more companies to try local open innovation and to convince local governments to support this movement. 

FTP: Christophe, many thanks for these extensive insights into your visions. It will certainly be a plasure to be part of a future solution seeking event again and I wish you all the best for this venture!

If you are interested in more information about En Mode Solutions and the conference format - or want to get in touch about hosting a conference yourself - please see the official website.

Open Co-Creation Dinner in the ELAT Region - 14 May 2013

Creating an open mindset for collaborative innovation: Dinner Networking & Co-Creation Event - 14 May 2013

The Eindhoven-Leuven-Aken (ELAT) region is one of the most powerful innovative and high tech regions in the world. Enlarge your network and get to know CEOs and Innovation Directors of this ELAT-region by learning about co-creation in an interactive way!

In a joint dinner-workshop event between several industry associations in the ELAT region, we will discuss different approaches to co-create with customers and users.

But beyond implementing some tools, successful co-creation demands a set of internal capabilities of your organization to transfer the external input into successful innovation.

We will hence also discuss how to create an open mindset for collaborative innovation yourself. Tuesday ,14 May 2013, 17:00 - 22:00 at C-Mine 10 bus 2, 3600 Genk, Belgium More: Official Website and Registration Form

Program

17.00	Registration and reception
17.20	Welcome Wim Dries, Mayor, City of Genk
17.30	Find your personal innovation challenge Guided by Prof. Dr. Frank T. Piller
18.30	3 way dinner
18.50	Strategic partnerships, the future of innovation Jos Pinte, Director Innovation, Agoria
19.00	BiELAT, who are we ? Rob Janssen, chairman, Foundation BiELAT
19.30	Success story of Future Sketching with ELAT partners Stephane Berghmans, R&D Manager, TE Connectivity
20.00	Co-creation, it is more than you think Prof. Dr. Frank T. Piller
21.00	Co-creation design challenge, All participants, guided by Prof. Dr. Frank T. Piller
22.00	End

[Featured Research] Technology Innovation Management Review on Local Open Innovation

This month's edition of Technology Innovation Management Review focusses on Local Open Innovation. There are some really interesting articles featured in this issue, which is available as a PDF file from the official website as well. It especially provides great background information on the "Seeks Solutions" (or "problem conference", as I use to call it) approach!!! To experience this method live, participate at the ISPIM Seeks Solutions!

• The Seeking Solutions Approach: Solving Challenging Business Problems with Local Open Innovation
  Christophe Deutsch

• Problemsourcing: Local Open Innovation for R&D Organizations
  Sally Davenport, Stephen Cummings, Urs Daellenbach, Charles Campbell

• Local Open Innovation: How to Go from Ideas to Solutions
  Oscar Smulders

• Quebec Seeks Solutions: An Economic Development Agency's Role in Local Open Innovation
  Alexandra Berger Masson

• University-SME Collaboration and Open Innovation: Intellectual-Property Management Tools and the Roles of Intermediaries
  Isabelle Deschamps, Maria G. Macedo, Christian Eve-Levesque

• TIM Lecture Series – Local Open Innovation and the Seeking Solutions Approach
  Christophe Deutsch, Philippe Dancause

ISPM Seeks Solution: Problem Conference in Crowdsolving Innovation Management Challenges

One of the most innovative approaches to open innovation is coming again this year: The Problem Conference.

Here: For Management Challenges!

The core idea: Turn a conference upside down. Instead of presenting "solutions" and "best practices" to impress the other participants with your successes, present your hardest challenge. Present what you could not solve, and ask openly for help! The (beginning of the) solution then will be co-created with the participants.

Due to the great success of the first problem conference in 2010 we are proud to announce to you the 2013 edition of the ISPIM Seeks Solutions Conference!

Taking place 16:00 – 17:30, June 18th, at the ISPIM conference in Helsinki (Room: 304 - 3rd floor). The ISPIM 2013 conference offers the unique opportunity to engage in this new form of "local open innovation".

Call for problems: What is your problem with managing innovation?

You have a problem related to innovation management and want to use the intelligence of experts from all around the world to solve it? Here’s how you can do it!

Submit your problem to ISPIM Seeks Solutions and if your problem is selected your problem will be treated during the one hour and a half workshop on June 18th at the ISPIM conference in Helsinki.

To submit a problem, describe it using here

The process is based on the open innovation problem broadcasting approach. Problems can be submitted until March 29th. The “best problems” will then be selected and broadcasted on the web few weeks prior the event. Problem seekers will also get some support from ISPIM experts to well define the problem prior to broadcasting it. During the workshop in itself, ISPIM delegates participating to the workshop will collaborate around the selected problems and help you in understanding it better.

If you need more information: contact conference staff at [email protected]

Lego CUUSOO: How Lego Turns Your Ideas Into Cubic Reality

LEGO's Factory (later called "LEGO Design by me") has been one of the pioneers of mass customization.However, times change and Lego closed this "build on demand site" about a year ago and focused entirely on customer co-creation in the innovation process.

For this, they are partnering with CUUSOO; the mother of all crowdsourcing sites for product development (we described them in our 2006 paper on Threadless already!).

The project is called Lego CUUSOO and wors fairly simple: Everybody can submit an idea of what he would deem a great Lego product. Customers get to vote online and if the proposal gets sufficient buyer pledges the company turns it into reality and produces the toy.

Noew, there is a nice video giving more detail on this idea, it makes you instantly grab a pen and paper and start drawing your own powertoy idea...

 

Our M-Prize Hack Made It to the Finals, Now We Need YOUR Help Again!

End of the last year TIM Group posted about our group having been invited to participate at the the HBR-McKinsey M-Prize . Back then we asked for your support by liking our "hack", the solution proposal we submitted.

With your tremendous help, our hack has made it amongst the finalists in round one as announced by the jury!!! Thank you to everybody who liked it!

Now we are of course more than enthusiastic to win the challenge. This will, again, only be possible with your help!

One of the key criteria in the final judging for the winners of the Innovating Innovation Challenge will be how finalists further develop their entry in response to the comments and questions from their peers (thats you). Self-evidently, to do this, we need your ideas and comments. These do not have to be extremely elaborated, just give us your thoughts.

Therefore, if you like our proposal and would like to see it win the contest and maybe become a reality, please give us your support one more time by going to the official website and posting your comments and questions in regards to our hack*. We will do our very best to improve our proposal based on your input in this great example of academic open co-creation.

Thank you very much in advance and wish us luck!

* You will have to register on the website to be able to post a comment, it only asks for a name and an email address. This is just to prevent automated spam and increase credibility of the process. Of course it is free and without any strings attached. If you are not already registered on the MIX website, you can do so here and then just head over to our hack, scroll down and add your comment.

[Featured Research] Study Backs Long Term Claim with Hard Data: User-Generated Products Make More Profit

Since years we argue that customers / users not just have good ideas for new products & services, but that products with roots in user innovation are actually more profitable and superior to inhouse-developed products. There has been some anecdotal evidence to prove this claim, and lots of case studies, but not hard data. But now a study provides hard evidence:

User-generated versus designer-generated products: A performance assessment at Muji, by: Hidehiko Nishikawa, Martin Schreier, Susumu Ogaw, in: International Journal of Research in Marketing (2013)

Our colleagues Hidehiko Nishikawa (Hosei University), Martin Schreier (WU Vienna University) and Susumu Ogawa (Kobe University) show that user-generated products perform better on the market than their (professional) designer-generated counterparts. Their idea is to systematically compare actual market performance of user-generated products with firm (designer)-generated ones.

The authors present a unique data set gathered from the Japanese consumer goods brand Muji, which has drawn on both sources of ideas in parallel in recent years. They demonstrate that user-generated products in the furniture category, which are found to generally contain higher novelty outperformed their designer-generated counterparts on key market performance metrics.

Specifically, in the first year after introduction, sales revenues from user-generated products were three times higher and gross margins were four times greater than those of designer-generated products.

These effects also increased over time: after three years, the aggregate sales revenues of user-generated products were, on average, 1.25 billion yen (approximately 16 million dollars) higher, or five times greater, than the sales of designer-generated products. The corresponding average margin was an impressive 619 million yen (approximately 8 million dollars) higher, or six times greater, than the margin for designer-generated products. Finally, user-generated products were more likely to survive the three-year observation period than designer-generated products (i.e., were still on the market three years after introduction).

These findings clearly favor the paradigm shift identified in marketing research and appeal to managers considering the integration of user ideas into the process of new product development. In their paper, the authors discuss the study's limitations and identify important avenues for future research.

I find this study especially interesting as MUJI is world-wide admired for their great inhouse design team! Also, the study shows that this is more than a novelty effect: Customers did not know whether a product was user designed or not, they just liked (and purchased) the product!

Competivation Consulting Founded to Meet Innovation-, Technology- and Strategy Consulting Needs of Industry

I frequently receive requests by companies for innovation counseling and consulting on open innovation, mass customizuation, and technology management.  While we do not perform any consulting for individual companies with our RWTH-TIM institute, there are a number of opportunities for consulting.

To meet the needs of industry, together with an experienced executive consultant, Prof. Hans-Gerd Servatius,  we have founded Competivation Consulting, a dynamic innovation and strategy management consulting company from innovators for innovators. 

Combining decades of innovation research, teaching and consulting, COMPETIVATION's team of experts supports your company with

• Management consulting in innovation and technologymanagement,
• Strategy and innovation workshops,
• Strategic and technology roadmapping,
• Trend analysis and strategic foresight,
• Technology, market and benchmarking analysis,
• Implementation counseling,
• Networking with intermediaries and IT-partners,
• Executive education programs and corporate speaking

Special areas of expertise are open innovation, customer co-creation, mass customization, but also the development of comprehensive strategies for innovation and technology managememt.

Prof. Hans-Gerd Servatius has met our Editor in Chief for a brief interview, outlining the USPs of Competivation Consulting and what can be done especially for the open innovation strategist.

CG: Some of our readers will know you as the author of your latest book, touching a pressing matter of our times, Smart Energy. Can you tell a bit about yourself and your experience in technology and innovation management consulting?

GS: We created the term technology and innovation management in the early 1980s at Arthur D. Little, where I led the German TIM practice. For me this was a great opportunity, to put the concepts, which I had developed in my Ph.D. thesis on strategic management of technology into practical work. During the following decades I tried to anticipate the next TIM waves like corporate venture management (which has a lot in common with open innovation), process and business model innovation, knowledge management as well as sustainability, to mention some examples. Today I think technology and innovation management is more important than ever and looking back to its roots helps to better understand the future.

CG: You have over 30 years of experience as a professional consultant, having been anywhere from an entrance position to partner level and managing director in internationally reknown firms. What sets Competivation apart from the existing competition?

GS: I would like to mention three points. First: Competivation is a young firm with very experienced founders. This helps us to create a unique culture. Second: The founders have an excellent reputation as scientists and management consultants. We have a strong international network. Based on these competencies we can be more innovative in our field than many others. And third: Our combination of executive education with consulting offers possibilities for differentiation that satisfy the needs of many clients, who are looking for more sustainable results.

CG: Our readers are especially interested in open innovation. Do you see OI to be the method of choice to solve many of the (technical) problems that companies usually struggle with solving on their own? Why?

GS: Open innovation has proven that it can generate great ideas and solve many problems. Roughly ten years after the term has been created the experience of leading firms with different OI methods is growing. One of the reasons for this success is the increased connectivity potential of a company, its stakeholders and non-obvious others, who can play a role in the innovation processes. A challenge many companies are still facing today is the integration of open integration into an emerging enterprise 2.0 concept. This means that both internal and external innovation must become more cooperative.

CG: Do you think that corporate culture is key element in (remodeling) innovation management, as part of an integrated approach? If so, can you give some examples from your experience?

GS: Corporate Culture is clearly a key element for innovation. It always was and new forms of innovation require cultural adaptations. The cultural challenge today is to find the right balance between closed and open innovation, individual talents and cooperative success as well as trust in others and securing intellectual property. The answer is not black or white. Success formulas are more complex and need to be tailored to specific situations. In our assignments we help organizations and their managers to improve the specific competencies needed to compete in this new era of innovation. An example is an international automotive company, which we support on its way to become a provider of mobility solutions. This requires new business models combining open and closed innovation as well as improved leadership skills as orchestrators of different partners.

CG: Can you give a little insight into your network? What is Competivation`s special competence mix?

GS:  Our network consists of partners in the academic world, complementary service providers and experienced practitioners, who work together in a trust-based way. One example is the Business Transformation Academy, which is sponsored by SAP. On their international conference in October in Budapest we presented our new study of a changing energy sector based on innovative IT enabled business models. If I have a special competence it perhaps is to put technology and innovation management not only into a strategic, organizational and cultural context but also to translate new findings from complexity theory into practical solution sets. In a volatile world this is what many clients are looking for.

 

While Competivation Consulting´s core market is the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), we are also open for assignments beyond these ountries. You will find more informationen on Competivation and our service portfolio at www.competivation.de (in German language only!) or contact us directly!

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[Featured Research] Designing the Organization for User Innovation

Our series on featured research articles continues. Today I want to recommend a paper by fellow researchers Peter Keinz, Christoph Hienerth and Christopher Lettl. In their paper they focus on the paradigm shift from producer-centered towards user-centered processes.

Designing the Organization for User Innovation

By Peter Keinz, Christoph Hienerth & Christopher Lettl

Availible at: Journal of Organization Design

 There is increasing consensus among practitioners and academics alike that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift from producer-centered and internal innovation processes toward user-centered and open innovation processes.

This paradigm shift induces significant changes to the design of organizations. Even though the research field of user innovation has been developing over a period of more than four decades, there have been only occasional intersections with the research field of organizational design. In this article, the authors aim to provide an integrated perspective of the two fields. Therefore they first identify major user innovation strategies and then derive the implications for each user innovation strategy on key dimensions of organizational design.

After outlining existing user innovation approaches, the authors continue to explain the need for organizational (re-)design when employing user innovation strategies. They then present design principles for companies employing user innovation strategies, followed by a detailed discussion of their findings (so far). 

In this video, Christopher Lettl explaines the central topic of their research for this paper. 

Designing the Organization for User Innovation from JOD on Vimeo.

Read the full article at Journal of Organization Design, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2012)!

TIM in the MIX: Vote for Our Hack at the HBR M-Prize: Global solutions, local failure: Overcoming barriers in implementing open innovation

Our group has been invited to participate at the HBR-McKinsey M-Prize . Now we need your support! If you want to see our proposal outlined below become a winning idea, please head over to the official website and "like" our idea: Global solutions, local failure - Overcoming barriers in implementing open innovation For those not familiar with the M-Prize, here is a short summary from their official website:

The Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) is an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. The MIX is based on the premise that management is nothing less than the technology of human accomplishment and that, after 100 years of incremental tweaks, it now needs to be reinvented for a new age. The M-Prize is the MIX’s call to management innovators (and aspiring management innovators) around the world to make a real difference when it comes to improving management thinking and practice.

Here is a short summary of our submission: Many companies today pilot open innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing, but only few are making it a permanent practice. A consortium of six German SMEs finds that OI can radically improve the productivity of technical problem solving, but demands strong internal promotors and dedicated processes to overcome resistance and barriers. You can find the full proposal here! Thank you for your support!!

PS: The topic of implementing open innovation in an established firm also is the theme of our upcoming European Open Innovation Practicioner Program.

[Participate!] European Open Innovation Practitioner Program

Summary: Executive Masterclass and Consortial Benchmarking on Open Innovation for executive OI practitioners. Additional information and the full program can be found in the official program flyer (click to download) and on the official event website.

Implementing Open Innovation

In collaboration with RWTH Techonology and Innovation Management Group, NineSigma offers a unique practitioners program on open innovation. The program helps open innovation leaders to implement open innovation practices and capabilities within their organization, enabling them to boost their productivity of innovation. 

The program provides the first certified training for open innovation practitioners and is a unique combination of a master class and a consortial roadmap initiative that will provide value for the participating open innovation champions and their organizations.

As part of the course, participants will jointly develop a roadmap for implementation of open innovation. With relevant experts from companies, best practices are shared on key subjects using insights from academics, industry, and participating companies. The sessions are organized on location at one of the participating member companies.

The program targets corporate innovators who are actively involved in running Open Innovation practices at multinationals. To ensure exchange of experience from all participants, the required participants level is on the executive level in general (e.g. director level and higher).

The program consists of 4 full days workshops and lectures, 3 online webinar sessions of 1,5 hour and great opportunities for networking. The webinar sessions will be recorded for participants to be able to revisit. More information in the program brochure.

A registration form and all information can be obtained from Mrs. Diane Schepers at NineSigma Leuven by writing an email to [email protected] or on the official event website. All info is also here in the official program brochure.

[Book Review] The Innovation Machine - a practice-focused way to implement a corporate innovation management system

Rolf Wentz has been a C-level manager and CEO in many large corporations, mainly in the field of FMCG. Today, he worrks as an active investor in start ups.We have the privilege to have him in our ranks of lecturers of practice at RWTH Aachen.

Dr. Wentz has been author of a successful German book on innovation management. Now, this book has been translated into English, in a new and updated version with plenty of case studies.

The Innovation Machine, by Dr. Rolf Wentz. Published by CreateSpace, 2012.

In order to launch successful innovations on a sustainable basis in frequent order, most companies have to transform themselves. What they need is an innovation management system whose components are consistent and, preferably, self-reinforcing. Vision, objectives, strategy, culture, process, structure & systems and competencies must be aligned.

In his book Rolf Wentz demonstrates how the world´s best innovators such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Toyota, Amazon, GE, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, BMW, 3M etc., which the author calls innovation machines, succeed at this. By means of various case studies and based on his own practical experience, Wentz describes how the use of the innovation management systems will make a company successful, and he lays out the change management to transform firms into innovation machines.

In doing this, he uses storytelling and the vivid language of a practitioner. The conclusions and main indicated actions at the end of each chapter plus worksheets and checklists support the practitioner in the implementation.

In an online interview, we asked Rolf Wentz some questions about his new book -- and innovation management in general.

FTP: Innovation as a critical element of any future-ready corporate strategy is not new to most companies. Likewise there is a large number of more or less useful books on that topic. What sets “The Innovation Machine” apart from the myriad of already existing innovation guides?

RW: "The Innovation Machine" differs from other books on innovation management in three major aspects: (1) I take a holistic view, i.e. do not only deal with some selective aspects of innovation management but cover all relevant components that make up the innovation management system such as vision, objectives, strategy; culture; process; structure & systems and competencies.

(2) The "Innovation Machine" makes use of a large number of extensive international case studies of top innovators in order to illustrate the key points about the innovation management system. Although the case studies of  U.S. companies still constitute the majority, the book also offers various case studies of European (Zara, Nestlé, BMW, SAP) and of Asian innovation champions (Sony, Toyota, Samsung, Hyundai).

(3) Based on my long experience working in leading managerial roles inside multinational companies like P&G, SC Johnson and Campbell´s, and now as a business angel, I focus on the practical challenges of innovation management.

FTP: In your book you demonstrate successful innovation based on cases like Apple, Google, Microsoft and other certainly successful but also rather large multinational corporations.  Are the implications drawn from these cases relevant (or, useful) for SME as well?

RW: Absolutely. Most of the implications such as those concerning vision, innovation objectives, innovation strategy, innovation culture, innovation process and innovation structure are also very relevant for SMEs which typically have limited innovation resources and, in particular, a limited innovation budget. 

Just to illustrate this by means of one example: major progress can be achieved by SMEs by e.g. starting a radical innovation effort with a tiny two-person team (e.g. one engineer, one commercial person) with the two team members being co-located and fully dedicated to the project. The required resources and budget will be manageable for a SME. There are only some few recommendations that, because of their more elevated cost, are more useful for larger corporations than SMES such as the acquisition of competencies via the acquisition of other companies.

FTP: How did you adopt your book from your earlier German boon into a new English edition?

RW: Although “The Innovation Machine” (in English) builds on the same conceptual foundation as “Die Innovationsmaschine” (in German) ,it hast been vastly updated and modified in some major aspects.

In particular, I have added a completely new chapter about innovation competencies (Chapter 11), majorly enriched the chapter on structure and systems for managing innovations (Chapter 10), and added many new case studies such as those of Amazon, BMW, Hyundai, IBM, Nestlé Nespresso, Samsung and Zara. Furthermore, I have added worksheets and checklists to many chapters in order to increase the value for the innovation practitioner.

FTP: Thank you! I hope that the book will sell well and, first of all, help many practicioners to become better innovation leaders.

The next big trend in innovation management: Reverse Innovation: A book review and how does this relate to open innovation

Reverse Innovation as seen by Google Image Search

I am sometimes asked what is the next big trend in innovation management. Given a number of recent discussions and observations, I would now bet high stakes that "Reverse Innovation" will be the idea that will shape our understanding of innovation management a lot in the next years.

 

The term reverse innovation, in short, describes how innovations made in the so-called developing countries can often lay the foundations for product innovations in the "developed" world. More often than not, these are relatively cheap yet efficient new concepts which can seriously callenge products on an existing "western" market -- they often are a source of disruptive innovation.

Developing countries are catching up on the knowledge- and technology gap and with that comes an increased chance for major innovations to be born in these countries. And this is where open innovation thinking comes into play: 

• First, we know from lead user research that lead users often develop novel innovations under extreme conditions. Developing countries often provide these extreme conditions (budget, but also climate or working conditions) -- hence leading to a high incentive to innovate in a functional novel way.
•  Second, a core idea of OI is to get input from unobvious others -- this is where broadcast search helps a lot. And developing countries offer a great potential for "unobvious" sources of ideas.
• Third, when established companies develop a product for a new market that demands a "good enough" solution that only costs 10% of the comparable established "western" product, they are often forced to look into very new fields and approaches -- input that often only can be acquired by looking beyond the firm's borders.

Hence, for established companies, reverse innovation offers both a source often "open" thinking and input for the own innovation process, and at the same time demands new approaches and networks.

 If you want to learn more about reverse innovation, there is one book to read:

Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere

Written by: Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble, Indra K. Nooyi (Foreword)

Availible at Amazon: Hardcover Edition, Kindle Edition

Prof. Vijay Govindarajan ( Tuck School of Business ) is the leading scholar researching this field. Together with his collegue Chris Trimble he has recently published his new book about the topic which I read in my recent summer vacation.

The book is an easy read: In part one, Govindarajan and Trimble describe in rather brief form how major companies are beginning to realize that the popular concept of glocalization is not necessarily the best approch to conquer new markets. They describe the flaws on the concept and why reverse innovation promisses better results in many cases.

Glocalization refers to the business concept often associated with the saying "Think Global, Act Local", in practice realized by taking an already existing product and adapting it to new target markets. If the target market is part of the developing world, these adaptions are usually severe downgrades.

Govindarajan/Trimble explain that these downgraded products are in fact often not what the target market needs - or even wants. Each market requires products fitting it's specific needs and given resources. And that is something that can often no be achieved by just stripping product features to allow a cheapter retail price.

The authors show how reverse innovation can help to overcome this barrier. By inventing locally, right at the target market, instead of at home, far away from the conditions and actual customers, companies can be enabled to develop the exactly right product for the market - not a stripped down version of an existing good.

While reverse innovation is the more risky, more pricy alternative at first glance, and many internal and external obstacles have to be overcome, the described advantages are remarkable: Not only can a company better tackle local markets in the developing world. Products invented abroad have a high potential of being cheaper, offent radically innovative and can potentially be engineered to become suitable alternatives for existing products on the companie's home market as well. The innovations made abroad come back home: Reverse innovation.

Part two of the book has eight business cases in which the conecpt is applied and explained why it is advantageous over other approaches. These include companies like Logitech, P&G, EMC, Deere, Harman, GE Healthcare and PepsiCo.

So, in conclsuion, a very interesting concept, and important idea, and a good read!

Market Watch: Formulor: Professional-grade yet easy and affordable 3D-designing and production

If you co-host a large-scale mass customization conference as we did with the Create Your Own (CYO) last year, it is delighting to learn that connections established during the event are resulting in new ventures and products. 

One result of CYO networking has been the cooperation between virtual product presentation specialist Open Experience and Formulor, a Berlin based company offering customized 3D-products. Formulor is one of the German frontend's for Ponoko.

 

The limit is your imagination (and what a laser cutter can do). Example model. Click to enlarge!

Formulor gives its users all the tools necesary to design whatever shape and form they like and to have it laser cut and engraved before shipping it to your doorstep. The really great part of this is the consumer frontend which is about as easy to use as a "conventional" configurator and yet can do so much more.

 

It enables casual users and professional designers alike to quickly bring any form out of their mind onto a virtual canvas. One can do so by either uploading an existing file (Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, inkscape) or by using the really convenient drawing and writing tools embedded into the configurator. 

Open Experience, a spin-off of the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie KIT and a specialist in 3D configuration,  has done a great job in designing the front end. Even without any knowledge of how to use a 2D-designing software you can easily get a nice-looking 3D object drawn and rendered in no time at all. 

Most of the work, the magic to it, if you will, happens in the background. While you draw and write on the virtual canvas the software translatest your entries into a 3D model which is presented at all times. You will always know how your design will look in "real life" once laser-cut and delivered to you. 

2D drawing canvas, ready for creative input. Click to Enlarge!

Furthermore the configurator automatically checks whether or not your design is actually technically producable, so you do not have to worry about that aspect at all: As long as it can be manufactured by Formulor's partner company Ponoko's laser cutters, you can design whatever you like.

And because Formulor checks your brainchild against Ponoko's personal factory API, pricing of your design is also constantly updated. 

 The base materials you chose from at the beginning of your configuration process include acrylic glass, cardboard, cork, corrugate card, decoflex veneer, felt, finnboard, leather, MDF, PET, paperboard, plywood, polypropylen, silicon and stamp rubber in a large variety of colors and thicknesses. 

This platform can really be of great value for all kinds of creatives, be it to visualize an idea, to prototype, to get special parts for your architectural model or just as part of your latest crafting of christmas gifts.

Besides this practical aspect it is a great example of how (conference) networking can help you identifying the right partner to get your business ahead of the competition. Formulor, Open Experience and Ponoko have created a very interesting tool for individual and affordable modeling here that could set standards in this branch.

More about Open Experience, Formulor and Ponoko on their respective websites. And to get an idea of how easy it is to use Formulor's frontend to form your own product, here is a video, too!

 

Featured Research: Open Innovation in the German Automobile Industry

German cars are the best in the world. While I can see this statement instantly being challenged by some, the international reputation of and demand for German cars, especially in the high price segment is pretty high.

A brand new study by German innovation expert Ili Consulting shows that the advantages of open innovation have been understood by managers of German car manufacturers and their suppliers.

While companies like BMW, Audi, or Daimler have been forrunners in customer co-creaton via ideation contests, I did not see much OI on the technical level in German Big Auto.

This 2012 edition of the study "Open Innovation in der Automobilindustrie" is the second iteration after a similar survey in 2009. Comparison impressively shows that more and more of the asked managers on the middle, higher and top level follow the trend to get their company's research from a closed to an open one, thereby laying grounds for the harvest of the great innovation potential that the crowd of consumers is.

 

Comparison chart of manager's answers from the 2009 and 2012 iterations of the study. Clear shift towards open innovation

As has been said by many participating mangers, highly innovative ideas are short in supply. These are, however, one of the most valuable goods a technology company can have, and also the most important advantage Germany has on the international market.

The understanding that the old credo of "we have all the experts we need in house" no longer works in todays fast, interconnected markets and that flexibility and openness for external input, both for criticism and ideas, is crucial to mission success, has finally gotten a solid foothold in headquarters of majors and SMEs alike.

Open innovation is, however, not as easy as putting a website up, asking for ideas. There is much more to it to successfully tap into the wisdom reservoir of the crowd, and without competent guidance by experienced innovation consultants, opening oneself's knowledge stock up to the masses can be a risky venture.

For those of you engaged in businesses where your market share and revenues depend on technological advantage and satisfied customers (not only car-industry specific), the  study may hold some very interesing findings regarding the market, the progress from open to closed innovation, sources of innovation and their rating by practitioners as well as actual obstacles one will face when opening innovation.

The study can be obtained by contacting Ili Consulting directly. For contact information please refer to the contact section of their homepage (while writing about open innovation,, they were not open enough to provide the study as "open access").

Open Alps: Cross-National Innovation Support for SME in the Alp Region

A little while ago I posted about the Top Technology Cluster (TTC) project, an initiative to foster and fund open innovation in amongst SME and partners in the greater Euregio Meuse-Rheine region (where my home university Aachen is placed). Their goal is to promote (consortial) cooperation between SME from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

A comparable yet larger project is Open Alps. The program, part of the "European Territorial Cooperation" initiative, is organized and conducted by nine partners from Italy, France, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. The goal is to support SMEs in their innovation processes with external partners, and to promote the establishment of such cross-border cooperation in the first place.

Much like with the TTC, international linking is the key aspect here. While the famous term of globalization does still mainly apply to large, multinational companies, SME can especially profit from cooperations with partners, large and small, from neighbouring countries, both in one-on-one and larger consortial dimensions.

Unfortunately, there are the usual barriers one has to face when considering to extend business across the border. Open innovation can help to overcome these barriers, especially in regards to the outside-in approach, enabling SMEs to get in touch upon one broadcasting a problem that another can solve.

Open Alps is heading off to support such ventures with a threefold approach. Besides efforts to spread the word of OI, making actors on the market aware of the existance of the approach and its benefits, the program is working on the establishment of so called Open Innovation Labs in all participating areas.

These will then focus on region-specific topics and markets in order to inform and incubate exemplaric cooperations that can be role-models for other SME and get the stone rolling, so to say.

Furthermore (and especially interesting to monitor from a scientist's point of view) there will be special online platform soon, which will support the initiative's goals through active broadcast search and idea contests. This way, hopefully, SME's (and possibly additional larger companies') need information will be matched with solutions from other SME in the region.

It will be interesting to follow the development of this European Union-funded program. Preparing working packages are mostly completed by now from what I hear, and within the next months, labs and online platform will be established and opened for interested companies.

When time comes, we will take a closer look at the platform and its capabilities. Until then, Open Alps informs about all news and launches on their official project website.

Market Watch: Idea Contests as a Service: Pitchburner and Skild

Idea Constest are not only recognized by Open Innovation scholars as a great method to benefit from customer experience, they are also a fairly popular tool to foster end- or lead-user integration into the design and development process.

Setting up a successful idea contest, however, requires a lot of dedication, know-how and legwork. This has shown to be a major barrier for many companies who still do not exploit the (full) potential of crowdsourcing and co-creation.

For those ventures who do not want (or can not afford) to hire an open innovation expert of their own, outsourcing to social media specialists can be a viable, yet still not exactly cheap solution. As a result, a number of companies are now starting to offer idea contests as a (web) service. Their concept is that experienced users can create idea contests very easily and at low cost, sometimes even free (a conventional idea contest by a full-service agency costs easily US$50K or more)

An example for this trend are Pitchburner and Skild.

Pitchburner, located in Lincoln, NE, has specialized in supporting online-hosted events, amongst them all kinds of innovation competitions.

Submission management interface, click to enlarge!

Pitchburner's platform allows innovation managers (or any staff member) to simply put together a complete idea contest by using a simple interface to define the constest's setup, marketing, participant registration, submissions, judges, idea evaluation and so on. 

Comprehensive feature oversight.

Pitchburner offers a free basic version, allowing you do host simple contests as well as two more sophisticated premium and enterprise packages (like multiple rounds, advanced tracking-, messaging- and analytics features, automation of many otherwise tiresome processes and much more).

An interesting part of using a platform like this is the ability to use preexisting template system. Designing a well-looking constes website with all relevant subpages, forms and functionality takes time and requires experienced (hence costly) personel.

Sending emails to all of your participants or judges by the use of the platform's built-in mailing templates is likely faster and less complicated than doing so from your mail client. And if you have ever tried to keep records of an idea contest with 5.000 participants in your standard spreadsheet-software, you probably know how much headache a well-build database can save.

A similar service is offered by SKILD, a new brand by idea contest pioneer idea crossing, one of the most experienced companies in the field in the USA.

SKLID is comparable to pitchburner in many regards, however, they do offer a more complete package of support services. These are not part of the platform, hence not automated, but are "real", traditional coaching and support on tasks like program and marketing strategy, rules development, research, advanced custom design, social media-, technology- and security support, advise on prizes and advances analysis of user/ contest data.

Hence, they do combine the automated contest application with solutions for some of the points I will adress below.

 

Skild offers a graphically appealing, easy to use configurator as well. Click to enlarge!

 

My opinion:

• It is too early to investigate the impact of these offerings on the market for crowdsourcing, and I also personally have not yet tried one of these services for a real project. But the trend is there: Crowdsourcing is getting a broader and broader.
• The price level of these services is fantastic, and the platform's features include everything one needs for a professional ideation contest.
• But winning with an idea contest is much more than software:  These platforms do not help you with ...
  
  • asking the right question,
  • formulating the right task.
  • defining the rules of the game and legal terms,
  • getting a feel for the right incentives,
  • reaching a broad and new field of potential participants,
  • (the majority of) community management,
  • not making the beginner's mistakes again,
  • defining a communication strategy for your contest,
  • selecting the winner,
  • programming an interface to existing customer databases or your internal R&D software system,
  • ...
• But for experienced users and companies, these services are a great tool. The same may hold true for non-profit or even local organizations, hosting, e.g., an idea contest among their members.  I am curious to see how this field will develop!

Conference Report MC2012: The German Mass Customization Community Meeting

Unless you started following my blog just now, there is no way you could potentially have missed the announcements, special editions and features about the MC2012. This year's edition of the largest MC conference in German language, hosted by Dominik Walcher, Paul Blazek and myself, took place on 29th of June.

Despite the early time of day, the air already started to flicker from the upcoming heat of what promissed to be a really nice summer day at the marvellously desgined building of the University of Applied Sciences near edge of the Alp mountains in Salzburg, Austria.

About 150 professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts from all parts of the mass customization landscape in the German experienced a tightly packed day dedicated to the opportunities of customer co-design.

Panoramic audience shot. Click to enlarge!

And what a day it was! A buzzing audience followed the presentations of no less than 24 speakers, ranging from young entrepreneurs, telling the tale of their entrance into the MC market, global players and market leaders, giving insight into proven ways and tactics to profit from customer participation, to leading scholars, showing how latest research proves the concept of the integrated customer to be more than a trend.

To not only preach customer integration but actually live up to our words and integrate our conference participants beyond questions and one-on-one networking, we had a special feature in place. Werner Haring, founder and CEO of wallero.us, had contributed to the event's multi media experience by "installing" a social media wall right next to the stage.

Social Media Wall, Courtesy of wallero.us. Click to enlarge!

This application was a real eye-catcher and various running gags were born during the course of the event - and you still can follow the #MCSalzburg hashtag for a report of the conference.

 The day headed off with the introductory panel. After a hearty welcome by co-host Dominik Walcher, my research group's members Dr. Christoph Ihl and Thorsten Harzer outlined results from our research projects and demonstrated some of the numerical "magic" behind Mass Customization and Open Innovation and how it can be utilized to take the right decisions about mission-critical aspects that many companies do not even realize to be of great importance.

As an example: asked about the ideal number of customization options to offer in your configurator (solution space), would your answer have been: "As many as possible, since more choice equals happier customers!"? If your answer to this is "yes" then our latest resarch findings might offer some ways to improve your customer satisfaction.

Following Dominik Walcher's insight into the development and outcome of the MC500, our great study of the most important MC companies from around the world, I had the chance to present on the importance of customer integration and how companies of all sizes can profit from proper employment of the concept, as well as some new MC trends of the future.

Next on the agenda was the market panel in which Franz Blach (IDEO), Franz Hölzl (Kaindl) and Wolfgang Gruel (Daimler) gave really interesting and well-received insight how Open Innovation, individualization and co-creation have changed the way they are conducting their business and the ways they found to profit from it:

• An interesting attempt at improvement of working culture were IDEO's working ethics, as Franz Blach outlined them. They are meant to be pretty much contrary to what we are used to in most larger companies these days. Instead of perfectionism and pressure, IDEO deems a culture in which close teamwork, prototypical work (things do not have to be perfect in their first iteration, can evolve and develop), error tolerancy and more fun are the key principles. While there is certainly more to a successful innovation company, this is certainly an approach favorable by many employees.

• Franz Hölzl demonstrated how Kaindl was able to offer a totally new way to produce wooden flooring, printed with individual patterns and colors, in great looking quality. Because of their production technology and business model, they can deliver a much more customized product at a significantly lower price.

• Wolfgang Gruel finally brought up the question if/why it is necessary that privately owned cars are often used in a really inefficient way, standing in the driveway most of the time and usually being too large for most of the time they are used. Daimler has been working on models to counter this development by employing car sharing, car pooling and affordable renting models. Nothing revolutionary new, you will say, but this time it is being done large-scale, by an international company, and not your small start-up next door. It will be interesting to observe whether Daimler can actually change something about the status quo or if the highly valued status symbol "car" will remain untouched by the means of sheer efficiency.

 

Some captures of our speakers. Click to enlarge!

Next: the social media panel, moderated by Paul Blazek: For all those planning to integrate social media into their PR strategy as well, talks by Martina Partl and Clarissa Streichsbier of cyLEDGE were as insightful as Catharina van Delden's summary of her company innosabi's (unserAller, anybody?) work. Renate Gruber gave the finishing presentation about how her venture CupCakes made its way from a traditional food company onto the MC market:

• Partl and Streichsbier pointed out that, while social media in regards to mass customization was nothing new anymore, the combination of social media and open innovation are a perfect match. This is certainly true in so far as open innovation per definition relies on participation and hence any media that is suited to increase awareness is potentially supportive for any OI initiative.
  
  Interestingly they chose Facebook as an example for a customizable information source. The important role of facebook as a customer relationship tool was stressed by all speakers in this panel. Certainly will be interesting to see if/how companies think of now ways to even better employ the platform for their needs. 

During the lunch break, there was time to check the 20+ exhibitors. Some had even set up live demonstrations of their product offers, like Pasterie, supporting us with freshly made pasta or CowCrowd, demoing their lovely wooden pendants, individualized on-location with your own image and/or custom text.

Next: The start-up panel, hosted by MC-blogging colleague Heiko Vogelgesang (egoo.de). Here, Sabine Beck gave an amazing presentation about how her jewlery business Amoonic manages to mix pre-configured and individually customized rings and more in a great portfolio that every manager dreams about: produced entirely on demand, without any significant need for storage space or the risk of wasting materials.

Interestingly, their configurator is not even visible if you enter their website. At first (and actually second) glance you will not notice anything hinting at the possibility to customize a ring. The configuration options do become visible, however, once you have decided upon one of the preconfigured designs. These can then be individualized using a wide variety of options. Possible combinations of gold, silver and gems of all kinds range from 150 to 2.5 million Euro. Certainly something in this for everybody.

However, from my own testing I found it hard to even find out that you can individualize the rings. You have to actually select one before a respective button appears and that could be a serious usability drawback in my opinion as many potential customers might not even recognize the potential of the store. It does, however, explain why about 40% of their sales are actually preconfigured, non-customized rings. Anyways though, with the average customer leaving between 400-500 Euro in their shop, the concept will certainly be profitable - especially since there are very low fix costs.

Next up was Stickvogel, a promissing start-up which specialized in embroiding and etching all kinds of motives into all kinds of goods. Lately they teamed up with major retailer Butlers, offering custom stitching to customers in Butlers' shops. This B2B customization service concept will certainly be exciting to follow over the (hopefully) next years.

Closing presentation of this panel was helt by Carina Schichl and Tanja Sieder, representing their business for unique custom travel guides, Nectar&Pulse, based on insider tips by what they call "soulmates" rather than generalized all-round information. Locals give their best tips for tourists which are then, upon checking, transformed into nicely layouted guides. While this is certainly an interesting idea per se, the issue I see with it is that the product might not be easy to market. As Schichl and Sieder pointed out, their target group originally were younger people. Instead, most of their customers are 30+. While their choice of age clustering is certainly debatable (and lead to one of the mentioned running gags of this conference), this raises the question: do they actually have the right product for the right market? If their average customer's age is above what they expected, they would likely be well advised to adapt to a different kind of information and layout which fits the needs of this target group better.

Next up was the retail panel. Moderator Jochen Krisch (excitingcommerce) did an outstanding job leading through an exciting lineup of big names: Former Bundesliga-athlete Sven Renz showed how his product line of completely customized ski/sports shoes has blessed his company with a yearly growth of 20-50%. However, I expect there to be an even larger potential in this market, seeing how ErtlRenz still "only" sold 2400 pairs of shoe at their peak last year.

Some captures of the exhibition. Click to enlarge!

Claudia Kieserling, winner of this year's much-noticed Million-Dollar-Challenge by Zazzle, gave a short overview of individual shoe manufacturer selve, showing off some of the models availible to women around the world and giving some interesting insight upon questions from the audience. She especially stressed the importance of the customer's shopping experience, which should be more than just pushing a button and receiving a cardboard box.

A great final presenation in this block came from Max Kickinger. His soundbranding company is known for its work with some major companies like Porsche, Swarovski and many more. Commenting on a truly excellent video he explained how companies use clever sound branding to gain the consumers attention - often without him realizing to be guided towards the "right" shelve - and the checkout counter!

Following another networking break, the final panel of the day: The configurator panel, presented and moderated by Alexander Felfering of Graz University, had the technical side of customer integration covered.

Coffee-Break is over, back to the conference room, Alp-Style!

Andreas Falkner (SIEMENS) spoke about the challenges of complex product configuration, especially where multiple dependencies between customizable factors are to be respected (a good example why companies should reffer to an expert instead of just trying to headjump into the MC market).

Marc Herling of Lumo Graphics demonstrated how the use of 3D-configurators can be a blessing for the consumer who can imagine the to-buy product way better than it would be the case with just some images. With more advanced configurators, he says, the concept of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) will more and more be replaced by YGWYW - You [actually] Get What You Want.

On the other hand, developing a really well working, appealing 3D-configurator takes a lot more than the amount of work it costs to "just" shoot said product images. Hence, as with so many cases of exploiting new technological opportunities, its a balancing act and might often not be profitable for small companies.

HYVE's Volker Bilgram was up next. In his "Toolkits for Gamification" speech he explained how and why the aspect of playing - adding features that make the process of configuring/buying a product more fun than just an annoying act of shopping - can contribute to a retailer's sales figures. Again: If done correctly!

To complete this panel, Klaus Pilsl of IndiValue spoke about web based configurators and their part in the customer's shopping experience. His company is about to launch a major new "configurator as a (web) service" -- something that has been tried for many years, but now finally may become true.

My personal conclusions of this year's MC2012:

 (1) MC has great potential to significantly improve a company's sales figures and customer brand loyalty. However, to make it work successfully, more is needed than just to put up a fancy-looking configurator and then wait for clients.

Especially the dialog with the (potential) client is and will be even more important in the future, as more and more companies employ easily accessable social platforms like Facebook to communicate with their crowd. And a lot of both promissing start-ups and established companies could profit immensely from experienced coaching since, as Christoph Ihl had pointed out at the very beginning, even the right choice of customization options (not to be confused with as many options as possible!) can make or break your MC business. 

(2) Mass Customization needs to be less outcome-driven and to be looked upon from a higher, more meta-perspective to develop it further. I believe we know a lot about nice and perhaps even profitable BtoC consumer products. But what about MC services that tackle some of our true global challenges?

(3) Finally, the German MC community really is a nice crowd of great individuals, very eager to collaborate, to share ideas and experiences, and to network!

Looking back on a fantastic conference I truly want to thank everybody who made this possible, may it be as a speaker or a guest, an exhibitor or supportive staff member. Special thanks do go to my dear co-hosts Paul Blazek and of course Dominik Walcher, who did an outstanding job organizing this large event with his team at Salzburg University!

(Most of) our speakers! Click to enlarge!

Conference Review OI2012: Leading Open Innovation Experts Meet in London

Last week I attended what might have been one of most profilic gathering of leading OI scholars in the last decade, the OI2012. In the halls of Imperial College 60 attendees from around the world listened to and vividly discussed the papers presented by the 34 plenary authors.

The conference was organized to prepare for a  special issue  of Research Policy, entitled “Open Innovation: New Insights and Evidence".

My dear collegue Joel West has covered the entire event in great detail on his blog so instead of repeating most of what he has already posted I recommend you head over there to read more about this really productive and colloquial event.

Overall, my impressions of this event:

- Finally, no one talks about "why to innovate openly" anymore, but it was all about "how". Especially the topic of governance of open innovation was really strongly there.

- The open innovation community is very much still focused on traditional forms of collaboration and networking. More recent, informal forms of collaboration do not really play a major role, and also the role of user innovators was not really strongly present at the event.

- We finally get much more empirical, large scale data on open innovation -- helping us to explain patterns and broader "promising practices" in the field.

- And on a personal side: The OI community is really a very nice group of scholars, and the four hosts, Henry Chesbrough, Joel West, Ammon Salter, and Wim Vanhaverbeke did a great job in preparing the conference and providing detailed feedback on each paper. A great and very much appreciated service!

 

Wrap Up: Top Technology Clusters Mid-Term Event: Open Innovation in the Greater EMR Area

Few weeks ago I wrote about the then-upcoming mid-term even of the Top Technology Cluster, an initiative started by companies and institutions from the Euregio Meuse-Rheine to foster cross-border colaboration between SMEs (and potentially additional larger consortia partners).

Last friday the event headed off here in Aachen. About 130 participants representing companies, academia and NGOs from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany came together to follow the presentations which were charmingly moderated by Simone van Trier.

After the official welcome and interoducing words by our city's mayor, Marcel Philipp, my dear guest Prof. Joel West gave a comprehensive overview over the term "Open Innovation", it's roots and implications.

Following his presentation I helt my own talk about how OI can impact the research and development opportunities of SME and help them to discover completely new solutions to problems they might have never been able to solve without the crowd.

The first block was completed by Jingshu Du's discussion of the impact of OI on SMEs in the Euregio.

In the following interview that Simone van Trier conducted with AGIT representative Ralf Meyer and Theo Hommels from the Industriebank LIOF it became obvious which great opportunities the TTC initiative offers to SME in the Euregio.

Companies having promissing ideas for cooperative business and research but lacking sufficient funds to kick off can apply for innovation vouchers, worth 5.000 Euro each. Furthermore, more though-out consortial cooperation projects can receive grants up to 250.000 Euro under the Bordercrossing Cluster Stimulus program.

Walking the talk, two innovative companies were awarded the very first two vouchers live on stage.

After a short refreshment break we headed into the second part of the conference. Five innovative companies from the Euregio each got 10 minutes on-stage to present their business and it's revolutionary idea as well as problems they are facing in bringing the product to market.

These five managers (Jeroen Rondeel, Pulseform, Rolf Call, Irmato Industrial Solutions, Edwin Currie, Kriya Materials, Ulrich Wirtz, WSE ltd. and Dirk De Keukeleere, AnSem) then assembled on stage to get into a lively discussion with Simone van Trier and the audience.

During this debate it came across that many companies do already use OI to support their business growth (even though they do not necessarily recognize that there is an actual term, OI, for their activities).

However, one issue entrepreneurs are often facing appears to be the cultural differences between people in the three neighbouring countries. While these can be overcome in most cases, language and different levels of openness towards new, external cooperation proposals do at least cause a certain delay and require dedicated work before would-be partners can actually dive into the core materia of their potential common venture.

The TTC vouchers and grants have been seen as a great help to get some new initiatives started and up to speed. The combination of the easier to get vouchers, fostering research of possibilities, and the actually incubating stimulus grant are perceived as an incentive and support to look into new possibilities cross-border.

Overall it was a successful, very nice event in a familiar atmosphere. Despite the unusually sunny weather and the heat that came with it, many good and interesting points were debated with a cold head and in the concluding get-together, lots of new contacts were made, opinions exchanged and new ventures discussed.

I am certainly looking forward to the next TTC event and to see how the program will develop until then. If you happen to work for an SME in the Euregio, the TTC website might be worth to stop by for you for further information.

Featured Research: Collaborating with Customer Communities: Lessons from the Lego Group

Our series on featured research articles continues. Today I want to recommend a paper by fellow researchers Yun Mi Antorini (Aarhus University) and Albert M. Muñiz, Jr. (DePaul University, Chicago) as well as Tormod Askildsen (LEGO Group). They tell the story of how LEGO learned to use sophisticated crowd interaction for mutual benefit and explain some core rules of co-creation.

Collaborating With Customer Communities: Lessons From the LEGO Group

By: Yun Mi Antorini, Albert M. Muñiz, Jr.and Tormod Askildsen

Availible at: MIT Sloan Review

 

Lego users have a long tradition of innovation and sharing their innovations with one another — activities that the Internet has made much easier.Long before evreyone was talking about co-creation and user  communities, LEGO fans had "Lugnet", a universe of niche communities of people sharing their creations in LEGO.

As Lego managers became more aware of innovations by the company’s adult fans, the managers realized that at least some of the adult fans’ ideas would be interesting to the company’s core target market of children.

Historically, Lego was an extremely private company that tightly controlled its products and intellectual property. The company’s public position was “We don’t accept unsolicited ideas.”

However, things began to change in the late 1990s following the introduction of a new line of kits called Lego Mindstorms, which contained software and hardware to create small customizable and programmable robots. Sophisticated users found ways to hack into the code and adapt the new products; they talked about their innovations on independent websites.

This presented Lego management with a choice: either pursue legal action against the hackers or invite users to collaborate on new products and applications. The company concluded that litigation would be difficult and costly — and also that there could be significant advantages to collaborating with users.

Through trial and error, Lego has developed a solid understanding of what it takes to build and maintain profitable and mutually beneficial collaborations with users.

In their paper, Antorini, Muniz and Askildsen examine the emergence of Lego’s user communities, how management’s involvement with user groups has evolved and the five core principles that Lego has formulated for successful interaction with its user groups:

• To be clear abour rules and expectations
• To ensure a win-win
• To recognize that outsiders are not insiders
• Not to expect one size to fit all (different approaches/ platforms might be needed for different audiences) and
• To be as open as possible

Read the full article at MIT Sloan Management Review!

MC2012: Connect on Facebook, Follow on Twitter!

Three day left and counting: June 28th our major event of this month, the MC2012, largest conference on Mass Customization and Open Innovation in German language, will head off with the  - already sold out - business workshop. There are still tickets left for the conference/ exhibition on friday, though! So if you are going to be in (or near) Austria on the 29th of this month, get your reservation here and meet us in Salzburg!

We would also be glad to exchange with you on all topics MC and OI via the official conference Facebook page!

And even if you can not come visit us in person you can still stay in the loop by following @MCSalzburg, the offical conference Twitter account.

Looking forward to see you on the MC2012!

Contest: Siemens Student Award Germany: How Can You Upgrade Our Aging Community into a Zero Emission Society?

Another interesting contest by German technology major Siemens: The Siemens Student Award 2012 has just headed off.

Siemens has a tradition of trying to find solutions for major problems that our society is already or might be facing soon. These are usually questions concerning the entirety of the global population, like identifying sustainable resources or how the city of the future could be more resource efficient. With this global relevance in mind it is obviously a good idea to have those concerned participate in the finding of a solution. 

One such attempt to create new, future-ready concepts for our planet is the Siemens Student Award, a crowdsourced idea contest to find and discuss new thoughts to solve old (yet relevant than never) questions by the help of students. 

After two very successful iterations in the Middle East and Brasil, where a total of nearly 12.000 registered users gave input on and discussed over 1.000 unique ideas, this year Siemens has decided to put the focus of their third contest, realized in cooperation with German crowdsourcing expert HYVE, on its country of origin, Germany.

From now on until the 15th of July, students enrolled in German universities are invited to take on the challenge to find answers to one of the most pressing issues of our times:

How to upgrade our aging infrastructure to help create a zero emission society?

Urban infrastructures, factories, buildings and networks do not meet the energy efficiency needs of the future. How would you design creative and innovative solutions to meet these challenges?

The entire contest is hosted on a dedicated contest website where all ideas can be submitted, reviewed, commented and discussed by the community. Siemens experts will pick the best 10 ideas who's creators will be invited to present their concepts infront of a jury at the award ceremony in Berlin, Germany.

Prizes for the three winners are really generous: 20.000, 10.000 and 5.000 Euro for places 1,2 and 3, respectively. Furthermore, these contests are usually a great opportunity to impress the human resources department and maybe get one of the much sought-after internships or trainee positions at Siemens...

All details about the contest can be found on the official website.

MC2012 Exhibitor Preview: Hyve: Consumer Integration For Maximum Creative Power

Here another preview of our exhibitors at this year's edition of the MC2012, the upcoming German language conference on mass customization and co-creation.

Since the conference will be entirely in German language, so will be this post.

 

Hyve: Ideen finden, formulieren, verdichten, verwerten

Neben der eigentlichen Konferenz und dem Expertenworkshop bietet die MC-Conference Unternehmen die Möglichkeit, ihre innovativen Konzepte einer breiten Fachöffentlichkeit zu präsentieren. In den Räumlichkeiten der FH Salzburg stehen dafür großzügige Räumlichkeiten zur Verfügung, in denen wir auch in diesem Jahr wieder eine Reihe interessanter Aussteller begrüßen dürfen.

Besonders freuen wir uns über den Besuch der Münchener Innovationsagentur HYVE, die die Konferenz neben einem Vortrag zum Thema "Toolkits with Gamification" auch um eine eigene Ausstellung zu Kundeninteraktionssystemen bereichern wird.

HYVE unterstützt seit nunmehr 12 Jahren Unternehmen unterschiedlichster Branchen dabei, neue Lösungsansätze und Innovationsideen zu finden, in Worten greifbar zu machen, weiterzuentwickeln und in reale Produkte zu verwandeln.

Dabei ist der Name Programm: Hyve bedeutet Bienenstock und kaum ein Wort charakterisiert die größte Ideenbörse der Welt treffender als dieses. Das Internet vernetzt nicht nur Computer, es verbindet Menschen. Menschen mit Träumen, Wissen und konkreten Ideen zu allen nur erdenklichen Lebens- und damit Geschäftsfeldern. Die Chancen stehen also gut, dass die Lösung vieler Probleme, die Ihrem Team gerade Kopfzerbrechen bereiten, irgendwo im Netz bereits existiert - und sei es nur als Expertenwissen, das lediglich mit Ihrer Herausforderung in Verbindung gebracht werden müsste.

Die Größe und Komplexität des Internets erschwert aber leider auch die Kontaktaufnahme mit denjenigen Nutzern, die das benötigte Wissen oder innovative Ideen zum eigenen Produkt beitragen könnten.

HYVE bietet als Mittler zwischen den Bedarfen der Industrie und Wirtschaft sowie der Kreativ- und Wissensbasis der Internet-Community Lösungen, um die Intelligenz (und Emotion) des "Bienenstocks" zu filtern, zu verdichten und zu einer Problemlösung zu formen. Dabei stellt das Unternehmen alle notwendigen Dienstleistungen zur Lösungsfindung  bereit: von der klassischen Marktforschung über Ideenwettbewerbe und -Management, Lead User Ansätze, die Arbeit mit Communities, spezialisierte IT-Konzepte bis zum Industrial Design.

Nach einer Vielzahl erfolgreicher Projekte für und mit internationalen Partnern aller Branchen verfügt HYVE über einen enormen Erfahrungsschatz und umfassende Kenntnis der besten Methoden zur Unterstützung des Innovationsmanagements. Unternehmen, die für aktuelle oder zukünftige Projekte auf wirklich kompetente Unterstützung zurückgreifen wollen, finden in HYVE einen hervorragenden Ansprechpartner.

HYVE und viele weitere spannende Aussteller präsentieren sich auf der MC2012. Mehr zu Ausstellung, Workshop und Konferenz auf der offiziellen Konferenzwebsite.

MC2012 Exhibitor Preview: UnserAller: Taking Care of Your Crowdsourcing Endeavors

Did you already book your ticket for this year's edition of the MC2012, the upcoming German language conference on mass customization and co-creation? I am looking forward to meeting you again (or for the first time, respectively).  To help you pass the time until the conference heads off on June 28th, here is another little preview on one of our exhibitors.

Since the conference will be entirely in German language, so will be this post.

 

UnserAller: Crowdsourcing für alle

Neben der eigentlichen Konferenz und dem Expertenworkshop bietet die MC-Conference Unternehmen die Möglichkeit, ihre innovativen Konzepte einer breiten Fachöffentlichkeit zu präsentieren. In den Räumlichkeiten der FH Salzburg stehen dafür großzügige Räumlichkeiten zur Verfügung, in denen wir auch in diesem Jahr wieder eine Reihe interessanter Aussteller begrüßen dürfen.

Für alle, die zur Unterstützung ihrer Innovationsarbeit auf Co-Creation, also die Integration potenzieller Kunden und anderer Interessierter in die eigene Entwicklungstätigkeit setzen, haben wir in diesem Jahr einen ganz besonders interessanten Tipp: die Crowdsourcing-Experten von UnserAller. 

Dass Crowdsourcing ein enormes Potenzial hat, nicht nur neue Käufer auf die eigenen Produkte aufmerksam zu machen, sondern auch die richtigen Produkte richtig - also Zielgruppenkonform - zu entwickeln, ist mittlerweile kein Geheimnis mehr. Weltmarktführer der verschiedensten Branchen haben die Chancen erkannt und betreiben teils enormen Aufwand um diejenigen in die Produktentwicklung einzubinden, die ihre Wünsche letztlich besser kennen als jeder Marktforscher: die Kunden selbst. 

Aber auch mit kleinem Budget lassen sich durch Crowdsourcing messbare, die Erwartungen oft um ein Vielfaches übertreffende Ergebnisse erzielen. Vorausgesetzt, man weiß, wie es richtig geht. 

Ein Kernaspekt beim Einstieg in die Welt des Crowdsourcing ist die Etablierung eines geeigneten Kommunikationskanals zur "Crowd". Diesen zu konzipieren, softwareseitig zu entwickeln und zu betreuen erfordert Expertenwissen, Erfahrung und Ressourcen und ist eine der größten Hürden die es auf dem Weg zu offener Innovation zu überwinden gilt. 

Click to enlarge!

Für alle, die nicht über eine eigene Marketingabteilung mit entsprechenden Fachkenntnissen verfügen, bietet die Münchener Agentur Innosabi eine spezielle Plattform, die mit einem Rundum-Sorglos-Paket die realisierung individueller Crowdsourcing-Projekte unterstützt: UnserAller.de. 

Unternehmen jeder Größe können nach Buchung eines auf ihre individuellen Anforderungen passenden Paketes konkrete Produkte zur Diskussion stellen oder Vorgaben machen, nach denen die Community (mit ca. 15.000 Mitgliedern eine der Großen in Deutschland) Vorschläge und Wünsche zu Neuentwicklungen äußern kann.

Die technische Umsetzung ist dabei angenehm einfach und übersichtlich gestaltet. Je nach gewähltem Leistungsumfang kann sie in die eigene Website, Facebook-Präsenz oder die UnserAller-Community eingebunden werden, können Marketingmaterialien bestellt oder eine besonders prominente Projektpräsentation ausgewählt werden.

Produkte, die in Zusammenarbeit mit der UnserAller-Community entwickelt wurden, können auf Wunsch im eigenen Onlineshop zum Kauf angeboten werden. Darüber hinaus bietet Innosabi auch eine individuelle Projektberatung, ein Angebot, von dem besonders solche Unternehmen profitieren können, die Crowdsourcing bisher noch nicht (intensiv) genutzt haben.

Click to enlarge!

Für die (Käufer)Community bieten sich ebenfalls interessante Anreize zur Mitarbeit: konstruktive Beiträge, Verbesserungs- und Produktvorschläge werden über ein Punktesystem honoriert, Punkte lassen sich beispielsweise beim Einkauf im UnserAller-Shop in Rabatte umsetzen. 

Ein interessanter Ansatz ist auch das Vorschlagsportal, über das jeder Interessierte neue spannende Projekte vorschlagen kann. Wer sich also immer schon gwundert hat, wieso es ein bestimmtes Produkt noch nicht gibt, kann hier zum Erfinder werden.  

 Innosabi informiert auf dem eigenen und dem UnserAller-Blog regelmäßig über neue Projete und interessante Trends aus der Welt der Co-Creation. Mehr Informationen über die UnserAller-Plattform finden sich auch auf in der FAQ-Sektion der Projektwebsite.

Innosabi, die Köpfe hinter UnserAller, und viele weitere spannende Aussteller präsentieren sich auf der MC2012. Mehr zu Ausstellung, Workshop und Konferenz auf der offiziellen Konferenzwebsite.

Event: Top Technology Clusters Mid-Term Event: Open Innovation in the Greater EMR Area - Funding opportunitiues for SMEs!

The month of june is jam-packed with events for the OI/ MC enthusiast. While most of these are intended for an audience from around the world (or, at least, the German speaking world), the one I want to present to you today is both local and multinational at the same time, the Top Technology Cluster's OI-event on the 28th of June here in Aachen, Germany!

In 1976, some regions of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, all located rather close to each other's border, started working together economically and scientifically in what is called the Greater Euregio Meuse-Rheine. Since then, many fruitful joint projects including companies and research institutions from all three countries have been established.

To further promote this cross-border cooperation, 19 partners (companies, scientific institutions, NGOs, governmental agencies...) from the Euregio have founded the Top-Technology-Cluster (TTC). SME from the Euregio are offered several supportive services in establishing cross-border projects with SME (and potential large partners as well) from the other two countries. SME can profit from networking events, individual advice and support for companies (business development support) as well as financial support.

One very interesting offer is the so called "Innovation Voucher", a financial grant of up to 5.000 Euro intended to support SME in the very early stages of cross-border consortial engagement, like feasability studies, patent investigations, laboratory rent, prototyping and the necessary administrative undertakings to set up a consortia.

Furthermore, TTC offers non-repayable grants for innovative projects from the Euregio. Applying consortia have to consist of at least two SME from two different Euregio-countries. Other SME and larger academic, scientific or economic partners may be part of the consortia but given the very nature of the funding project the participation of suited SME is mandatory. Interested ventures can appy for the "Cross-border Cluster Stimulus" (German: Grenzüberschreitender Cluster Stimulus, GCS)) and participate in a contest to be awarded up to 250.000 Euro. Requirement, though: consortial partners are obliged to invest at least the same amount of money from their own funds.

By now TTC and its partners are looking back on 18 months of rather successful promotion of cross-border cooperations. To give all involved parties an overview of the work that has been done and the goals that have been accomplished, TTC will hold its Mid-term-event on June 28th, here in my home city of Aachen (which happens to be located just in the center of the Euregio).

On top of this, TTC has decided to put the main focus of the event on the topic of open innovation and its implications and possible applications for innovative companies in the Euregio. Unfortunately, Germany is no different from most other countries in so far as OI is known and recognized as a valuable concept but not yet put into action by as many companies as could be. Especially SME are often hindered by an information-barrier ("how to") and lacking experts to establish a working OI structure within their operations.

To overcome this obstacle, TTC has invited several regional and einternational experts to give inspiring insights into successful OI as well as ideas and processes that can help SME to improve their own innovation capacity and make cross-border cooperations even more fruitful.

Speakers will include my dear collegue Prof. Joel West (Keck Inst. of Appl. Sciences), Jingshu Du (University of Hasselt) and also myself. Futhermore, participants will be presented a number of business cases to learn about working OI from practical application.

After a (hopefully lively) discussion the event will be rounded off by a social get-together in  which I hope to have some interesting exchange with those of you who will be there. If you are going to be in the region on the 28th I would be glad to see you there! Registration is still open until june 22nd.

More information about the TTC and it's funding programs, the Euregio, the event's agenda and more can be found on the official website.

Conference Review: European Open Innovation Summit in Brussels, May 2012

I spoke about our "market for open innovation" study at the European Open Innovation Summit in Brussels last week.This was a new conference for me, but it was a good platform for exchange and discussion, and many of the usual suspects from the field were there.

Here are a few observations from the presentations at this event I liked most.

 

PSION: Open Source Mobility

 

Presentation helt by Todd Boone, Dirctor, Open Innovation. PSION
 is a Toronto based company producing special-purpose handheld computers (inventory taking, logistics, etc.). After feeling stronger and stronger competition, they changed their business model from an internal closed R&D process to a modular open innovation approach.

And they are utilizing a toolkit for user innovation as their open innovation tool. Indeed, PSION is one of the very few companies that really out this method of OI into practice.

The present toolkit allows anyone to build new hardware products by combining pre-existing modules into new application. Anyone in the community can get the CAD files of all products and components. It also allows external people to integrate PSION's hardware components with external components.

The outcome for PSION:  Allowing to create new business opportunities very flexibly, especially in fields where the company had no previous experience. Take the medical device industry. Here, their open plattform allowed a fast cooperation with medical company that brought industry knowledge and customer needs, and could use the toolkit to easily develop a new device which now is co-marketed. Psion alone never could have entered this market easily.

Outcomes:

• Get new markets and new revenue models
• Create new products with higher margins, as these are out of the established competition
• Get differentiated, distributed products with faster time to market

Challenges:

• Convince all employees that open is not evil
• Get board to accept that they do not know where all target markets are; and what these markets want (tough insight to get for board / Psion's stratgey people),
• Competing philosphies: "We want to be innovative" (but in a domain we know) is offset by "We've never done that before ..." (we don't know how to handle it).
• Opening the business culture: Establish open attitude to listen and respond

 

LEGO: Making Open Innovation a Strategy at Lego

 

Presentation helt by Erik Hansen, Senior Director, Technology Innovation. LEGO since long is known as one of the companies that really take user innovation and lead user ideas seriously. With their new OI initiative, they want to expand this perspective from user innovation to technical and process innovation, too.

4 Value pools shall be tapped into by formal OI initiative

• Internal talent
• Entrepreneurs (lead users)
• Kids and AFoLs (creative customers)
• Companies and other profess. institutions (beyond a few established partnerships like with MII Media Lab)

4 pilot products

• Technical OI in the production area -> can we solve "unsolvable" problems in our manufactuing process by extenral input? (e.g. electricity, statische AUFLADUNG)
• improving the core LEGO experience through crowdsourcing (= building box set for the first time and then deconstructing it and building something again -> can we here create service innovation by crowdsourcing?
• A HR platform for internal OI
• Open Innovation platform (i.e. a Lego Factory 2.0 ?? -> build an established dialogue for customers to share their ideas and experiences)

 

NOKIA: Idea Crowdsourcing

 

Presentation helt by Pia Erkinheimo, Head of Crowdsourcing,.NOKIA's ideaproject.com, an online idea contest originating from this hypethesis: Who provides more value? A bored professional or an enthusiastic amateur?

Structured around different contest, e.g. ideas for a mobile micro-task platform, which git 900+ ideas.

In total Nokia got:

• 11,000 ideas
• 20,000 community members
• 21,000 "likings" of the community members
• 1,660,000 page visits of 10-60 min. per single visit

 

Under Armour: Being Open as Part of the Business Model: Trust for Open Innovation

 

Presentation helt by Jason Berns , Director of Innovation. Under Armour gave a very good presentation on the need of the US sports brand to build trust and be a good partner in open innovation. Jason shared great insight how the spirit of "sportsmenship" at UA is driving their open inovation initiative with smaller companies and individuals.

While it was inisghtful for me at this conference that managers in OI today are not (just) talking any longer about the "why" and "how" of open innovation, but much more about open innovation readiness, internal structurs, policies, capabilities etc., it was Jason's presentation that really reminded us the in the end the core success factor of OI will be to create a win-win partnership.

Panels of the MC2012: (6) Developments in Configurators and Co-Design Toolkits

As promissed in my post about this year's MC2012 conference we will briefly feature each of the seven panels here. For more information on the conference please see the official conference website. Note that this event is entirely held in German language, so will be the description of this panel.

 

In diesem Panel stellen Konfigurationsenexperten den State-of-the-Art vor und definieren die Entwicklungen der Zukunft

Prof. Dr. Alexander Felfernig ist international anerkannter Experte für Konfigurationssysteme und Professor für Angewandte Softwareentwicklung an der TU Graz. Er ist Autor zahlreicher Publikationen zum Thema und war 2010 Co-Editor des "International Journal of Mass Customization, Special Issue on Configuration." Auf der MC 2012 führt er in das Thema Konfigurationssysteme ein und moderiert das Panel.

Dr. Andreas Falkner ist Senior Research Scientist bei der Siemens AG Österreich und konzernweiter Experte für "Konfigurierung komplexer Produkte", wie z.B. elektronische Eisenbahnsicherungsanlagen. Dr. Falkner’s Lösungen können für den kommerziellen MC-Bereich als Lead-User-Anwendungen gesehen werden, die den Benchmark für die Zukunft setzen. In seinem Vortrag gibt er Einblicke in diese Welt der High-End-Konfiguratoren.

Marc Herling ist Geschäftsführer der Lumo Graphics GmbH, Hersteller von 3D-Produktkonfigurationen für namhafte Hersteller wie Mercedes Benz, ThyssenKrupp, Festo u.a. In seinem Vortrag "Umsetzung eines erfolgreichen 3D-Konfigurationsmanagements" erläutert er die Bedeutung und Herausforderungen von 3D-Visualisierungen anhand praktischer Beispiele.

Dr. Johann Füller ist Vorstand der Hyve AG und Ass.Prof. an der Universität Innsbruck. Seit über 10 Jahren hat sich die Münchner Innovationsagentur Hyve auf das Thema Kundenintegration spezialisiert. Bislang wurden hunderte Projekte mit den unterschiedlichsten Kunden (KMU, Weltmarken, Ministerien etc.) im In- und Ausland durchgeführt. In seinem Vortrag reflektiert er die Entwicklungen der Branche und der eingesetzten Interaktionssysteme, wobei er konkret auf den Trend "Gamification" eingeht.

Klaus Pilsl ist Gründer und Geschäftsführer der oberösterreichischen Softwareagentur IndiValue. Unter dem Namen Combeenation wird derzeit eine Internetplattform entwickelt, die es MC-Unternehmen ermöglicht, Ihren Produktkonfigurator online selbst einzurichten (= Konfigurator für Konfiguratoren). Klaus Pilsl wird in seinem Vortrag über die Besonderheiten seines Systems und seines Geschäftsmodells berichten.  

Im anschließenden Abschlusspanel werden die Ergebnisse der vorhergehenden Panels von den Panelmoderatoren zusammenfassend reflektiert und ein Ausblick auf die Zukunft gewagt.

Panels of the MC2012: (5) Retail Strategies for Mass Customization - Online, Offline and Hybrid

As promissed in my post about this year's MC2012 conference we will briefly feature each of the seven panels here. For more information on the conference please see the official conference website. Note that this event is entirely held in German language, so will be the description of this panel.

 

MC ist kein reines Online-Konzept. In diesem Panel werden alternative Retail-Ansätze vorgestellt

Jochen Krisch ist einer der profiliertesten Experten für E-Commerce im deutschsprachigen Raum, Veranstalter der Konferenzreihe exceed und Herausgeber des Branchenblogs exciting commerce, der „Pflichtlektüre“ für alle E-Commerce-Schaffenden. Jochen Krisch beschäftigt sich seit Jahren mit zukunftsweisenden Geschäftsmodellen, Retailinnovationen und Mass Customization. Auf der MC 2012 moderiert der das Retailpanel.

Sven Renz war aktiver Bundesliga-Triathlet und gründete zusammen mit Ehefrau Martina Ertl den "Skischuhcustomizer" ertlrenz. Das Unternehmen verfolgt eine Brick-and-Mortar Vertriebsstrategie, wobei die Kundenmaße mit moderner Scantechnologie erfasst und die Schuhe in Handarbeit gefertigt werden. Das Sortiment wurde unlängst durch Trekking-, Lauf- und Golfschuhe ergänzt. Sven Renz berichtet über seine Erfahrungen und den Zuspruch vieler (z.T. sehr bekannter) Kunden ... 

Claudia Kieserling gehört zu den absoluten Pionieren der internationalen MC-Szene. Bereits 2001 eröffnete sie ihr Angebot für individualisierbare Damenschuhe. Hauptvertriebskanal von selve sind die Filialen in München und London ergänzt durch den Online-Shop. Im März 2012 gewann Claudia Kieserling die begehrte "Million Dollar Zazzle Innovation Challenge". In ihrem Vortrag spricht sie über die Möglichkeiten dieser neuen Kooperation.

Max Kickinger ist Komponist und "Soundbrander". Seit längerem ist zu beobachten, dass Immer mehr Marken ihren visuellen Auftritt durch Hörmarken ergänzen. In zunehmendem Maß ermöglichen es Unternehmen ihren Kunden auch, sich markennahe Sounds selbst zu kreieren bzw. wird das Einkaufserlebnis durch kundenspezifische Musikeinspielungen personalisiert, was dem Geschäftserfolg meßbar zuträglich ist. Max lässt uns die neuen Möglichkeiten hören.

Book Review: Brand Together: How co-creation generates innovation and re-energizes brands

Brand Together: How co-creation generates innovation and re-energizes brands 

By Nicholas Ind, Clare Fuller and Charles Trevail

Publisher: Kogan Page, ISBN-10: 0749463252

Availible via Amazon as paperback and kindle version

 

There already are many books on co-creation, but a team of people from UK based consultancy Promise has written a great new book that provides a very practice-focused perspective.  Promise has much experience in organizing co-creation for companies, and in this books it seems that they really share their tricks and learnings. 

Hence I really liked Part II (Part I is a general introduction into the topic, not bad, but nothing new), which provides hand-on advise along all stages of a co-creation project. 

The focus of the book is the large-scale global enterprise -- the typical client of Promise. Hence, there also is quite some emphasize on branding and co-creation of a meaning of a brand. Nice!

The official book website has more information about the book, the authors and even some exclusive content preview. 

Panels of the MC2012: (4) Trends, Promising Startups and Upcoming Opportunities in MC

As promissed in my post about this year's MC2012 conference we will briefly feature each of the seven panels here. For more information on the conference please see the official conference website. Note that this event is entirely held in German language, so will be the description of this panel.

 

Im Startup Panel stellen junge Unternehmen ihre Erfahrungen und Erfolgsstrategien auf dem MC Markt vor

Heiko Vogelgesang betreibt seit 2008 den mittlerweile meistgelesensten deutschsprachigen Blog zum Thema Customization und Personalisierung. Auf egoo wird regelmäßig über die neusten Entwicklungen in diesen Bereichen berichtet. Heiko Vogelgesang ist ein ausgewiesener Kenner der MC-Startup-Szene, steht mit den meisten Gründern in persönlichem Kontakt und moderiert das Startuppanel auf der MC 2012.

Sabine Beck und Olga Dick sind Gründerinnen des Startups amoonic, bei dem Kunden online Schmuckstücke von ausgesuchten Designern wählen und individuell gestalten können. In ihrem Vortrag "Unser Weg zum besten Schmuck-Startup" berichten die beiden von der Entstehungsgeschichte des Unternehmens, von der Wahrnehmung von "customized Schmuck" im Onlinesegment und von der Wichtigkeit eines guten Teams.

Martin Meuser ist Geschäftsführer des Konfiguratorenherstellers customate sowie des Autofoliencustomizers carglam. In seinem Vortrag erläutert der "parallel entrepreneur" Meuser die Geschäftsmodelle seiner Gründungen und die besonderen Herausforderungen für Gründer in diesen Geschäftsfeldern.

Carina Schichl und Tanja Sieder studierten Design und Produktmanagement an der FH Salzburg und gründeten 2010 das Startup Nectar & Pulse, das anspruchsvoll designte Reiseführer bestehend aus Ratschlägen ausgesuchter "Soulmates", die auch online konfigurierbar sind, anbietet. In letzter Zeit wurde viel über dieses Startup berichtet; auch waren die beiden Gründerinnen Vortragende auf einer TEDX-Konferenz. Sie sprechen über Ihre Erfahrungen und die anstehenden Herausforderungen.
 

Panels of the MC2012: (3) Social Media as a Tool for Mass Customization and Co-Creation

As promissed in my post about this year's MC2012 conference we will briefly feature each of the seven panels here. For more information on the conference please see the official conference website. Note that this event is entirely held in German language, so will be the description of this panel.

 

Das Social Media Panel behandelt vertieft den erfolgreichen Einsatz von Social Media bei MC-Unternehmen

Dr. Paul Blažek ist Mitveranstalter der MC 2012 und Initiator der weltweit größten MC-Konfiguratorensammlung Configurator Database. In Wien leitet er die von ihm gegründete Digital Full Service-Agentur cyLEDGE. Seit Jahren beschäftigt er sich mit dem Themen Mass Customization, Konfigurationsysteme und Social Media. Auf der MC 2012 moderiert Paul Blažek das New Media Panel.

M. Partl und C. Streichsbier sind Social Media Expertinnen bei cyLEGE. In ihrem Vortrag erläutern sie die neuesten Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet und konkretisieren die fruchtvolle Verbindung von Mass Customization und Social Media am Beispiel des aktuellen cyLEDGE Projekts CowCrowd, bei dem die intagible Welt der virtuellen Communities auf originelle Art und Weise greifbar gemacht wird.

Catharina van Delden ist Gründerin der Open-Innovation-Agentur innosabi. Ihr Startup, wie besonders ihre Crowdsourcing-Plattform unserAller, wurde in den letzten Jahren mit zahlreichen Preisen ausgezeichnet. Auf unserAller können Unternehmen (bekanntestes Beispiel: dm) zusammen mit Ihren Kunden Produkte und Dienstleistungen entwickeln. Catharina van Delden spricht über die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre und die Wichtigkeit der Einbindung von Social Media in ihr Geschäftsmodell.

 Renate Gruber ist ausgebildete Grafikdesignerin und Österreichs erste professionelle Cake Designerin. Sie sammelte zunächst mehrere Jahre Erfahrung mit dem Online-Customizer kekswerkstatt.at und betreibt in Wien nun seit eineinhalb Jahren ihr eigenes CupCake- und Designtortengeschäft. In Ihrem Vortrag spricht sie über die vielfältigen Möglichkeiten von Social Media zur Bekanntmachung ihres Angebots.

Panels of the MC2012: (2) Global Brands Going Towards Mass Customization and Co-Creation

As promissed in my post about this year's MC2012 conference we will briefly feature each of the seven panels here. For more information on the conference please see the official conference website. Note that this event is entirely held in German language, so will be the description of this panel.

 

Bei diesem Panel liegt der Schwerpunkt auf dem Thema Kundenintegration bei großen Marken

Franz Blach ist seit 2009 bei IDEO und zuständig für die Bereiche Communication & Interaction Design sowie Brand Strategy. Er ist Träger zahlreicher internationaler Designpreise und Gründer zweier Designagenturen. Zu seinen Kunden zählen Marken wie Novartis, McDonalds, Ravensburger und Chiquita. In seinem Vortrag wird er auf die besondere Rolle des Kunden im IDEO-Designansatz (design thinking) sowie über die openIDEO-Initiative sprechen.

Franz Hölzl ist Marketingleiter bei Kaindl Flooring, einem der weltweit führenden Unternehmen für Laminat- und Holzfußböden, mit Standorten in Salzburg und Lungötz. Durch Investition in flexible Fertigungsverfahren ist es seit einigen Jahren möglich, Fußböden zu individualisieren. In seinem Vortrag berichtet Herr Hölzl über die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre und wagt einen Blick in die Zukunft.

Wolfgang Gruel ist Business Innovator bei der Daimler AG in Stuttgart, wo er unter anderem die Projekte car2go und car2together mitbetreut. Daimler ist nicht nur durch sein umfangreiches Fahrzeug-Customization-Angebot bekannt, sondern es werden zunehmend auch Aktivitäten unternommen, die Kunden und Mitarbeiter aktiv in den Innovationsprozess miteinzubeziehen. Wolfgang Gruel erläutert in seinem Vortrag die verschiedenen Bereich der Kundenintegration bei Daimler.

MC2012: 10th Edition of Our German-language MC Community Conference: Profiting from Customer Integration

Note: This conference will be held in German language. Find much more info in German language here.

On June 28/29, the German speaking mass customization community will again assemble in the city of fine arts, Salzburg, Austria, for the MC2012, the 10th edition of our German-language mass customization and co-creation community meeting. 

Created and organized by my dear collegues Dominik Walcher (University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg) and Paul Blažek (founder/ CEO of cyLEDGE and initiator of the Configurator Database) as well as myself, this edition will be all about strategies to profit from customer integration of various kinds. 

The conference will be heading off on Thursday, 28th of June with an intensive workshop conducted by Dominik Walcher and Paul Blažek on principles and practical application of MC and OI. Following the demonstration of the concepts by use of numerous case studies, participants will be invited to and assisted in practicing their newly gained knowledge by employing it on a chosen real life case. This workshop is especially interesting for those not very firm with the MC concept yet and can be booked individually from the second conference day (29th)

On the following day, Friday 29th, the main event will take place in the halls of the University of Applied Knowledge of Salzburg.

Divided into seven panels we will (try to) cover all main aspects of (applied) Mass Customization and Open Innovation. Each panel will consist of presentations by three to four experts from science and business with a strong stressing of professional practicioners from successful MC companies. The will share some of their knowledge, experiences and invaluable tips & tricks on the topics of

• Brands
• New media
• Startups
• Retail and
• Configurators

While these are the main topics, other aspects of successful MC/ OI employment will be part of the presentations as well. As you can see the conference will adress a broad range of aspects to be considered when setting up or expanding one's own innovation strategy, ranging from the underlying design to technical realization, creating a successful brand around the business and finally get customers to actually buy the product. 

In addition, we are also organizing an exhibition with numerous MC companies demonstrating their offering.If you are interested in presenting your (MC/ OI/ Co- Creation related) company or institution as part of the exhibition, just send an email to Dominik Walcher for more information on free ehibition space and the possibility to become a conference sponsor with special ways to present yourself.

Special offer:

• Early bird conference rate: Use the early bird ticket offer until the 31st of May.
• MC2012-MC500 Bundle: Get the MC 500 study at a special reduced price. Please do contact Dominik Walcher to inquire about this special offer as well!

In some upcoming posts, we will present the individual panels and speakers in more detail, so stay tuned.

I would be glad to meet you all in person there and discuss the latest development and future perspectives of MC and OI in person! All further info on the MC 2012 conference website.

Winners Announced: Idea Bird Contest by Deutsche Telekom came to a Conclusion

Some weeks ago I posted about Ideabird, q large scale ideation contest on M2M-Communication hosted by Deutsche Telekom, Deloitte, Hyve and RWTH Aachen. Last Friday, the jury decided on the winning ideas. 

As you may remember, the contest's intend was to to create awareness for the positive effects that M2M applications can have for life, work and society and to stimulate innovation across industries. By gathering opinions and ideas from a broad base of creative participants and challenging them with a scientific point of view, future fields of research within this area were to be identified.

Participation was far beyond any prediction with several hundreds of submissions being sent in, despite the rather specific topic of this contest. Another great example that idea contests can reach and activate a really large audience, even if the questions asked would at first glance indicate a rather closed (small) community of experts.

Picking the very best out of the large number of really innovative, sometimes easy-yet-brilliant ideas was really no simple task. After long and intense consideration, confering and discussion we finally decided to award the three first prices (third was a split, just could not decide...) to the following ideas which we deem really really interesting:

1st Price ($5000)

Emergency triangle

The Submission: The idea is to incorporate an chip in the emergency tringles, alerting other drivers to the dangers they will encounter on the road.
How it works?

When the car has a breakdown or accident on the road is required to signal the Occurrence to other drivers. When mounting the triangle on the road, he activates a chip that transmits a warning signal by GSM to your Gps device on car or other alert system. The signal has a radius of 1 km, to not create confusion to drivers. Simple to apply, low cost and very useful for ensuring security in regional roads with low visibility.

Jury Statement: "The Emergency Triangle convinced us because it is a unique and innovative idea with the goal of increasing safety on the streets. It's a typical product, which everybody knows, and at the same time the idea offers a new and very concrete benefit that only becomes possible through M2M. Therefore it fits perfectly to the contest. The potential for such a solution is also huge - it may be placed in cars by manufacturers or offered as a valuable present for clients."

2nd Price ($3000)

M2M Remote Parking Disc

The Submission: In many countries parking discs are a common way to for authorities to see how long a car parks on a short term parking spaces. For example in germany there are parking lots where you are only allowed to stay for 90min.
Everybody has made this experience: One coffee too much in Saturdays shopping fever, overslept maximum parking time, got a ticket.

The idea is a parking disc which is controlled by a mobile phone or smartphone. When parking you send a sms or datapush by your smartphone to set the time - for example: 90min - the parking disc sets the wheel on the right time. After 85min the parking disc sends a SMS with a warning, so you have enough time to get back to the car, without getting a ticket.

Extra function: When the parking-disc is in "parking-mode" but suddenly moves (changes GPS coordinates) you get a warning, that your car might have been stolen. So actually the parking disc is also a alarm system for your car.

Jury Statement: "The Remote Parking Disk is the most innovative gimmick we have seen in the contest. It provides great help in our everyday life, fits perfectly to the contest and inspires many other applications. "

3rd Price (Split decision, $1000 each)

#1: Pizzatracker - where is my pizza?

The Submission: What a nice benefit: You know exactly when your ordered pizza will arrive!!!

Often the pizza supplier says: "....in approximately 30 minutes you will get your pizza". This could be 20, 25, 30 or e.g. 40 minutes. Nobody knwos it exactly, the answer knows only the wind.

With a tracking-code, which is given during the order-call, the customer gets a self-service possibility to trace the delivery and knows exactly when it will arrives. A delivery tracker would be a new service for the customer and therefore a unique feature compared to other delivery services: The communication in advertising!

Advantages:
- use the delivery time very effective for other doings - you are flexible
- you will get nervous until reach the 30-minutes-border: now you are safe, that the pizza service haven`t forgot the order
- the acitvation on suppliers website will increase
- process costs will decrease
- new and innovative communcation opoortunities

Jury Statement: "The Pizza Tracker addresses an interesting business by providing an innovative M2M-based solution to industrialized delivery services. It may fascinate customers of these services who probably like using online tools, and could boost service quality to a new level. It also provides great benefits to the service provider as an excellent tool for differentiation. "

#2: Modern Hide & Seek

The Submission: The idea is to modernize tradition game of Hide & Seek and bring kids back to playgrounds. We are all witnesses of today's kids behavior of mostly playing games in front of computer monitors and spending most of their time in front of it. This idea aims to change such unhealthy behavior by upgrading the game of Hide & Seek to 21st century standards.

Product would consists of bracelet/receiver with display.
Bracelet would have two basic functions:
- send location signal;
- receive location signal;
Traditional game of Hide & Seek is mostly static, but with idea of bracelet locator it could become more intense.
Hiding players would be allowed to move around predetermined territory making game more interesting.
Bracelets would also have delay setting so if you want to make the game a little bit harder, you would just set higher value for delay signal (15 seconds for example).

Additionally parents could download dedicated app to their smart phones and watch location of their children at any time.

Jury Statement: "With the help of M2M, Modern Hide & Seek brings one of the most popular children's games into the age of geocaching. It thereby allows bunch of new rules - really the next generation of Hide & Seek. "

These and more submissions as well as the lively community interaction can also be seen on the official contest website.

Congratulations to all winners! Even if your idea did not make it to the top three (four...), thank you very much for your participation! As said, picking the winners was an extremely tough, close decision and I really look forward to your ideas in one of the upcoming idea contests (that I will keep you up to date on in this blog)!

Open Service Innovation: BOSCH Launches OI Community Dedicated to Auto Mechanic Services

Bosch, one of the world's leading suppliers for (professional and personal) electronics and tools, has taken another interesting step in opening their innovation process. 

Bosch is not a new player in this field, already providing a general idea plattform where you can both submit solutions to specific problems and get the chance to send in and present your very own revolutionary idea for the next big product (enhancement). 

Now Bosch has taken things one step further. Seeing how automotive componentes and electronics are a major branch of their business they decided to go where problem-knowledge and improvement-ideas are most likely to be found: with the professional employer of Bosch's tool, the mechanic. 

In light of this realization, Bosch has recently launched the Bosch Open Innovation Plattform, specifically dedicated to professional garages and their employees. 

The concept of this community (which is so far in German language only) is twofold: The core-piece is a forum where professionals can discuss problems they may encounter during their work with Bosch's tools as well as exchange tips and tricks with colleagues from all over the nation (and the world, provided they understand German). Dedicated Bosch staff is also present on these forums so a direct interaction with company representatives is possible.

Next to this the plattform features an "Idea" section in which users (upon free registration) can submit their ideas about product enhancements and new solutions that they deem helpful/ necessary to better employ the company's products in "real life". Browsing through already submitted ideas is possible without registration. And of course you can submit ideas on how to improve the plattform itself (there even is an own section for this topic). 

A complementary "News" section is used by the company to transmit additional information deemed valuable for their target group. 

So far Bosch's concept seems to be rather successful with 400+ registered users and already 72 submitted ideas as of today, ranging from improved knowledge databases to concrete improvements of software provided by Bosch. It will be very interesting to observe where this communty of experts will go and which concrete outcomes it will produce. In any case a very good example of open innovation employment beyond "just" putting another idea website out there and wait. 

Participate at Idea Contest: Brining the Walking Frame (Rollator) into the Future

Our German readers can find a German version of this post here.

Mobility is one of the key requirements for maintaining an independent lifestyle up until a high age. Today, most seniors are able to depend on themselves - as more than 90% of all 65-years olds live under their own roof in good health.

But what happens, when leaving home, to go shopping or to meet with friends, is getting increasingly difficult with a higher age? What if somebody’s mobility declines, even though he or she does not depend on help permanently?

A small daily help in such situations can be a walking frame. In Germany, there are almost two million walking frames in use, with a yearly selling rate of another 500.000 pieces.

Unfortunately, not all of these are as fancy and safe as one would wish. Furthermore, the German consumer protection agency Stiftung Warentest found insufficiencies regarding stability and safety of walking frames tested last year.

But what could the superstar of walking frames look like? It has to be handy and safe, yet also has to incorporate personal desires concerning the design and accessories to overcome it's still somewhat dusty image.

To find answers to these questions, German League of Seniors, in cooperation with partners from both the business and academic world and sponsored by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has initiated a large-scale idea contest to improve the famous walking aid. 

In the context of the idea contest “Stil:sicher unterwegs”, everybody is asked to give their input on how to improve the walking frame.

If you want to be on the team for developing completely new and innovative solutions for the walking frame of the future, here is your chance! May it be a GPS-assisted emergency notification system, an attached reading aid or a built-in minicomputer that helps to identify (individually) tolerable food: the only limit is your imagination. 

On the project homepage you can find more detailed information on the contest and the process of turning in your own ideas. Submissions are open until June 15th, 2012. You can also view and comment on already submitted ideas. Afterwards, a panel of experts will decide on the winning ideas which will be presented to interested companies and institutions and hopefully make it into future products. 

So, what is your idea (incremental or wild) to bring the walker /rollator into the future? Submit it here!

PS: The modern walker, the Rollator, of course itself is a lead user innovation, invented by the Swede Aina Wifalk in 1978, herself a polio sufferer.

Featured Research: New Forms of Collaborative Innovation and Production on the Internet

In my series of featured research on open innovation and mass customization, today I would like to present you a book (also availible as free downloadable pdf) published by my colleagues Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop (Goettingen University). They present an interdisciplinary view on the effects of broad (online) collaboration on innovation and production.

New Forms of Collaborative Innovation and Production on the Internet

By Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop (Editors)

Published byUniversitätsverlag Göttingen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86395-020-0

Availible for free download and hardcover purchase at Universitätsverlag Göttingen

 

The Internet has enabled new forms of large-scale collaboration. Voluntary contributions by large numbers of users and co-producers lead to new forms of production and innovation, as seen in Wikipedia, open source software development, in social networks or on user-generated content platforms as well as in many firm-driven Web 2.0 services.

In their book, editors Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop take a nuanced look at the (online) collaboration landscape, presenting a collection of papers contributed by international scholars from sociology, management research, economics, and law. Complemented by a number of very interesting case studies, this book provides a good (academic) overview on the "big picture" of online-based collaboration in innovation and production.

Large-scale collaboration on the Internet is an intriguing phenomenon for scholarly debate because it challenges well established insights into the governance of economic action, the sources of innovation, the possibilities of collective action and the social, legal and technical preconditions for successful collaboration. Although contributions to the debate from various disciplines and fine-grained empirical studies already exist, there has been a lack of an interdisciplinary approach. This is exactly where this book provides great value -- and as it is open access and free for download, it may serve as a good starting point for the debate.

Note: For more books on open innovation, co-creation, and corwdsourcing, head to the Knowledge Base of my website.

Open Local Innovation: Engage the ISPIM 2012 participants to solve your challenge in managing innovation

Did you like the concept of our second problem conference in Québec but can not participate for one reason or another?

Here is another (free) opportunity -- and you also can get help in solving one of your problems of managing innovation in your company. 

As part of the upcoming ISPIM conference (one of the largest European conferences on innovation management), we are hosting a special workshop to simulate a "problem conference" in 1.5 hours.

The idea is simple:

• Instead of telling everyone in a conference talk how good you are, you share a current challenge from your innovation management process.
• Participants (i.e. experts from around the world in innovation management) then will engage in a 1 hour life problem solving exercise to jointly develop a solution (solution ideas) for your challenge -- practicing "open local innovation".
• This workshop is modeled after our very successful event in Quebec called "Quebec Seeks Solutions", where people engage in a similar approach to solve technical R&D problems (see http://www.quebec-solutions.com) -- it worked perfectly (to my own surprise)!

 

      Click to enlarge

For details and additional information please see: http://ispim.seeks-solutions.com 

The workshop, led by Jean-Sébastien Bouchard (Grisvert), Christophe Deutsche (ISPIM & Telops), and myself will take place on Tuesday, June 19, in Barcelona. 

Interesting problems can be submitted until May 24th, free of charge (all you have to do is to register to the normal ISPIM conference, http://conference.ispim.org, to participate once your challenge has been selected).

I am looking forward to a great workshop and really hope to meet and discuss with you all in person there!

Event: Québec Seeks Solutions. On May 15-16, the Problem Conference goes into its second edition in Québec City

A while ago I posted about the second edition of "Québec seeks solutions", a unique problem solving conference hosted by Québec International and partners. Back then, companies were invited to turn in interesting challenges they are facing in their actual operations and which they did not find a satisfying solution for so far.When the deadline was reached, ten very interesting problems could be chosen to be the object of collaborative solution-finding during the conference.

Amongst them are challenges that every innovative company faces sooner or later, such as the question how to effectively and efficiently identify the individual knowledge of employees in large organizations or new ways to foster inter-company collaboration.

Now these Problems await their challengers. Everybody interested in solving real Problems for real Companies and  having the chance to network with innovation experts from around the world is invited to join the conference. The event will be hosted on the 15th and 16th of May, 2012 in the beautiful setting of Quebec City in Canada.

Just like in Dev 2010,we expect two days of very productive workshopping. Although it was hosted for the first time, the results of the 2010 edition have proven the concept. 

When surveyed about 4 months after the conference, 90% of the seeking companies have stayed in contact with people met during the event. Even after 10 months, 50%  were actively working on solutions suggested during the event and continued to collaborate with partners met there. All participating companies have expressed their interest to participate in another edition of the conference for both the high concentration of excellent innovators and the opportunities to connect to potential partners from all branches.

            Exemplary company, rated perceived impact of their participation

Registration is open now, detailed information can be found here. I'm looking forward to meet you there in person!

Also: There will be a special workshop for everyone who would like to host a "Problem conference" in their own local community!

Featured Research: From Social Media to Social Product Development: The Impact of Social Media on Co-Creation of Innovation

For our series of featured research on open innovation and mass customization, today -- in another act of shameless self-promotion -- a new paper from our group at RWTH Aachen University in which we discuss the impact of social media on co-creation of innovation.

From Social Media to Social Product Development: The Impact of Social Media on Co-Creation of Innovation

By Frank Piller, Alexander Vossen, Christoph Ihl (RWTH Aachen University)

Published in: Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Volume 66, No 1 (March 2012), pp. 7-26.  Free download at nomos.de

 

In this paper, my fellow researchers Alexander Vossen and Christoph Ihl discuss with me the impact of social media on customer co-creation in the innovation process.

Customer cocreation denotes an active, creative and social collaboration process between producers and customers (users), facilitated by a company, in the context of new product or service development. We propose a typology of co-creation activities in order to develop conceptual arguments how social media can impact the relationships among customers involved in co-creation as well as the relationship between customers and the hosting firm.

Interestingly, the impact of social media on customer co-creation may be two-sided: Social media can make economic- exchange relations more collaborative and social, but may also turn relations formerly based on social-exchange into “money markets” with strong competition among actors.

As a result of this paradox, we develop a set of questions that can lead future research in these regards. Read the article for our full argument.