Stories, moments, people and ideas of interest from within the worlds of innovation and design, spotted and written about by Helen Walters, writer and researcher at Doblin, a member of Monitor Group. Attitude, errors and opinions all the writer's own.
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May 2, 2012
"From climate change to spiraling healthcare costs, from global poverty to food and water shortages, wicked problems and their ramifications also impact organizations and their employees. As a result, the broad solutions we need might just come from market-driven companies seeking to out-innovate and outperform their competition. If companies challenge themselves and their competitors to seize advantage and momentum, the result might just be genuine disruption and transformation."
— Wildly self-promotional post, as I co-authored Help Wanted 2.0 with Doblin’s CEO, Bansi Nagji. The piece was just published in Rotman Magazine. In it, we attempted to outline the practical ways in which people can think about wrapping their hands around the much buzzed-about topic of open innovation. Let me know what you think!
In Why Unilever Is Betting On Open Innovation For Sustainability, Joel Makower reports how Unilever is pushing the envelope when it comes to open innovation, having published its own list of ‘wants’ on which it is actively seeking outside help. These range from super serious, world-challenging issues (“safe drinking water”) to rather less dramatic problems that are clearly important for Unilever (“amazing toothpaste”.) Here’s the full list:
Safe drinking water: Bring safe water to the world’s poorest people
Fighting viruses: Develop a new active ingredient that combats viruses.
Better packaging: Create lighter and more sustainable packaging.
Sustainable washing: Discover new technologies for sustainable washing.
Less salt: Reduce the amount of sodium in food.
Amazing toothpaste: We’re looking for new sensations, new flavors, and new ingredients.
Preserving food, naturally: Help us develop natural methods for preserving food.
Storing renewable energy: Can you help us bring cost-effective energy to millions?
Sustainable showering: Do you have ideas about sustainable showering?
Change consumer behavior: Develop new devices fo help consumers make sustainable decisions.
The Green Biz piece also includes an interview with Roger Leech, who’s Open Innovation Portfolio & Scouting director at Unilever. I liked this quote, which highlights the complexity of open innovation… and that the idea itself is just the “first and easiest part” of the process. “It’s never a straightforward process to find an idea and turn it straight into an innovation in the market. It’s very much a case of looking at the right ideas and looking at the technologies and the capabilities needed to develop those into something that can be taken into the market.”
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."
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The above quote, c/o Bertrand Russell, is quoted in Innovation for the People, by the People, a solid overview of open innovation initiatives being considered/implemented by the various branches of the federal government. The author, David Bornstein, highlights the quote as a way to show the importance of asking the right question when trying to spark the most inventive and useful submissions to a wicked challenge. As he puts it, “the question needs to be open-ended enough so that it does not restrict creativity, or imply a method of solution, but it has to be defined sharply enough so that someone who doesn’t understand your whole mission can still solve your specific problem.” It’s a really tricky balance to get right, but absolutely critical, nonetheless.
"You need to think of your offering as a platform, even if you have a superior technology, so that you don’t get bypassed by a competitor. And to win against that competitor, you must win the hearts and minds of not only your customers, but the third parties who might tip the balance toward you or toward your competitor."
— Open innovation expert and UC Berkeley professor Henry Chesbrough writes a smart piece, Competing for Contributors in Open Innovation. The idea of focusing beyond products to think instead about platforms is not new, but it’s becoming a focal point of competition for an increasing number of sectors in the contemporary economy—and the battles are waging to see who can attract the most contributors. Meanwhile, I was entertained that Chesbrough describes Apple as giving 70% of sales to iPhone app developers, a much more positive way of putting it than the usual outrage of “damn Apple, and its 30% cut!”
