Just this past week, I had the opportunity to update my retirement account contribution through my employer’s plan. Included in the glossy brochure that explained all the new features and investment products available to me was a quiz. You probably know the one- it has a series of questions that assess your tolerance for riskiness in your retirement investment portfolio. I bring this up because in the 3 years that I’ve been a Program Manager at NineSigma, I’ve seen many clients and potential clients with a broad range of risk tolerances when it comes to Open Innovation (OI). Yes, many of our clients are Fortune 500 companies, and Wikipedia defines middle market companies as “those with revenues generally between USD$100 million and USD$1 billion per year.” Some of you might assume that a big company with annual revenue of $1 billion plus might have higher tolerance than a smaller company for spending money on OI, for opening up to new suppliers and development partners, or simply for participating in a process that can sometimes bring in completely unexpected results.  Do the Fortune 500 have more resources to wade through and vet potential solutions, and to engage with and fund new solution providers? Maybe, but my experience has been that it’s really a matter of comfort with the unknown that drives “success” in the application of OI in any organization- no matter what the annual revenue is.

Big companies and small can face challenges and road blocks as they try to improve processes, reduce costs, enter new markets, and drive products to market faster than their competitors.  Addressing these issues might mean that a company asks an OI intermediary like NineSigma to conduct a search for a partner with a very specific set of design/development/manufacturing capabilities, for an experts group to act as an advisory panel for a new market, for technical and business intelligence in a clearly defined technology arena, for co-development partners for a new product, for a novel technology that will improve an internal process, or for a toll manufacturer or material supplier. Bottom line is that we see needs of all types across companies of various sizes. Open Innovation intermediaries can give you access to people, technologies, and geographies that you might not be able to reach on your own, even if you do have the internal resources for an extensive scouting group. The Fortune 500 may run multiple NineSigma projects and a smaller company might run one or two a year, but the process we use, and the support we provide, is the same and applies equally well. Depending on your openness to new ways of looking at and solving challenges, OI could be a nice addition to your middle market company’s  “investment” portfolio. Let NineSigma help you launch an open innovation program. Contact us to learn more about open innovation.

What happens when you go to a meeting or a party and someone asks you what you do?  “I’m a blah-blah” is usually followed by “That’s interesting” and then there’s small talk on the subject, right?  When I respond “I help companies do Open Innovation”, what follows is ....silence.

But that may be coming to an end, because the U.S. Government is getting innovative.

I recently participated in Industry Day for Open Innovation, sponsored by the U.S. General Services Agency (GSA).  The day was kicked off by Aneesh Chopra, the U.S. CTO.  When I explain to someone what I do, (yes, it requires explanation), their response is “That is totally awesome”, if they entered the world after Heavy Metal music, and “Cool” if they can sing along to Fleetwood Mac.  But can you imagine being the CTO of the U.S. Government?  How cool is that?!?

And that is exactly my question: how cool is it that the US government is embracing “innovation”?  For those of us who believe that innovation is the way of the future, it is extraordinary.  NineSigma believes that partnering with our government creates an innovation bridge to bring technology, resources, transparency, and access to our federal system.  Current innovation and crowdsourcing efforts in the Department of Education, NASA, and the Department of Energy are just the beginning.

But if the government is doing it, can it still be “awesome”?  According to Urban Dictionary,  “cool” is “the best way to say something is neat-o, awesome, or swell” but "awesome" is “the highest rank of 'cool'”.  If the New York Times runs a weekly column on “innovation” and the U.S. government has a CTO, has “innovation” gone “mainstream”? 

I certainly hope so.

My colleagues work closely with innovation champions who are the backbone of their companies' open innovation programs. They hear stories of frustration, elation and the day-to-day effort that is poured into their work to make open innovation a success. These champions are part change agents, motivational speakers, visionaries, and also the 'work horses' that get the job done.

There was an interesting article on Harvard Business Review's blog yesterday that addressed the unique challenges faced by innovation champions. The author, Rita McGrath, argues that success in open innovation "depends on middle managers, scientists, and intra corporate entrepreneurs scavenging for resources in an informal way". We see this in some cases but we also see a general recognition among our clients that this is clearly not sustainable and the proper processes, organizational design, technologies and yes, budget need to be established to maintain a successful program. We like it when 'serendipity' happens and we find a highly unexpected solution and solution provider for our client, but we don't think serendipity belongs anywhere within the foundation of the open innovation program. Let NineSigma help your open innovation team launch a program. Contact us to learn more about open innovation.