One of my US colleagues said that the refreshing thing about Europe is that it has 20 or so very different systems which all, in some way or another, seem to be working. Multiple solutions for the same need, that seems like the essence of Open Innovation. Was OI invented in Europe?

Reading the article ´Connect and Develop´ by the very American Harvard Business Review inspired me in 2006 to start a company in open innovation providing expert services. The idea was simple enough:  disclose the enormous innovation potential for companies in Europe by engaging the people who actually invented all the technology and developed all the great products of the last 20 years. They were going to retire anyway and it seemed like a great idea to intelligently use this wealth of wisdom.

There was one small challenge to overcome: getting the companies to engage with these top experts.

One of my lessons learned from working in open innovation in the past four years was that corporations lack the interface for actually sourcing and engaging with external partners in innovation. One of the CTO´s in a more philosophic mode remarked that it was related to the unbalance between “Yes” and “No” inside corporations. If someone says “Yes”  to something from the outside they are required to explain and defend their choice for working with an outside party. Saying  “No” obviously does not require explanation, even if it would be discarding the million dollar idea…

It goes to show that we should applaud the heroes that actually say yes to collaborative innovation, willing to explain themselves to their superiors, colleagues and existing partners. Within NineSigma Europe we are very aware and grateful for the champions that we have at the clients in Open Innovation. That is why we want to organize a way to recognize these champions and create some visibility for those people and organizations that lead OI.

More on this in my next Blog.

Contact us today to find out how our open innovation experts can help you.