What is Open Innovation?

Open Innovation is a movement that technology groups, consultants, companies, and academic institutions are involved in evolving and defining.

I was introduced to the idea of Open Innovation in an LinkedIn post Stefan Lindegaard responded to back in 2009. While I don't remember specifics about the post I do remember being very curious about the response and further investigated the author. I found out Lindegaard was just about to publish a book; The Open Innovation Revolution. Revolution? Was there something specific to the idea of 'Open' Innovation that was different than just the idea of innovation? I found out YES! Open Innovation was a specific movement that many people were involved with. I was able to read a preview chapter and was immediately on the hunt for more information about companies that were participating in this movement. He listed a few specific companies and so I looked up a General Mills website where anybody was invited to solve company problems and if the solution was what they needed they offered up to $50,000 for the contribution. This idea not only was exciting I wanted to learn more so I could find opportunities to participate and share this exciting idea with other people.

After more than a year of research I realized there are many different groups that are involved with Open Innovation, from public calls for ideas to academic institutions helping connect the right people to the right problem. This idea was not specific to any one field or industry. You can find groups looking for solutions for consumer good to medical researcher looking for people to help with research. When we started this group I was also reminded of all the wonderful open source projects that are around like Mozilla, which is where we get the great free browser FireFox.

The following posts will explore Open Innovation, current opportunities to get involved and share our thoughts on how this affects us in good ways and explore the downsides to this movement.