I just had an interesting exchange with a guy who just can’t see that open innovation will become a major part of how most companies innovate.

Among other things, my counterpart mentioned that barriers against open innovation are there for the purpose of keeping innovation inside the company or the country because innovation has value and thus means power.

Another point he made was that “great ideas come from an individual’s mind. I’m not saying that in a group situation, an individual’s idea couldn’t be improved, but for that individual to give up that idea before it is patented and protected, that inventor isn’t saying anything to anyone. That’s because the reward for that great idea is more profound to the innovator if it is his alone to market. Again, in my personal opinion, this is a good thing. Reward brilliance accordingly. Once the inventor has the patent, sure let anybody who wants to improve upon it, have at it.”

It has been a while since I have heard anyone talk against the idea of open innovation, so I sent a reply that went like this:

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Hi Steve,

You are not way off target on what I mean by open innovation. This is also why I have a slightly provocative message to you: Wake Up!

The early stages of open innovation already take place in a lot of companies and it is one of the most talked-about-things in the world of corporate innovation today. You should start looking into this as we are definitely in the process of tearing down those barriers you mention.

Why? Because we live in a global world where information is becoming more accessible and transparent. This makes it easier to innovate across barriers. It is also a bit arrogant for companies to believe they know everything by themselves.

Take P&G. Eight years ago they learned there were 200 researchers and scientists just as good or even better outside P&G for EACH of their own 7,500 researchers and scientists. P&G choose not to be arrogant and rather explore ways of working with these 1.5 million great minds. Today, they do not have an R&D department. It is called C&D – the C stands for connect and they are close to reaching one of their amazing goals: 50% of their innovation should to some extent come from external sources. Check this link for more on P&G and open innovation: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5258.html

Another point is that we live in a networked world where you work with partners and customers to bring innovation to the market. It has become very difficult to this by yourself. Just look at the new planes from Airbus and Boeing. Their global supply chain is just as much an innovation chain generating new products, services and processes.

We have just started to embrace open innovation and this is a movement that will not be stopped…

BTW – Intellectual Property Rights is a key issue, but this can be worked out.

Stefan