Open collective innovation

Report published by Advanced Institute of Management ResearchThe innovation context is changing. The production of knowledge is accelerating. Knowledge creation is now a globally distributed activity. Globalisation has massively increased the range of markets and segments – putting pressure on innovation search routines to cover much more territory. The proliferation of the internet and emergence of large-scale social networks necessitates the development of new approaches to innovation. The involvement of active users in innovation is accelerating. As a result of the changing context in which innovation is taking place established organisations need to review their approaches to innovation management.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Community mirrors for supporting corporate innovation and motivation

In this paper we are exploring the idea of applying community support concepts and ubiquitous user interfaces to supporting the motivation to innovate in corporate settings. Our special focus is on the early phase of the innovation process – the phase of idea generation and suggestion management. The key idea is to provide awareness for a company’s creative potential and appreciation for the idea creators in a corporate setting by displaying information from community platforms handling the suggestion management process on public shared displays (“Idea Mirrors”) in the office space

Design and Management of Web-Based Innovation Communities: A Lifecycle Approach

Nowadays, web-based communities are a popular means to integrate external innovators into the innovation process of organizations. Combining extant research in innovation management and IS management, we integrate open innovation and application lifecycle management (ALM) to present an integrated understanding of the design and management of innovation communities. Therefore, the paper draws on an in-depth explorative case study. We describe the process of community design and management along the phases of ALM. From a socio-technical systems perspective, the manager of an innovation community has to specialize in designing and managing the social subsystem rather than the technical subsystem of an innovation community. Accordingly, we reveal that the community manager’s core asset is a specialized backend that supports these management tasks

Opening up healthcare innovation: Innovation solutions for a 21st century healthcare system

Report published by Advanced Institute of Management ResearchHealthcare systems in the early 21st century face a crisis. Rising demand and expectations are increasingly out of step with the funding models available.Without radical innovation it seems unlikely that we can sustain the kind of healthcare which we associate with highly developed societies. The healthcare sector has always been characterised by innovation – in treatments and drugs, in hospital and care systems, in primary and acute care pathways and in chronic disease management. But arguably the system suffers from the problem facing all kinds of organisations – a recognition that, despite huge commitment and investment in generating innovation, ‘not all the smart guys work for us’. The ideas behind ‘open collective innovation’ essentially involve finding ways to spread the knowledge net much more widely, bringing into the innovation process a wider range of players and mobilising their experience and creativity in the search for novel and sustainable solutions. One key direction in which healthcare innovation can open up lies in harnessing the innovation potential of patients and their carers.We already know of many examples where patients have been a key source of innovation; in today’s environment the challenge is to find ways of scaling this to help deal with the innovation crisis. One powerful route is opened up via interactive web-based platforms which build and mobilise communities with common interests. This report discusses the potential of Web 2.0 interactive platforms and provides examples of several which appear to offer considerable additional traction in developing innovative solutions to the healthcare issues faced by such patients.Economic and Social Research Counci

Open Innovation: Grundlagen, Akteure, Werkzeuge und Wirkungsweisen

Open Innovation bezeichnet Innovationsprozesse, die nicht an den Grenzen von Unternehmen oder deren Innovationsabteilungen enden, sondern Akteure unabhängig von deren institutioneller Zugehörigkeit als Ideengeber, Konzeptentwickler oder auch Innovationsumsetzer in die Gestaltung von Innovationen einbinden. Dieser Beitrag skizziert Grundlagen der Open Innovation, stellt die einzubindenden Akteure und ihre Rollen im Innovationsgeschehen vor und führt ein in die fünf zentralen Werkzeugklassen, auf die Unternehmen zur Implementierung von Open Innovation heute zurückgreifen können. Herausforderungen und Spannungsfelder, die sich bei der Nutzung von Open Innovation zeigen, werden abschließend aufgezeigt

Idea Mirrors – Unterstützung von Innovation in Unternehmen durch Community-Awareness

In diesem Beitrag diskutieren wir die Idee, Konzepte aus den Bereichen der Community-Unterstützung und ubiquitären Benutzungsschnittstellen auf die Unterstützung von Innovation in Unternehmen anzuwenden. Unser Fokus liegt dabei auf der frühen Phase des Innovationsprozesses – der Ideengenerierung und des Vorschlagsmanagements. Kernidee unseres Ansatzes ist es dabei, Awareness über das kreative Potential des Unternehmens bereitzustellen und eingebrachte Ideen durch öffentliche Präsentation zu würdigen, indem sie auf großen Wandbildschirmen („Idea Mirrors“) im Bürobereich dargestellt werden

SIMPLIFYING SOLUTION SPACE: A MULTIPLE CASE STUDY ON 3D PRINTING TOOLKITS

Flexible production technologies like 3D printing give users a large solution space to innovate and design. To harness the full potential of these technologies, it is imperative to provide toolkits, with structured and simplified solution space that meets the needs of users with low involvement. This pa-per explores the manner in which the solution space of 3D printing toolkits is simplified for non-expert users. Toolkit solution space was analysed in 68 toolkits with two perspectives of modularity: 1) Mod-ularity-in-use and 2) Modularity-in-design. First, the solution spaces were categorized in a 2x2 matrix by using the perspective of modularity-in-use, i.e. design questions and design options they offer to users. Second, this categorization and the perspective of modularity-in-design were used to identify mechanisms that simplify toolkit solution spaces. Solution space can be simplified for non-expert users by 1) offering iterative design questions with known design options, 2) using generative algorithms, 3) reusing designs and components from other users and 4) offering ‘meta-toolkits’ for users to create their own toolkits. The meta-toolkits democratize toolkit creation, and simplify solution space for non-expert users, as they design innovative and customizable products, together with expert users, without losing design flexibility

SUPPORTING RESEARCH COLLABORATION – ON THE NEEDS OF VIRTUAL RESEARCH TEAMS

Virtual teams are increasingly common in research as in corporate reality. While collaborative work in enterprises has received considerable attention, detailed understanding of collaborative work in virtual research teams is missing. To close this gap, we develop a model of the collaborative research process from idea generation to communication. We illustrate that the research phases require different support functions on the individual as well as on the team level. We explain that software tools, in particular social software, can provide support for collaborative work in virtual research teams