We hosted our 11th annual Open Innovation conference in Boston 2 weeks ago. It was a huge success. We talked about; trends in innovation and best practices. A few large companies presented their learnings and plans, a few small companies presented their breakthrough technologies and we had a few case studies…..and a personal favorite – we ate lobster.
In total, we had executives from 3 Continents, with a large group from Japan. Some of the companies participating included; Canon, P&G, Agfa, AirProducts, Applied Materials, AveryDennison, Baxter, Bayer, Clorox, Colgate, DuPont, Ecolab, GSK, Kimberly-Clark, J&J, Kisco, Mellon, Nissan, Panasonic, Parker Hannifin, P&G, Ricoh, Sony, DSM, Invista and NASA! Add to this, we had 2 dozen selected small companies, with breakthrough technologies.
I liked the robust Q&A after each presentation. When Canon’s CTO, Dr. Ikoma-san, presented, 4 other CTOs asked questions. You cant beat that. Some themes that emerged
- Be ready for disruptive innovation from the bottom of the pyramid
- Regional R&D, with Global Sourcing
- Squash the immune response – accept ‘fuzzy data’
- Enable personal risk taking
- Engage ‘Renewal Searches’ – at the middle and the end of R&D
We spent a lot of time discussing how to optimize deals between large and small companies. This has been a reoccurring theme are our events. Even when there is a great technology fit, deals take more time than both parties would like. Read the rest of this entry »
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