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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Tom Reeves, VP of IP and Licensing at IBM, is about to start his presentation. IBM filed 4,500 patents last year.
NASA Announces Results of Pilot Program With yet2.com
April 6, 2011HOUSTON, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston announced results of a pilot program conducted by yet2.com that identified partnerships to work on six technical needs related to human spaceflight. The needs range from better food packaging materials to a portable bone-imaging device.
SLSD engaged the services of open innovation service provider yet2.com as part of a series of pilot programs during the last two years. In an effort to expand open communication and to create additional opportunities for public involvement with NASA, open innovation service provider (OISP) platforms are under evaluation.
“Open innovation has been a critical component of SLSD’s broader innovation strategy,” said Jeffrey R. Davis, director of SLSD. “This strategy has strengthened our ability to make connections with organizations to address our research and technology needs that we would not have known about using more traditional approaches. Given the favorable results achieved through this pilot study, we will continue to pursue the use of OISP as one tool in our innovation toolkit.”
Based on NASA’s specific technological needs, yet2.com acted as a technology scout, providing a broad external network of experts as potential collaborators with NASA. A relationship can be established with these contacts to develop new technologies. Yet2.com’s system also can be used to maintain established networks for future collaborations. The results from the pilot study show potential for long-term efficacy of OISP platforms.
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