BQF Innovation Blog » Events

A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing

Paul Sloane — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:28:33 +0000

We had a packed meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit today at which three authors who contributed to the new book, A Guide to Innovation and Crowdsourcing, spoke on the topic. All delegates received a copy of the book.

I explained the concepts and showed the following sites as examples of OI or Crowdsourcing in action

Reckitt Benckiser Idealink

Innocentive

Threadless

Naming Force

David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open described case studies of companies he had worked with including Proctor and Gamble, Orange and Cancer Research. He described the success rate for new ideas turning into implemented innovations at about 1 in 100. He advised companies starting out with potential partners to begin with a conversation about business rather than a conversation about innovation.

Andrew Gaule from H-I Network showed the range of options for bringing the result of OI to market with examples of Spinouts, Incubators and Corporate Venturing. He also examined corporate stress points with OI.

If you want more then please get hold of the book which contains the chapters by these and other eminent experts and practitioners of Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing.

Paul Sloane

Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing Seminar

Paul Sloane — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:20:13 +0000

To mark the launch of the new book, A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, the BQF Innovation Unit is holding a meeting on the morning of March 9th at which eminent contributors to the book will speak. The book is a compendium of tips, examples, best practice and case studies from the fast-growing world of Open Innovation. It contains contributions by many of the world’s leading experts in this field and has corporate contributions from major players such as Kraft Foods, Unilever, Nokia, LG Electronics, Nine Sigma, Intuit and Psion. The morning will consist of three presentations and then an interactive discussion.

All delegates will receive a signed first edition copy of the book.

Agenda

0900	Welcome and registration.
0930	Paul Sloane, Editor of the book and author of The Innovative Leader. The importance of Open Innovation. What is OI and what is crowdsourcing? Why are they relevant to us?
1015	David Simoes-Brown, 100% Open. OI – Starting with the End in Mind.
1100	Refreshments.
1115	Andrew Gaule, Founder, Corven’s H-I Network. Common problems and pitfalls in OI and how to overcome them.
1200	Discussion.
1230	Sandwich Lunch.

This is a great opportunity for you to hear first hand how Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing can transform your innovation capability.

Booking form.

Paul Sloane

Open Innovation Meeting

Paul Sloane — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:03:16 +0000

We had a lively meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit at which David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open was the main presenter. You can see his slides here. He gave detailed advice on how to start with Open Innovation and discussed case studies including Lego, Virgin, IBM and others. He showed a fascinating current example at Orange Mobile Volunteering. It is a crowdsourcing site where users are encouraged to suggest ways in which mobile technology could help charities or communities. You can put forward ideas, read other people’s ideas and vote on them. David develops one of the main themes of his talk, Ask Interesting Questions, on this blog post.

David is one of the contributors to the book, A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, which I am editing and which is due for release in February 2011.

Paul Sloane

Three Imminent Innovation Events

Paul Sloane — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:55:04 +0000

There are three upcoming innovation events that you can take advantage of.

1. Gaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation Workshop.

To be held in London on Thursday Sept 16th. This is a one day workshop in which you practise and learn creativity and innovation methods. It will help you to develop new products and services.

2. Innovation Unit Meeting on Open Innovation.

A half day event in London on Tuesday 5th October. The Guest Speaker is David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open. This is an interactive meeting where we review and discuss best practice in Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing.

3. Master Class on Innovation in the Public Sector

This is a one day workshop on Wednesday 13th October in London. It will focus on the leadership, culture and processes for innovation with emphasis on government agencies and the public sector.

I hope to see you at one of these events.

Paul Sloane

Workshop on Open Innovation

Paul Sloane — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:41:46 +0000

The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will take place on the morning of Tuesday 5th October in central London. It will focus on Open Innovation and it will be interative and instructive. It will be led by David Simoes-Brown of 100% Open, a consultancy that focuses on Open Innovation.

Topics include

Open Innovation Accelerator

Why open innovation can get you better ideas, faster, cheaper
Opportunities in crowdsourcing, corporate collaborations and customer co-innovation
Pitfalls in open innovation and how to avoid them
Collaboration mindsets – how to develop Business Empathy

The meeting is open to BQF members and to non-members. You can see more details and register here. I look forward to meeting you if you come.

Paul Sloane

Ideas Jam – How it works

Paul Sloane — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:28:31 +0000

We ran the Ideas Jam meeting yesterday and it went well. It was an intensive idea generation session. There were 18 participants from various companies who each brought a challenge from their business – e.g. How can we communicate our new strategy to thousands of people? The morning worked like this:

After an initial ice-breaker we had 45 minutes of ‘speed dating.’ Each person met another person for 3 minutes and acted as a consultant for their challenge. The consultant asked questions and made suggestions (which could not be rejected or criticised). Then the roles were reversed. After the six minute date people moved on to their next date.

Next we divided into three groups of six. Each group choose one challenge and then used the ‘nominal’ brainstorming method to quickly generate 60 ideas. We used the Novel, Attractive, Feasible criteria to select the best ideas from each group and then presented back.

We formed new groups of six and used ‘Reverse the problem’ to generate ideas for another challenge. Finally we used Pass the Parcel to come up with really radical ideas for a further challenge.

Each delegate then chose the best idea(s) for their challenge and identified the benefits and next steps.

The feedback showed that the participants went away with great ideas and some powerful new tools to improve idea generation and implementation in their businesses.

Paul Sloane

Intensive Bottled Creativity

Paul Sloane — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:02:01 +0000

The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will be an Ideas Jam on the morning of July 13th in central London. It will be fun, challenging, interactive, intensive and creative. You will learn new ideation methods, meet interesting people and work with them to develop radical ideas. It is open to members and non-members. Details and booking here.

Paul Sloane

Come to an Ideas Jam on July 13 in London

Paul Sloane — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:13:59 +0000

Author: Franek, Wikimedia Commons

The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will consist of an Ideas Jam to be held in central London on the morning of Tuesday July 13.

This is a highly interactive workshop style meeting in which people generate creative ideas for challenges which have been brought to the meeting.

It works like this:

The meeting starts with an intensive speed dating session where every delegate meets every other delegate and discusses business opportunities and challenges. They are encouraged to find collaboration opportunities.
We divide into small teams and use various advanced brainstorming methods to quickly generate creative ideas for different challenges submitted by the participants.
Delegates select the best ideas and commit to feedback on progress against them.

You can bring your challenges with you but you are also encouraged to participate before the event via this blog and to submit your own business challenges as ‘How can we ….?’ questions. You can also email them directly to me.

There is a small charge to cover lunch. To book please contact Pat Myles on 020 7654 5013 or E: pat.myles@bqf.org.uk.

More details and booking.

It will be an exciting morning where you will meet great people and learn powerful creativity methods.

Paul Sloane

Innovation at Nokia

Paul Sloane — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:55:46 +0000

At today’s meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit we had an interesting talk from Pekka Pohjakallio, VP of Concepting and Innovation at Nokia. Because of the ban on flights he was unable to attend in person so we had a voice over IP link to go with his powerpoint presentation. He covered a tremendous amount of ground in his talk and in the subsequent Q&A session. He explained the philosopy of innovation at Nokia and the efforts they make to embed it into the corporate culture. I will not try to paraphrase what he said but I will give you some quotations that I think are of high value:

“In Nokia we believe that nothing is an innovation until it is in the hands of the consumer.

In the early days of the cable business financial constraints forced us to be innovative. We could not afford to develop our own processors and had to use standard chips so we had to find ways to be different.

We made a big bet on GSM and fortunately this paid off.

R&D spend is 14% of net sales.

Nokia is now the biggest camera manufacturer in the world.

Most of our innovation is design led rather than technology led. For example we offer language training and horoscope applications in India.

Nintendo Wii and Guitar Hero are good examples of design led innovation.

We believe that teams need to be as cross-disciplined as possible.

When we put together the team to work on an initial concept we try to think it right through to what will be in the launch press release.

We talk to the people who are the far extremes – the geekiest of the geeks.

A big challenge for us is how to make our teams independent. How can we give them enough freedom?

We focus on ‘what is the user problem we are trying to solve?’ Then we prototype, prototype, prototype.

We have an intranet where people can post videos of their ideas.

We crowdsource internally by asking all our people to help with a problem.

We collaborate externally with suppliers and Universities. A lot of our innovation comes from our partners.

Our message to small companies with ideas is, ’Don’t be afraid. Approach us.’

We want to be the world’s best partnering company.

Innovation is not a separate thing – in Nokia it is part of what you do.”

I would like to express our thanks to Pekka and to Anno Koetje for the efforts they made to make the event a success despite all the travel and logistical challenges.

Paul Sloane

Next Meeting of the Innovation Unit – London Apr 19

Paul Sloane — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:01:41 +0000

We have a new agenda for the next Innovation Unit meeting on the morning of Monday 19 April and we will have a leading speaker from Nokia.

Since the early 1990′s Nokia has invested close to €35 billion in research and development to build one of the strongest and broadest intellectual property rights (IPR) portfolios in the wireless industry. They invest heavily in innovation because ‘our business is about delivering new technologies, products and services to our customers and consumers’. Nokia now owns approximately 11,000 patented innovations and its global patent portfolio includes approximately 42,000 patents and patent applications. Nokia files approximately 1,000 new patent applications annually.

One of Nokia’s characteristics is their innovative approach to innovation. For example, their Growth Economy Venture Challenge will provide a venture capital investment in the winning proposal of $1 million. The Challenge is looking for one idea that stands above all the rest; one that could truly change the way people use Nokia mobile devices and that demonstrates how mobility improves the lives of millions of people in developing nations.

The morning will be a great opportunity to learn about innovation from leading practitioners and to network with fellow professionals.

Date: Monday 19 April 2010
Title: Innovation at Nokia
Venue: Central London
Time: Registration and refreshments from 0900. Meeting from 09.30 – 1300 followed by a sandwich lunch
Guest Speakers:

Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Concepting & Innovation Solutions Unit
Paul Sloane, Head, BQF Innovation Unit
Paul will lead an interactive workshop exercise on corporate differentiation and positioning

Please also forward this invitation to others in your organisation who may be interested in attending. Book here.

Paul Sloane