The Crowd Is Wise (When It’s Focused)

New York Times, July 19, 2009 — FEW concepts in business have been as popular and appealing in recent years as the emerging discipline of “open innovation.” It is variously described as crowdsourcing, the wisdom of crowds, collective intelligence and peer production — and these terms apply to a range of practices.

The overarching notion is that the Internet opens the door to a new world of democratic idea generation and collaborative production. Early triumphs like the Linux operating system and the Wikipedia Web encyclopedia are seen as harbingers.

The Next Wave of Open Innovation

How InnoCentive aims to exploit sophisticated technology and networking capabilities to connect problems with their potential solvers

BusinessWeek, April 8, 2009 — Open innovation has become an important management trend over the past decade. Yet, despite great initial success, some of the most prominent examples of open innovation have had serious limitations. We are now on the brink of a major evolution of open innovation.

Fluevog's Open-Source Footwear†

Harvard Business Review, March 5, 2009 — In lean times, there's nothing more valuable than a great new product idea. Why not invite your customers to share their creativity with your company — and turn the best ideas into actual products! That's what legendary shoe designer John Fluevog has done, with a project he calls open-source footwear.

Cultivating innovation: An interview with the CEO of a leading Italian design firm

Alberto Alessi, head of his family’s iconic design factory, talks about how to sustain innovation over decades—and why companies should take more risk.

McKinsey Quarterly, February 1, 2009 — Alberto Alessi is the third generation to lead his family’s iconic design firm. Founded and still based in Crusinallo, about an hour north of Milan, Italy, the firm remains privately owned. In Alessi’s view, both the ownership structure and the location of his company have imbued it with a strong tradition of artisanship—and given its designers the freedom to create as they see fit.

Best Buy Taps 'Prediction Market'†

Imaginary Stocks Let Workers Forecast Whether Retailer's Plans Will Meet Goals

Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2008 — When executives at electronics retailer Best Buy Co. want to know if a new product or idea is likely to succeed, they can seek the opinion of rank-and-file employees by turning to the company's "prediction market."

The market, called TagTrade, allows Best Buy's workers to trade imaginary stocks based on answers to managers' questions. The market's judgment has often proved to be more accurate than the company's official forecasts.

Apple’s Latest Opens a Developers’ Playground

New York Times, July 10, 2008 — When Apple opens its online App Store for iPhone software on Thursday, Steven P. Jobs will be making an attempt to dominate the next generation of computing as it moves toward Internet-connected mobile devices. The store, which will offer more than 500 software applications, including games, educational programs, mobile commerce and business productivity tools, may be a far more important development than the iPhone 3G, which goes on sale at the same time. An abundance of software could make the iPhone’s operating system dominant among an abundance of competing phones.

Cisco I-Prize – Mining the Web and the World for Innovation

FastForward Blog, July 1, 2008 — On the App Gap I recently wrote about Brightidea’s Webstorm Idea Collection and Ranking Portal that facilitates the innovation process (see Brightidea – Brings Focused Enterprise 2.0 Capabilities to Innovation). In my conversation with Matt Greeley, CEO at Brightidea we covered one of the impressive uses of Webstorm outside the firewall, Cisco’s I-Prize. I think this is a great story with some lessons learned for others who want mine the wisdom of crowds, so I will explore it more here.

The next step in open innovation

McKinsey Quarterly, June 23, 2008 — The Internet and new social-networking technologies are allowing companies and their customers to interact with unprecedented levels of richness. Some leading organizations are using this opportunity to draw customers into the heart of the product-development process.

The Open Secret of Success

New Yorker, May 13, 2008 — In the current atmosphere of economic tumult, the announcement that Toyota sold a hundred and sixty thousand more cars than General Motors in the first three months of this year might seem like a minor news item. But it may very well signal the end of one of the most remarkable runs in business history. For seventy-seven years, in good times and bad, G.M. has sold more cars annually than any other company in the world.

Chrysler Ready to 'Listen' on New Site†

Automaker to Recruit Online Consumer Advisory Panel

Advertising Age, March 24, 2008 — Chrysler will begin recruiting U.S. residents in the next few weeks to participate in closed, online dialogues to gather insights for the automaker's marketing, product development, vehicle features and engineering.