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.

A Ripe Time for Open Innovation

Recessions present a good opportunity to collaborate with others on finding, developing, and marketing new ideas

BusinessWeek, March 19, 2008 — With the economy softening, it's tempting for companies to turn off the lights and shut the door on innovation efforts until things pick up. But while this might look like a smart move, the impact—lost momentum, team dispersion, and wasted investments—is less than desirable.

It doesn't have to be this way. One of the best options for recessionary times, and, some would argue, even in expansive times, is to join forces with another entity with complementary innovation goals. Open innovation is about connecting with others to find new ideas and, often, to co-develop and co-market them.

Building Expertise Through Collective Innovation

The Raymond open-innovation conference gathered design managers from companies such as Heineken and Lego to share best practices and improve the bottom line

BusinessWeek, March 5, 2008 — Open innovation has been a hot management phrase for the past five years. So far, though, these collaborations have generally been focused on small-scale research and development, or technology ventures between giant global brands and smaller partners. Think Proctor & Gamble's (PG) collaborations with universities and suppliers or IBM's (IBM) embrace of an open-source software language which both saves the company money and provides it with a new revenue stream.

But what if you brought together design heads from some of the world's biggest global brands with the aim of stimulating innovation? That was the premise of the fifth annual Raymond conference on Feb. 28 and 29 in Rotterdam attended by 17 design managers from companies as diverse as Heineken,... continue reading

Putting Innovation in the Hands of a Crowd

New York Times, March 3, 2008 — IF executives are going to rely on the wisdom of the masses for business help, it’s probably time the masses get a little compensation for it.

That’s the theory behind Kluster, the newest in a lineup of companies using the Web to channel the collective wisdom of strangers into meaningful business strategies. With a cash reward system for contributors and a big beginning at the TED conference last week in Monterey, Calif., Kluster hopes to attract just enough visitors with just enough business smarts to gain early momentum.

Herman Miller's Creative Network

CEO Brian Walker talks about tapping the furniture company's creative network for insights and breakthrough ideas

BusinessWeek, February 15, 2008 — Herman Miller CEO Brian Walker talks with Corporate Design Foundation Chairman Peter Lawrence about tapping the creative network for insights and breakthrough ideas.