Open innovation processes promise to enhance creative output, yet we have heard little about successful launches of new technologies, products, or services arising from these approaches. Certainly, crowdsourcing platforms (among other open innovation methods) have yielded striking solutions to hard scientific and technological problems—prominent examples being the Netflix predictive recommendation algorithm and the approach to reducing the weight of GE jet engine brackets. But most R&D organizations are still struggling to reap the very real rewards of open innovation. We believe we’ve hit on an important hidden factor for this failure and that it holds the key to a successful integration and execution of open innovation methods.
A Study of NASA Scientists Shows How to Overcome Barriers to Open Innovation
According to a three-year study at NASA.
May 29, 2018
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Summary.
Open innovation can lead to breakthrough solutions to difficult challenges. But too few of these solutions ever get implemented. One reason why is that scientists and engineers often see open source methods as a fundamental challenge to their professional identities. They defined themselves as “problem solvers,” when it would be more productive to see themselves as “solution seekers.”