6.Open Innovation

What is it?
A trick borrowed from the open-source software movement. Companies are wising up to the fact that none of their employees is as smart as all of their employees. Really smart companies are also looking at innovation in terms of open networks and are engaging in highly collaborative relationships with communities of suppliers and customers.

Opportunities:
Getting closer to customers and suppliers, speeding up the innovation process, fast feed-back loops. The open model could also be a template for what the firm of the future might look like. For example, Mozilla Corporation has around 100 employees and almost 200,000 volunteer helpers.

Risks:
Decision paralysis caused by too much information and/or too many ideas. Also managing the expectations of people that have been brought into the innovation process. There are also latent legal risks with regard to openly created intellectual property.