We are very happy to announce that we will host a conference (German language) on connecting and managing innovation processes at Zeppelin University at Lake Constance. The keynote speaker will be Frank Piller, accompanied by Elke Baessler (Hilti AG), Herbert Koepplinger (Network of Automotive Excellence) and Alexander Lang (Webasto AG) who will provide detailed insights into the successful usage of open innovation. More Information on the event on our German microsite.

We would be really excited to meet some of our German speaking readers on the event, so please feel free to register.

Furthermore we want to deliver a summary of our approach of Open Entrepreneurship in the following by refering to several posts in the following, supporting a coherent understanding of our concept that we are going to actualize some time in the near future.

1. Reinventing a Networked Creation of Wealth
2. When Virtual Is Virtuous
3. The Paradox of Openness
4. The Analogy of Digital Networks
5. What Commons Really Have in Common
6. The One and the Many
7. The Entrepreneurial of Open Entrepreneurs
8. Distinguishing Open Entrepreneurs
9. Blowing in the Wind
10. Connecting the Creative Class
11. Paradoxes of Open Entrepreneurship
12. Networking Network Incubators
13. Jamming on Open Entreneurship
14. The Potential of Open Entrepreneurship

Five good reason why it is time to believe again in Santa Claus

1. Integration of customers in the idea generation process

Scientific studies have recently shown: more than 80 percent of all products in market fail. Why should this actually be different with presents like the numerous attempts for exchange in big stores and the extensive offers on Ebay after Christmas impressively show? Wish lists are therefore an ingenious invention of Santa for making a present of something the presentee really has a use for. The acceptance of presents is thereby maximized by the same value as the exchange rate is minimized to the satisfaction of all people involved. And for all of those who already possess anything or are perfectly happy, Social Commerce offers the opportunity to receive a gift again.

2. Reduction of the in-house services by integration of agents

Who still does anything self today? Not only the large management consultancies, but also Santa Claus has long ago realized that thanks to globalization he can cost-efficiently outsource the whole process meanwhile. The more so because he has identified lead users, preferably parents, who gladly and first of all freely of charge take over these crowdsourced tasks in order to bring a joyful Christmas to their children. But even commercial providers have realized which market potential exists for professional Santas for instance in stores or shopping malls and since then they are successfully participating in the franchising-concept of Santa Claus.

3. Massive reduction of distribution costs by decentralization

Regarding the running costs incurring by the all-year maintenance of a logistics infrastructure only used at one day a year, the huge potential for savings becomes clear. The strategic decision of Santa to do without the maintenance of a sleigh and reindeers opens new potential for a decentralized organization of his channels of distribution. Presents are therefore the most time only delivered just-in-time by courier services, sparing Santa not only high storage costs, but also the burdensome way through sooted chimneys with a wealthy belly.

4. Outsourcing of all marketing activities

The cleverest decision of Santa Claus though was to have his whole marketing organized externally – by no less a figure than: Coca Cola. How else should the world have had found out that Santa is a corpulent, white-haired beard bearer with a red jelly bag cap? Especially through viral marketing activities like reading out loud or singing Christmas songs this message was spread to such an extent that meanwhile not any Christmas merchandising article can escape from the produced branding and every child in the whole world should have quite an exact idea of Santa’s appearance and his character.

5. Reduction of transaction costs by virtual organization

Writing to Santa Clause was practically always possible. Though, one got to consider the gigantic costs for sending a letter to the North Pole and the desired present back. No wonder therefore that Santa was one of the pioneers of networking worldwide in the course of a virtual organization. At northpole.com every small and big child can inform oneself about the organization of Santa Claus or write him an e-mail.

Santa Claus has so adjusted his business model very successfully on Open Innovation and has perfected creation of wealth in networks as an entrepreneur. Thereby he has some decisive comparative advantages in regard to other present service providers as the Easter Bunny for instance. This will as well ensure market shares in the future for Santa as a quasi-monopolist in Christmas businesses and will provide him keeping a high market value. The only question that now arises is, what actually does Santa Claus at Christmas time? – Damn right: holidays!

So therefore, not seeing him is a far cry from saying that he does not exist which is no prove at all! Therefore it is actually time to believe again in Santa Claus. What a dark world would that be, if there were no wishes, dreams and hope anymore? What a world would that be, if Santa Claus did not exist? ; -)

With this in mind, we wish all readers a merry Christmas & all the best for 2008!

B. Jospeh Pine II hold a very interesting keynote speech at the World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization 2007 at Stata Center, MIT Boston about the topic “The Past, Present, and Future of Mass Customization”. We want to provide some outtakes out of this very interesting opening keynote because the topic correlates in very many ways as an addition to the interactive creation of value shown by Reichwald and Piller as well as a guideline for entrepreneurship in the area of individualizing mass products.

B. Joseph Pine II is the author of “Mass Customization” and “The Experience Economy”.

Here the following parts of the keynote video:

Over the course of this, we could develop our own approach of Open Entrepreneurship in regard to that we want to refer to several posts in the following, supporting a coherent understanding of our concept.

1. Reinventing a Networked Creation of Wealth
2. When Virtual Is Virtuous
3. The Paradox of Openness
4. The Analogy of Digital Networks
5. What Commons Really Have in Common
6. The One and the Many
7. The Entrepreneurial of Open Entrepreneurs
8. Distinguishing Open Entrepreneurs
9. Blowing in the Wind
10. Connecting the Creative Class
11. Paradoxes of Open Entrepreneurship
12. Networking Network Incubators
13. Jamming on Open Entreneurship
14. The Potential of Open Entrepreneurship

Starting from this, we looked for examples from practice over the last few months supporting our approach and could attend some very inspiring conferences like MCPC 2007 at the MIT in Cambridge/Boston. Through the work on the topic, we got the opportunity to functionally discuss with very many very interesting people as well as becoming friends with some of them. Here and now, we want thank again all our conversational partners for their sugestions and support. We should definite stay in dialogue!

In next few weeks and months, we will actualize our approach of Open Entrepreneurship by means of the insights we found in the last time and will continue to further develop it together with all partners of Openeur. We are looking forward to another year with Openeur!

Eric von Hippel recently hold a terrific keynote speech at the MCPC2007 at MIT about the topic User Innovation, in which he described the economic paradigm of highly efficient user-communities innovating collaboratively with the help of digital toolkits. Or in his own words:

“User have innovated historically - but the collaborative design has become so efficient that it is going to drive out manufacturer based design in certain areas.”

As a result, innovations are getting cheaper and topics like Intellectual Property or patenting will loose their importance when it comes to innovation. The reason for this is that users will collaboratively develop innovations and reveal them to others for free even if the manufacturer does not provide a toolkit. To illustrate this, von Hippel referred to examples in the sports and software industry where users built their own toolkits for interaction because of the absence of any corporate solution. Von Hippel directly adressed the manufacturers in the audience:

“No one ins preventing you from patenting things. But the point is that you are competing with people who will freely reveal. Your secret is basically hostage to the person who has least to loose.”

So, following Eric von Hippel’s thoughts, manufacturers have no choice, but to harness the enormous potential lying outside the boundaries of their organizations by developing toolkits and interfaces for user innovation. Otherwise they have to fight against their most loyal customers and loose a competitive advantage in the long run - because other competitors will collaborate with their lead users. Even companies that are successful today should keep in mind that there is always someone out there having least to loose.

Here you can watch the complete keynote speak:

Eric von Hippel MCPC2007 MIT Boston Part1

Eric von Hippel MCPC2007 MIT Boston Part2

Eric von Hippel MCPC2007 MIT Boston Part3

Eric von Hippel MCPC2007 MIT Boston Part4

The Open Innovation company Fellowforce has started a Tagline Challenge opening up the decision on its tagline to the contributions of its users. They were offered a reward for the best tagline that should make it on the Fellowforce frontpage. We recently had a very interesting talk with Ruben Robert, CEO and founder of Fellowforce, at the MCPC 2007 at MIT in Boston where we promised him to spend some time thinking about his Tagline Challenge and how our contribution to it could look like.

We finally seized the idea behind Fellowforce itself and invited our fellow students at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany, to join us in finding the perfect tagline for Fellowforce. Almost exactly as Fellowforce does in regard to the innovation community worldwide over the web, we thereby crowdsourced the Tagline Challenge into our university: we organized a digital ideation pitch inside our university’s intranet and we were absolutely astonished about the lots of positive reactions Fellowforce received. While our fellow students were sending more and more brilliant suggestions - we got increasingly into trouble about the decision which one of those we should actually choose as the perfect tagline for handing in to the Tagline Challenge.

We finally realized that there probably is no single tagline representing everything that is at the core of the idea of Fellowforce. There were lots of very good suggestions for a tagline among our students’ contributions, like there are already some very good ones inside the pitch on the website, but none is meeting all the rich expectations people have regarding Fellowforce. All people we spoke to, highly acknowledged the great potential Fellowforce holds in their opinion for shaping the future, determining how we will deal with ideas and opening up innovation in general. But on the other hand, we were surprised about the lots of different perspectives they had on Fellowforce and about the diversity of their hopes and expectations.

We therefore have realized that the only tagline that is actually possible for Fellowforce is emerging out of all those voices. It lies in the force of the diversity of all of its users, in the way they interpret Fellowforce and will continue to constantly reinvent it. Only combined alltogether, they really hold the idea that is at the inner core of what Fellowforce is all about - inspiring great people!

This is the reason why we want to suggest not to fix a single tagline, Fellowforce should solely stand for in the future, but to leave what Fellowforce is and will be all about to the thoughts of its fellows. And therefore, it is all their voices what should be represented in Fellowforce’s tagline. As finding a tagline for Fellowforce should be a continous challenge, our proposal is to give its tagline back to its users, as it should constantly rotate over a specific period of time representing all the people that stand behind Fellowforce.

As Fellowforce has found new supporters for thinking in a new and revolutional way about ideas and innovation among our fellow students, we are sure the company will continue to find fellows fascinated about the idea of collectively contributing to Fellowforce shaping the ideas of the world. They just got to listen on their voices. Here are the ones we were happily able to record among our fellow students:

“fellowforce - Inspriring People, Inspiring Innovations”

“fellowforce - Breaking Barriers”

“fellowforce - Sourcing the Wisdom of the Crowds”

“fellowforce - The Idea Highway”

“fellowforce - Rewarding the World’s Ideas”

“fellowforce - Start. Right.. Here…”

“fellowforce - The Force of Innovation”

“fellowforce - Impeccable Innovations”

“fellowforce - The Brain Pool of Solutions”

“fellowforce - Passionnovation”

“fellowforce - Collective Business Enabler”

“fellowforce - Longing for Changes”

“fellowforce - Enlivening Innovations”

“fellowforce - The Playground of the Creative Class”

“fellowforce - Solutions Emerging”

“fellowforce - Enabling Innovations”

“fellowforce - Ideas Making a Difference”

“fellowforce - Utilizing the Brains of the World”

“fellowforce - Challenging People”

“fellowforce - Crowdsolutioning”

“fellowforce - Innovation Zeitgeist”

“fellowforce - The Best Way to Protect Ideas, is to Realize them.”

“fellowforce - Ideas Creating Value”

“fellowforce - Bringing Ideas to Life”

This Friday, we are travelling to Boston/MA for the MCPC 2007 World Conference of Mass Customization and Personalization which is the primary event in this domain. Bridging between academic research and management practice, the conference aims to provide an interactive platform to learn about strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers. We will be visiting the academic part at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, from October 7-10 2007, with an interdisciplinary focus on the new advancements in the field. The second part, we won’t take part in anymore, will take place at HEC Business School in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the form of a business seminar.

The conference is jointly organized by MIT Media Lab, MIT Design Lab, RWTH Aachen University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and HEC Montréal Business School (École des Hautes Études Commerciales). The conference shall bring together different voices and thinking on the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. The interdisciplinary approach comprises the perspectives of management and economics, engineering, design and information technology from an academic as well as a practitioners’ perspective. The MCPC will become the largest event in the field of mass customization and personalization, with more than 150 keynotes, presentations, panels etc. on the topic. Further information is provided by Frank Piller, RWTH Aachen, who holds the function of Program Chair of the conference.

We are looking forward to meet many interesting people there, we would be glad to have lots of inspiring talks with. Hopefully, we will be also able to speak to some people at MIT Media Lab. If someone of our readers is visiting the conference as well, just give us a note and we would be glad meeting you there for discussion and social exchange.

Around one month later than previously announced, crowdspirit went closed beta. The result is from the first point of view relatively sobering. In the following a short description of the functions so far.

User present their product ideas - others rate and comment them - that’s it for the most part. All further process steps like funding and product development are not yet working. A market place much similiar to the concept of CambrianHouse was added a few days ago. In everything offered so far, Spigit is much more developed. The question arises what the founders of Crowdspirit have done for the last half year since they announced the concept of the platform. Not a bulletin board more for ideas, the world doesn’t need necessarily.

We’ll see what they’ll make out of it. The beta tag awakens hope and hopefully we’ll get a promising user generated product and maybe even the Facebook-Phone.

The Open Innovation Community fellowforce, just announced the launch of a great widget/toolkit to enable customer and leaduser integration for companies of all sizes:

The ‘Innovate Us’ button is like a ‘Digg-this’ application for innovation, empowering and encouraging consumers to submit ideas to company controlled (Fellowforce enabled) innovation boxes. “We prefer to call them Innovation Boxes because consumer participation is more than just a feedback tool”, adds Crites, “it’s a driver for innovation. And for companies, this is like having a souped-up RSS aggregator to manage idea feeds.”

The basic ‘Innovate Us’ button is free of charge and takes just minutes to install. Companies can upgrade for full facilitation, customization and complete open innovation box solutions. With basic or premium, companies can easily manage ideas from submission to implementation. Consumers can see status reports on their submissions, so the process is transparent between parties. And soon, Fellowforce will launch an Innovation Forum, giving companies the option to take ‘Innovate Us’ ideas into the open for feedback from Fellows. (via prweb.com)

With this solution, fellowforce provides various ways (idea challenges, suggestion-boxes for specific product improvements) to integrate leaduser and customers even for small companies with minimal R&D budgets.  This could be an important step to democratize the innovation process.

The concept of CreateSpace from our point of view holds the potential to heavily jumble the publishing landscape up. Hereby it is shown once more, what fundamental consequences for the way we are understanding the economic coherences, the creation of value in networks can have. Artists had until now only the opportunity to achieve the publishing of their works by intermediaries like the big publishing companies for example with their affiliated distribution channels. A publishing within the framework of self publishers was markedly expensive and furthermore because of missing distribution channels less promising. Now, everyone can operate his own publishing house over an outstanding distribution channel like Amazon.com and is able to both publish his self created media and on behalf of third-party artists. The service seems to be useful especially for small editions, for instance the publishing of scientific work like dissertations.

With Amazon, there is opening one of the largest distribution networks worldwide for the first time, being a classic player in E-Commerce, for the creation of value in networks or, as we call it, Open Entrepreneurship. Seen from the perspective of Amazon, this makes sense in several ways. First and foremost, Amazon is ensuring exclusive access to media contents of a huge amount of media creators, massively expanding its already very far reaching Long Tail. Secondly, Amazon enlarges as a producer of record carriers for media its margins compared to its function as a distributor enourmously. Through a sale over Amazon.com, the company earns for instance with a single DVD 45 percent of the purchase price and through a sale over the CreateSpace E-Store anyhow 15 percent, each time plus a fixed charge per unit of 4,95 dollar. For instance, the Open Publisher earns through the sale of a DVD for the purchase price of 20 dollars via Amazon.com in the end just 6 dollars. On the other hand, this can be clearly overcompensated by the scalability of the distribution channel. It is very clever by the way, that Amazon reserved the right to give discounts on the products, only eating into Amazon’s margin leaving the earnings of the seller the same.

Especially because of the distribution model, the service of CreateSpace seems to be extremely interesting on the whole. Almost the complete infrastructure of Amazon.com is accessible and shipping is possible within 24 hours after receiving the order. All on demand books are automatically eligible for Search Inside!, Amazon Prime, Super Saver Shipping and other Amazon.com programs as well. Just by the interplay with the Amazon.com community, true creation of value in networks will become possible and we can wait eagerly for the upcoming developments. Welcome, Open Publishing!

The guys over at openinnovators.net describe the exemplary scientific engagement of Philips Research - willing to invest over 50 Million Dollar for a new Campus in Shanghai:

Philips’ aim is double. First, they want to increase efficiency and internal collaboration by bringing different R&D centers together on one campus. Second, they want to open up the campus to external parties, facilitating R&D cooperation and open innvation (via openinnovators.net)

This would be the second Open Innovation Campus supported by Philips. They already launched the High-Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE) in 1999 - the prototype for their new project in Shanghai. HTCE is some kind of a scientifically backed Innovation Incubator, for companies and students. Open Innovation at HTCE:

Open innovation is all about collaboration. With the current state of technology, a one-firm solution is a thing of the past. Specialist companies, knowledge institutes and governments increasingly join forces. This has its benefits. Using each other’s strengths, knowledge, experience and expensive research equipment will result in efficient and effective technology developments. Combining views and visions will create synergy. The success rate of new initiatives that emerge from open innovation is substantially higher than the success rate of closed research centres. Open innovation also creates space for specialist companies to develop their core business at a high level and to market new products effectively. High Tech Campus Eindhoven has created an ecosystem that focuses on open innovation – with a network that extends way beyond Eindhoven. (via hightechcampus.nl)

Openinnovators on HTCE:

Built on the site of Philips Research in Eindhoven, HTCE houses over 40 (external) technology-based companies and institutes employing several thousand people in developing ground-breaking technologies and products through the open innovation model. Philips tries to create an environment and structures which promote interactions, networking and knowledge-sharing, leading to joint projects and joint ventures among the HTCE companies. For Philips this means that the company can spin in ideas and innovations from outside, enriching the services it can offer Philips’ business divisions. It can also spin out technologies from its own extensive IPR portfolio to high-tech companies in the HTCE, which can bring innovations to market more quickly. (via openinnovators.net)

In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn’t just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can’t. He describes the rising role of serious amateurs (”Pro-Ams,” as he calls them) through the story of the mountain bike. (TED)

TED is an interesting organization committed to the spreading of radical innovations and important ideas. To realize this ambitious approach they arrange a big conference “bringing together 1000 of the world’s most remarkable people” once a year. On their great website you can find various recordings of the conference-speaches. In general the speakers are extraordinary and absolutely absorbing. You might be specially interested in the videos of Collaboration and Not business as usual.

Nespresso - Design Contest

Nespresso’s 2005 Design Contest aimed at imagining the future of coffee rituals, yielded gems like the Nespresso InCar coffee machine and the Nespresso Chipcard (which stores coffee preferences for registered individuals, and when inserted into a vending machine, communicates with a central database to brew a personalised cup of coffee). Pictures of the winning concepts can be found at gizmag.co.uk/go/5493/gallery. (trendwatching.com)

Philips - Live Simplicity - Leadusers.nl

Tapping into the minds and ideas of crowds to source knowledge on trends and future developments is an important aspect of crowdsourcing, an aspect which we call sensing. How can one effectivily sense new demands and opportunities?

Philips for example, has launched two sensing platforms: Lead Users and Live Simplicity. Philips is a dutch multinational, offering technology products for lifestyle and healthcare sectors. On Leadusers.nl (dutch website) they conducted studies with lead users on specific topics, like video technology and sleep quality. The initiative was thus aimed at gaining knowledge on the specific subjects as well as sensing new product demands and opportunities.

The new Live Simplicity website is partly a marketing instrument to promote Philips’ Sense and Simplicity slogan, but definititely also a tool to acquire knowledge on what people think in Philips-relevant areas of life. The sensing platform facilitates discussions in 6 areas (Business, Communication, General, Internet & Technology, Lifestyle & Social, and Wellness). Each discussion starts with a short description and two contrasting viewpoints (A and B). Visitors are invited either to vote for a viewpoint, or register as contributor and write a comment. The initiators also thought of incentives for contributors and have set up a rating/reward system. Each contributer has a rating, shown as an icon. This is calculated based on how many times that contributer has made a point and had others agree or disagree with it. Each posting has an agree/disagree button next to it, and the combined results of these are displayed in the Rating. So contributors can develop themselves as respected members of the site. It must be said, although one may expect otherwise, the reactions and opinions on the platform are indeed of high quality. In addition, high-rating contributers are often selected to contribute to certain discussions. Philips has also developed a visual tracker, which enables contributors to track their favorite topics from their desktop. (openinnovators.net)

Muji-Award

Stylish Japanese purveyor of all things minimalist Muji is also launching an international design competition, which is about to start, well, now. Calling on the entire GLOBAL BRAIN, Muji’s first theme is “SUMI”, (corner / edge / end). From the site’s briefing: “The objective is not to design something that is placed in the middle of the room, but towards the edges, not at the centre and not directly around the centre; you should look for somewhere that evades the eye, send us an object designed for that place, and name it as you wish. We are not asking for any particular genre, it could be anything from furniture, stationery and office equipment, to everyday items.” Just like aforementioned Nespresso, winners will be announced at the Milan Salone. (trendwatching.com)

More Google-News. Google has joined the Open Invention Network.

About OIN:

Open Invention Network is refining the intellectual property model so that important patents are openly shared in a collaborative environment. Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. This enables companies to make significant corporate and capital expenditure investments in Linux — helping to fuel economic growth.

Open Invention Network has considerable industry backing. It was launched in 2005, and has received investments from IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony.

Statement from google (via ars technica)

“Linux plays a vital role at Google, and we’re strongly committed to supporting the Linux developer community”

“We believe that by becoming an Open Invention Network licensee, we can encourage Linux development and foster innovation in a way that benefits everyone. We’re proud to participate in OIN’s mission to help Linux thrive.”

More about the deal @ ars technica & mashable

Google announced an viral video-competion:

Add your clip to this video:
Help us imagine how an email message travels around the world. Take a look at the collaborative video we started, and then film what happens next. We’ll rotate a selection of the clips we receive on this page, and add the best ones to the video. The final video will be featured on the Gmail homepage and seen by users worldwide.

More about the contest and first uploads on the gmail-blog

Nowadays there are very few web-entrepreneurs using the power of what Joseph Schumpeter described as creative destruction:
“This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It
is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to
live in.“ Joseph Schumpeter

Sometimes the ordinary needs to be destroyed to clear the path for new things. One central momentum of this process is playing with existing solutions - to recombine them in a totally new way later on.

The guys behind Spigit have made that by providing a rich playground where people can jointly test, promote and improve their business ideas.

Spigit is a newly launched community that aims to provide a network of support for start-ups and their founders.

The simulation engine provided by spigit is a way to sort of test out your idea. The simulation runs through three stages, where approval badges are awarded for things like buzz percentile, number of views, and expert approval. Completion badges are awarded at the end of each stage, enabling ideas to graduate to the next level. Several data points are considered for the simulation engine, including the tracking of dynamic interaction on the site. Spigit’s simulation benefits carry over into the virtual stock market as well, where “spigits” can be traded to determine the market value of a particular idea.

As a participant in this community, you don’t have to be testing out an idea. You can provide value by offering feedback, interacting with others on the site, and helping the idea to either gain traction or lose steam. This wisdom-of-the-crowd approach can be useful when prepping ideas for real world implementation, but the structure of spigit allows for experts to be created and relied upon for the cultivation of the community. So users get badges in the same manner as ideas. You can also support or deny an idea, write a review, offer up resources, or add it to your watch list. (via Mashable)

We`re excited by the idea and looking forward for the first spigit-startup becoming a severe player.

Inspiring moments

Nokia Concept Lounge

How a brand engages the Internet community and rallies it around its brand value.
Mobile communication represents a two-way street also in the area of marketing, as loyal customer relations are crucial. Especially since Nokia views its customers as the be-all and end-all of everything it does.
Without customer input there is no innovation and without innovation there are no new customers. (thesedays.com)

Great video describing the functionality of the Concept Lounge

Lego - Lego Factory

LEGO’s LEGO Factory has been around for a while, but it remains an inspiring example of how to truly unleash THE GLOBAL BRAIN. Children and other building enthusiasts visiting the site are invited to design models (using easy to use, free downloadable software) and take part in competitions for LEGO prizes. A popular contest last year entitled winners to have their model mass produced and sold in Shop@Home, receiving a 5% royalty on each set sold. While customers can still upload their creations and have them become part of Lego’s official catalogue, the royalty scheme sadly has been nixed. (trendwatching.com)

Nintentdo - Wiiware

Staples - Idea Hunt - Invention Quest

BIG and Staples identified an opportunity for Staples to create private-label products that offered more innovative features and benefits than commodity goods. To keep inventors focused, the Hunt scope was narrowed to filing and note-taking products. BIG helped Staples articulate the guidelines, wrote the Hunt spec, and then publicized it to our network (via mail, email, and web). At the conclusion of our 6-week Hunt, we had approximately 300 ideas.

In 2003, Staples inaugurated a nationwide consumer contest for the best new concepts in office supply products. The main goals of contest were to discover innovative products to fuel Staples’ private-label brands, to generate positive PR, and to drive traffic to Staples’ retail sites.Working with both product development and marketing specialists at Staples, Big Idea proposed, outlined, managed, and helped judge the event. Culling through nearly 8500 submissions, BIG identified the best for invitations to the Semi-Finals, which we organized and ran. The process culminated in a best-of-the-best competition among 12 Finalists in New York City. The event, staged at the New York NASDAQ, generated national media coverage, including inventor appearances on Regis and Kelly. The grand prize of $25,000 was awarded to the WordLock, an innovative lock that uses letters (and words) instead of numbers. (Big Idea Group)

Open Innovation platforms

Innocentive.com - solve technical problems - Openeur-Post
(Joit-Venture with the Rockfeller Foundation to solve problems of the third world - Openeur-Post)
Picnic - Sent in your ideas to save the planet (via springwise)
Yet2.com - patent trading
Ninesigma.com - Innovation networking
IXC Australia - Similar approach as ninesigma
Eureke medical - Medical Open Innovation platform

Some Open Innovation Startups

fellowforce.com - open innovation competions
ideawicket.com - evaluating business models
crowdspirit.com - product development by the crowds
spigit.com - a Startup game - evaluating business ideas
Incuby.com - online community for inventors
Ideaconnection - Open Innovation - idea marketplace
Ponoko - Rapid Prototyping platform
Ringside Startup - Startup founded and funded by the crowd (failed) - Openeur-Post

Innovation Agency & Services

Big Idea Group - inventors network and innovation consulting
Brainreations.com - pro brainstorming and co-creation with creative young consumers
Brainreations.net - online brainstorming rooms and brainstorming platform allowing creation of customer communities online
Ideacrossing - Innovation Quests
Sense Worldwide - market research & trend company with own lead user network and impressive clients

Company centric sites

Salesforce AppExchange - webbased business incubator to develop and distribute salesforce-products
vocalpoint.com - P&G Network for women
BMW Customer Innovation Lab - customer integration tool
Lego Factory - tool for lego enthusiasts - Opeur-Post
Coke Studios - coke community
Gamegchanger - Shells innovation incubator & venture wing
Audi Virtual Lab (offline)
Henkel Innovation Trophy - inventors can upload their ideas
Staples Invention Quest - new-product award - Opeur-Post
Peugeot - design contest
Nespresso - designing a coffee machine
Mastercard - creating a slogan
Nokia Concept Lounge - Nokia mobile design contest - Opeur-Post
Muji - plattform to rate, improve and suggest new products
MTV - Send in your Ideas to improve MTV
Dell - One of the best Open Innovation Lead User integration tools
Kraft - Send in your Ideas and support Kraft

Fashion

threadless - tshirt community
Naked&Angry - threadless for ties and wallcoverings
spreadshirt - create and sell your shirts
cafepress - design mechanding products
zazzle - design mechanding products

Publishing

createspace - On Demand Open Publishing Service by Amazon.com - Openeur-Post

Crowdsourcing platforms

cambrianhouse.com -crowdsourcing community
guru.com - the world’s largest plattform for freelancers
Amazon Mechanical Turk - lowcost crowdsourcing

Freelancing / Offshoring
elance.com - Freelancing
guru.com - Freelancing platform
odesk - professional offshoring-management-platform

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunded Entertainment

A Swarm of Angels – crowdfunded movie
Sellaband – crowdfunded bands
Artistshare – crowdfunded artist
myfootballclub.co.uk - crowdfunded soccer club

Crodwfunding-Tools

fundable.com - crowdfunding-tool
chipin.com - crowdfunding-tool
donorschoose.org - crowdfunding for education
actblue - crowdfunded politcal campaigns
Cambrian House – crowdsourcing community

Social Lending-P2P (commercial)

prosper.com - direct P2P
zopa.com - P2P with risk-buffering fonds

Social Lending-P2P (donations)

kiva.org - microcredits
grameenfoundation.org - donations

(Last update: 29.08.2007)