open innovation

[The following is the speech text for the keynote I gave at the SwitchPoint Conference April 20, 2012]

It is sometimes said that computer scientists worry about only three numbers: 0, 1, and N, where N tends to get very large. Sometimes such oversimplifications can lead to astonishing insights, such as the one that I had 25 years ago in June of 1987. » Read more

Drupal is built on the passion of users and developers. But what makes this premier open content management platform a case study for open innovation? Dries Buytaert, creator and project lead of Drupal and co-founder and chief technology officer of Acquia, focused his DrupalCon Denver keynote on the passion of the Drupal community. » Read more

"We've chronicled innovation since forever," said Jacob Ward, Popular Science's west coast bureau chief, moderating a SXSW panel on the promise of open innovation. "But in every case, the innovations that we were chronicling--even though we champion the garage inventor--most of them happened in seclusion or in the confines of an organization." » Read more

SXSW Interactive is in full swing! But there's a lot left to go. Right now you're probably heading for whatever session is closest--and thus the one least likely to get you soaked in the rain. But the weather should pick up tomorrow, and you'll be on your way not to the closest, but to the best. Here's your guide to the remaining sessions that hit on open source principles, which of course is what we'd consider the best: » Read more

Last month, Don Drummond - a leading economist hired by the Ontario government to review how the province delivers services in the face of declining economic growth and rising deficits - published his report.

There is much to commend, it lays out stark truths that frankly, many citizens already know, but that government was too afraid to say aloud. It is a report that, frankly, I think many provincial and state governments may look at with great interest since the challenges faced by Ontario are faced by governments across North America (and Europe). » Read more

"We live in an open source world."

For many readers of opensource.com, those words are probably a part of your daily life; in all likelihood, you take them for granted.  They reflect the commonality of how many of you work, and engage publicly.

But I heard those words last month from a former member of Congress. Tom Perriello, the moderator of a panel on 'open innovation’ held at a mainstream think tank here in Washington (the Center for American Progress), gives them a different context. » Read more

Open innovation is an area only beginning to enter mainstream enterprises, despite years of success in open source communities. It allows people both inside and outside the company to get involved and collaborate on new products and processes that result in beneficial change.

Dr. Andrew McAfee, who coined the term "Enterprise 2.0," recently highlighted "open innovation" as an area ripe for mainstream business adoption. Organizations that want to find fresh approaches to their business processes, product or service offerings are encouraged to look outside traditional sources of expertise and be receptive to new contributors. » Read more

Innovation, simply defined, is the process that takes new ideas and implements them in a way that creates value. It's not the same thing as invention, which is an event that occurs at a distinct point in time, often resulting in a single product. Innovation is the extension of invention, the act of bringing things that are invented to market, repeatedly.

“Winning the Future through Open Innovation,” is a progress report recently released by Aneesh Chopra, US Chief Technology Officer, to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) on the Administration’s Open Government Initiative.The report highlights a number of programs at different agencies that represent a wide variety of open innovation techniques, from opening datasets and APIs to creating incentives for competition or testing and certifying open standards. » Read more

Earlier this week, Fast Company posted an article by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen (thanks to Gunnar Hellekson for sending it my way) that may be of interest to folks seeing success with their open source and open innovation efforts.

The article is entitled "User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and IKEA" and here's how it starts: » Read more