Organizations are increasingly turning to open innovation platforms as their source of innovation.

Open innovation platforms (or crowdsourcing platforms) are a way to involve consumers in the process of innovation. Here at IC, we have built examples pretty amazing open innovation platforms – the Aviva Community fund and the MIT Ideas Challenge that are helping prove the case. You can also check out Open Innovators for dozens of other examples of programs that work. As our fearless leader Idris Mootee recently wrote in his article What you don’t know about Crowdsourcing and why they often fail, it’s not a silver bullet for innovation. But when used in a defined way as part of the research and development process, they can be quite successful.

Solving the worlds problems one 2×2 at a time

A lot of organizations struggle to wrap their heads around open innovation platforms because they toil with their purpose in the innovation cycle – what is the role of the platform within the innovation pipeline. With that in mind, I’ve spent a bit of time sketching an organizational principal for open innovation platforms. Obviously an organization can choose to involve external parties at any point in the innovation process – but the emphasis of this thinking is focused on what would be classically viewed as research through development (as opposed to the commercialization).

Do you have a problem? X AXIS
The first decision criteria is “Is there a defined problem”.

On one side of the equation, many organizations are submitting or asking explicit questions to the audience for solving – they have a defined problem to be solved. For example, Innovation Exchange solicits “Challenges” (specific problems to solve) from major corporations. I call this “innovation inspired by the business” – the key driver of creativity is based off of a fundamental business-side need or problem.

On the other side, some organizations just want good ideas that align with their brands – they have undefined problems and look to the crowd to both explicitly state challenges and opportunities. In short, they hope the crowd both provides both self identifies the problem and articulates a solution to the problem. An example of this would be the over-mentioned “my Starbucks ideas”. I call this “inspired by invention”, as it often manifests itself through the creative ingenuity of the crowd. It could just as easily be called “Innovation inspired by needs”.

When can the crowd play? Y AXIS
The second decision criteria is “When do you involve the crowd”?

On one side of the equation, organizations involve external participants early in the innovation process. Involving customers early results in raw, often messy ideas that may or not reflect any possible reality. I think of this as a platform for actively soliciting feedback for “opportunity collection” because there tend to be a lot of undefined directions that can be pursued or that can inspire lateral thinking.

On the other side, organizations can involve participants late in the innovation process. At this point, organizations are often looking for full concepts, designs, or solutions that represent a full solution to a problem. Examples of this would be Google’s Lunar Prize, where the criteria for winning is to “successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough to complete the mission goals of roaming about the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending a defined data package, called a “Mooncast”, back to Earth.”. This is an example of “solution collection” – getting many external participants to come up with multiple, well articulated solutions.

The quadrants of organization-led open innovation platforms

Based on this model for understanding open innovation platforms, there are four primary opportunities for organizations to use open innovation platforms to drive the innovation process internally.

Defined Problem + Early Involvement = Crowdstorming. Articulating a specific problem to consumers and asking for many raw responses. This is pretty much like a massive brainstorm, and works as a way to stock the innovation pipeline early. Output: Lots of raw solutions to a specific problem with varying quality. Example: Fiat Mio

Undefined Problem + Early Involvement = Researching. Ask consumers to come up with solutions to undefined problems. The real value here is the articulation of previously unknown or unmet needs, collected through the initial articulation of customer problems used as a rationale for the solution. Output: Explanation or justification of previously unarticulated consumer challenges or needs with a small number of solutions of varying quality. Example: Dell Idea Storm

Defined Problem + Late Involvement = Prototyping. When you involve the consumer at this point, you’re really asking for a specific designed solution to a problem. Depending on how late in the innovation process they are involved, the output can be anything from concept sketches to fully-functioning prototypes. Output: Depending on how late the challenge is put to the crowd, and how defined the solution must be, expect a small number of solutions. Example: Supdaroo or one of my favorite sites, threadless.

Undefined Problem + Late Involvement = Adopting. Some organizations choose to build idea orphanages, allowing external participants to submit fully thought-out and conceptualized product concepts that may or may not align with their interests. Would-be inventors can submit their concepts with the hope of the organization moving on their idea. Output: Well thought out ideas that may or may not be relevant to the organization. Example: Lego Design By Me

Yes, no maybe so?

Obviously open innovation platforms differ in terms of where they play in an organization’s innovation cycle. In practice, each of the quadrants of the open innovation platform classification isn’t mutually exclusive. But in terms of understanding where their value lies, I think it’s a good starting point.

So what do you think? Agree with the classification? Have any recommendations on how to make it better? Have any great examples of crowdsourcing applications that I’ve missed? Join the comment thread and let me know. Also, if you’re interested in Open Innovation and the Virtuous Cycle, be sure to read Henry Chesbrough’s epic book Open Innovation.

I’m sure you’ve been put in the situation before. An RFP or a project arrives on your desk that just doesn’t feel right. Maybe it doesn’t take into account fundamental human behaviours. Maybe it ignores market realities. Or maybe it’s just trying to solve a tactical problem rather than dealing with what really needs to be solved. Either way, it creates an uncomfortable situation – are you a going to tell the client they’re wrong, or are you going to do what’s asked.

The NAA Interactive Briefing

In the interactive division of the National Advertising Awards, entrants were asked to submit an innovative creative solution to the the following business problem for Sympatico.ca:

“Drive adoption of Sympatico.ca’s various assets by convincing our target audience to make Sympatico.ca or one of its sister sites, like Best Health or Auto, their homepage. The site is currently competing with U.S. and international sites like MSN and Yahoo.” (for more details, download the full briefing here)

Of the teams that responded to the challenge, half developed creative advertising campaigns consisting of a mix of traditional and social media forms. Some came up with clever campaign concepts that successfully focused on strong calls to action that supported the stated business objectives.

And the other half of the entrants told us the portal model is dead.

Dear Client, You are Wrong.

Now I don’t want this to turn into a debate around whether portal models like Sympatico.ca are dead. What I do want to ask is, if you’re put into a situation where you don’t believe that a brief is responding to the right thing for a client’s business, do you follow it?

In the past, I’ve been on both sides of the coin before. Perhaps it comes down to the difference between taking client work to get paid and taking client work to make a difference. Here’s a quick summary of your likely outcomes:

Partners Vs. Working for Approvals

A lot of agencies don’t break the brief. The hope is that once the ability to execute is proven, there will be the opportunity to show strategic worth on something else. In my opinion, this is the wrong approach to design. This is working for approvals instead of working to achieve a result.

The benefits of not working at an agency is you’re not boxed into agency scenarios. As a strategic innovation and experience design firm, clients come to us with a recognition (and expectation) that in order to strategically differentiate, you may need to go outside your comfort zone. Questioning long-standing assumptions is part of our value proposition, and as such, every brief gets broken to some extent. If your job is to solve problems, then articulating the right problem is step number one. It’s the difference between a partnership and a paycheck.

Now obviously not everybody has the opportunity to work like we do. So what do you do when the brief is wrong?

In the 9 minute long music video, I noticed over 9 different brands ranging from food companies, to fashion, to accessories. The video is flooded with product placements including Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, Miracle Whip, Wonder Bread and even Plenty Of Fish, an online dating site.  While most of the products were paid product placements, a few were Lady Gaga’s idea and said to be a personal tribute to things she values.  One such example is  when Gaga uses Diet Coke cans in place of hot-rollers to curl her hair- she says she did this is honour of her mother who did the same thing back in the 1970’s.

The hit video also plays like a mini-film and ends with a “To Be Continued” message. Whats Next for Gaga? All I know is, Gaga if you’re reading this, Idea Couture should be among the things you love and featured in your next video.

We have seen social media take a new and increasing role in the word-of-mouth (WOM) consumer influence paradigm; word of mouth traditionally meant consumers speaking directly to one another and sharing experiences with products or services which have had an impact on their lives (good or bad).  Of course, communication between people (most of which may be potential consumers) is what social media is all about. This is one of the reasons why social media is so interesting for marketers; a consumer hearing a recommendation (or negative comment) from a friend or acquaintance can be so much more powerful and authentic than a company communication.

Not only does social media offer a medium where consumers can share potent product and service experiences, but the range is impressive as well….the definition of ‘friend’ or ‘acquaintance’ has perhaps shifted from years past, meaning we may now be open to receiving advice from a wider range of people.

The challenge is that market research, as an industry, seems to be struggling to keep up with the measurement of the new WOM paradigm. While usage and attitude toward social media can be tracked (such as hours per day, channels used, etc) can be tracked, specific interactions are less easily measured. It can be very difficult for respondents to recall on a survey instrument, when and where they have noticed brand mentions and/or brand communications online, even though these touchpoints may have had an impact on perceptions of the brand.

This means that currently, measurement of the online and social media WOM impact is often left to web analytic firms. It must be said that the approach may also be flawed, in that measurement of web ‘page views’ and social media ‘product mentions’ a) do not take into account touchpoints that are unseen and unsold (such as a poorly placed web ad that is simply not seen), and b) must guess as to what these metrics mean for the brand.

We at Idea Couture have a few ideas as to how to tackle these issues, but feel it would be interesting to hear ideas from the community on how this can be handled.    If there are creative ways to both a) track consumer interaction on social media, and b) measure the impact of this on perceptions of the brand (or, perhaps more importantly, sales of same!),  please let us know your thoughts!

Marks & Spencer just opened a store on Nanjing Xi Lu, replacing a Muji. Both are established brands in their home country (UK and Japan) and both manufacture and package their own products. Both have a similar product approach in terms of keeping things simple but are different in their design approach. Marks & Spencer is not exactly an exciting retail experience and Muji has far better product design and presentation from functionality to aesthetics. Muji is not doing that well here, as it requires a level of sophistication to appreciate it whereas Marks & Spencer is basically selling British quality and this will win in the short term.

Distribution has always been the greatest hurdle for retailers. The opening of the wholesale sector should lead to major improvements in the distribution environment, but there is a big gap. Strategies that successful foreign enterprises have employed to overcome distribution barriers include developing their infrastructures or partnering with the locals, and both has unique challenges.

In 10 years, its retail sector has been transformed from a simple and inefficient distribution system to a much more complex and highly competitive market-oriented economy. The new retail economy in many ways resembles the contemporary retail economy in the US. It is also exhibiting significant differences with Chinese characteristics but I think eventually it will move towards a different direction. Shanghai and the rest of China is currently suffering from some kind of “Brand Fatigue” as consumers are slowly becoming more sophisticated. The trust and prestige issues carry very different meaning here in China. We are still 5-10 years away from a more predictable consumer behavior and the market evolves.

Frozen Grand Central from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

In Januray 2009, T-Mobile adopted the dance Flash Mob for its ad ‘Life is for sharing”. Lately advertising has taken to guerrilla as a way to garner more exposure. According to Business Week article, ‘Advertising: When Guerrilla Goes Bourgeois’, “Guerrilla advertising is a catch-all phrase for nontraditional advertising campaigns that take the form of theatrically staged public scenes or events, often carried out without city permits or advance public hype”.

T-Mobile Dance from Jef Eckart on Vimeo.

Don’t you wish you were there? Some would argue that this is simply another example of advertisers ripping off underground culture for profit. However, isn’t it their job to find relevant ways to grab our attention? We are constantly complaining about how boring and predictable ads have become; pushing pricing, taking jabs at competitors, boring us with their predictable announcement of a new product, and don’t get me started on all the fine print. Why not take those generous budgets and actually entertain us for a change? Of course they have an ulterior motive, but who cares, they just made hundreds of peoples’ day far more exciting. We give companies thousands of our hard earned dollars every year, and all they can seem to do is spend it on trying to convince us to spend more. How about rewarding us with a bit of entertainment; brighten our day. Campaigns like the one for T-Mobile are not about a ‘brand new, great value, low cost’ product, it’s about earning affection for their brand. Maybe brands should try a bit harder to buy our love. What better way then making your brand the highlight of my day?

*Note: Please don’t misconstrue this as a plea for our streets to be bombarded with atrocious amounts of uninspired events. Only genuinely creative campaigns need vie for my attention.

I find myself noticing what seems to be an increase in the amount of successful attack advertising in the past few years – where one firm or another in a highly competitive market calls out a rival directly. It’s a risky move – the idea is to polarize middle-of-the-fence consumers to your side, but can damage your brand if not done well.  I have included my three favourites for your consideration below:

1. Mac vs. PC

No-one, and I mean no-one, has taken the p*** with a competitor as much as the iconic PC vs. Mac ads, first aired in 2006, with a succession of follow-up spots. Can you remember such a devastating competitive attack- either before after this campaign?

Going much deeper than a technical comparison of products, Apple attacked the very brand identity of its rival – and managed to imply that any user of a PC was frumpy and out-of-touch. Windows , representing the PC market, has struck back with multiple efforts trying to shift this image, but has met with varying success. The strength of the initial attack was so strong that it will take both time and investment to overcome.

2. Audi vs. BMW

Audi: “Your move, BMW”
BMW: “Checkmate”
Pretty much anyone who saw these signs: “Oh, Snap!”

These duelling billboards appeared in Southern California- with the BMW ad appearing not long after the AUDI version went up. Note that the BMW response is that of a local dealership toward the national Audi Campaign. The social media space  is where the damage was being done, so that was the arena where Audi planned a comeback, where they recruited participants to the AUDI facebook site- and asked them to photoshop an appropriate response.

The success of this comeback campaign was not clear…..while the internet certainly picked up on the BMW Checkmate damage that was done to the AUDI brand, it was an interesting way for AUDI to use social media in an interesting way to try and  mitigate the impact of the negative word of mouth.

In terms of the consumer decision making process for automobiles, automobiles have both an important technical element, as well as a strong brand identity element, which means comparative/attack ads aimed at these components are fairly commonplace.

3. Rogers vs. Bell:

In some cases, the attacker actually subverts the advertising images and messages of a rival – as recently seen in the recent Rogers (top image), and Bell (bottom image) tv and print ads:

In this case, both have launched integrated marketing campaigns battling for share of the ‘couch’. Part of this bitter rivalry is founded in the nature of the two businesses…..Rogers started as a cable company, and moved into mobile/home phone. Bell started as a home phone company – and moved into cable. As such, both have expanded into each other’s home territory….meaning that hostilities are high.

Sadly reader, I think most of my posts will involve Japan in some way (reflective of the substantial percentage of my life that was spent there). I can say that this kind of comparative advertising in Japan is VERY rare….extolling the virtues of your own product is one thing, but directly bashing your competitors is another story. Trying to promote shame and embarrassment in others is a social taboo.

Also, speaking as a guy who has some experience in personally selling both products and services, I can say that this full-contact approach can be risky- and seems to work best only when there are very cut-and-dried technical or price-point differences which are directly related to the customer’s purchase decision criteria. Saying “Ours is better/best” seems to be ok, but “Company B has terrible XXXXXX” can backfire – it implies that you recognize them as a real threat that needs addressing. .

In terms of an integrated marketing campaign, the comparative approach provides free advertising to your rival, as you are essentially paying to increase the brand awareness and recall of every brand you mention.

Having said all of that that, it is difficult to argue with the relative success of the campaigns outlined above, as all have been at least mildly successful in our North American markets (at very least, it has prompted plenty of people to blog about it). So, I would ask the reader:

• What are the risks of taking this approach?
• Why are they successful/Why do they fail?
• Can you find any examples where this approach did not work?

There are serious talks of money when enhancing “cultural capital” – whole industries (and jobs) in fashion, design, architecture, multi-media, etc – in striving to be become a “global city brand” on par with Paris, New York and London. It is ambitious, no doubt. In other words, design is serious business, as South Korea’s companies have learned. For example, in enabling Samsung to overtake America’s Motorola and become the world’s second-largest cell phone maker (after Finland’s Nokia) in 2007.

What does it take to transform a city? Let’s talk “Culturenomics”. It starts with creating an urban environment where people want to come and live with their businesses and raise families. Creative industries and lifestyle are what drive national competitiveness.

According to South Korean officials, “major companies have chief design officers sitting next to their CEOs. We already have 30,000 design students graduating every year. We have to make the best use of these human resources. Our goal is to have people say that if you want to see the latest design trend, you should go to Seoul. That will be a valuable asset for economic growth. Culture is the key factor that can promote the attractiveness of a country or city. Products we export with a touch of culture will be sold at a more expensive price.” They definitely get it.

Seoul is not without competition. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo are all trying to be the regional design hub, and all of them have some advantages. Many of Seoul’s (or Hong Kong or Shanghai) visions are top-down planned real estate redevelopment, but underlying all of it is the people or mix of people that drive the creative “Culturenomics”. Top-down is needed, but not enough. It is a co-creation process that involves industries and developers. The creative coalition will need to look at each city and its history, the present situation and possible futures to mobilize people. Often these people are marginalized and their importance is diminished in a city whose economic development is too often focused on smokestack chasing and giving away tax freezes.

There needs to be an understanding of the so-called creative class, in order to identify the essential parts of a creative ecosystem and the investments needed for it. We need to identify the cultural and heritage facilities needed, new ways to build community participation and ideas to attract new creative industries into identified precincts.  We need facilities for artists, writers and performers … but also need to find ways of attracting filmmakers, designers, architects, multimedia and creative technology companies, and all those who create ideas and content. These arts and related creative industries drive new economies. They also help create an attractive and sophisticated city in which to live, work and invest. Every city needs a plan and this will shape the competitiveness of cities in the next 20 years. Designers can help transform them. I wonder if Toronto, Chicago, Bangalore, Boston, Montreal, Shanghai, Zurich and Dublin have plans in place?

Image Source: http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/seoul2026.jpg; http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/seoul2026interior.jpg; http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JpAMkZYKSnM/RhqmYi51nQI/AAAAAAAAAds/5TtOzTpS_IA/s400/Shanghai%2BRen%2BBuilding.jpeg

The relation of conceptual design and social interaction is an important issue that influences the future of industrial design management. The Social Web has made astonishing progress the last two years, while advanced manufacturing technology emerges in an endless stream. The results are an extensive amount of accessible data that can promote endless new ideas for innovation. The environmental effect and social moral concept of design, the manufacturing place and method of product, the materials, function and usages of product, as well as abandonment and recovery of product, have become the new connotative meanings of conceptual design. This goes beyond traditional product design.

From the design of product into the design of service, the design of material object into the design of virtual product and the design of service into social interactions… a completely new mode of industrial design is emerging. The whole world is moving into the era of accelerated digitalization and extended collaboration. Then, maybe we should be training a new breed of design called “Social” Design? Well, that’s sounds like “Anthropology meets Human Factors”.

There’s a NY Times article on Japanese industrial design guru Naoto Fukasawa. It is an interesting story about his design journey. He is being called a later day Charles Eames and is highly respected in his field. According to Brown, “He is able to interpret the relationship between people and objects in a way that is at some level obvious, yet nuanced and sophisticated. His approach to design isn’t intellectual, it’s human.” This is an interesting one, I find that architects can design great things while striving for an unrealistic level of perfection, yet industrial designers are looking for all the human elements or solving little problems of our lives. And, product development folks just want the coolest features they can add to it. Three very different schools and these are just my personal experience working with some of the best people in the business.

The world of industrial design is a great culture consisting of humanistic spirit, appealing aesthetics, human factors, philosophy, science, human interactions, space and technology. The industrial design culture is a product of this period, stigmatized distinctly with times. It is easy to see that the method and means of industrial design needs to evolve. I propose we stop calling it “Industrial” Design. Let’s use “Sustainable” Design and “Social” Design instead. After all, these names are way cooler.

Image Source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/381627583_64915bfae0.jpg ;http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/web/u/p/p/Naoto_Fukasawa_for_web.jpg