Innventia, a research and development company in Sweden are working towards an open innovation platform through their project OpTex for one of their specialist areas; textile-like materials made on a paper machine. As part of the development phase of OpTex, Leon Cruickshank and Laura Morris have produced six case studies on existing open innovation platforms, which highlight different approaches to issues that are of interest and relevance to Innventia as they consider the shape of their own platform. Specific areas explored include motivation for on-going participation, strengths and weaknesses and approach to IP.
The six case studies are for Fab Labs, Facemooc, LEGO Ideas, MIT Media Lab, .Net Gadgeteer and Procter and Gamble’s Connect + Develop. These examples were selected because they cover a variety of approaches to open innovation, which have been mapped on a landscape of open innovation, as shown above. The map shows that the examples ranged from knowledge being brokered or drawn in from outside, to collaboratively generated knowledge within the system in one dimension and commercial to community activity in another.
The case studies have been packaged in a PDF for Innventia and included in one of the project reports, which goes into more detail as to how Innventia can motivate their own open innovation platform stakeholders to participate over time. The case studies can be downloaded from this page.
Laura Wareing
Leon Cruickshank