Open Innovation has become quite popular in recent years. Organisations have realised that they need to leverage the capabilities outside the organisation to build innovative & competitive operations, products and services. Companies have realised that great ideas can come from outside, distinctive resources and capabilities may lie outside and even sharing internal resources with external players can unlock greater potential. Increasingly, companies are working on partnerships with academic insititutions, start-ups, investors, government agencies, companies and individuals.
An ecosystem with a sense of community is required to enable diverse players to engage and form productive relationships for Open Innovation. Efforts in this direction include establishing marketplaces to bring innovators and sponsors together, Eg: IX (Innovation Exchange). Building communities, expert's database and platform to exchange ideas, run competitions and fund projects like Innocentive, Nine Sigma etc. Then in software space, there are open source communities like Eclipse and others.
More often, companies rely on personal one to one relationships for Open Innovation. While the future is many to many interactions; trust, governance and intellectual property are some of the issues that weigh down the the progress.
