I also like this quote from Henry Chesbrough; “Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology”

This still leaves three other questions:

What is crowdsourcing? Wikipedia states that “crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.” I view crowdsourcing as a tool that can be used to bring external input into your organizations.

What is user-driven innovation? I view this as a technique in which companies gain insights from users, which can then be used in the innovation process. I think that a key element in user-driven innovation is the observation of users rather than the use of questionnaires and focus groups. Erick von Hippel is an important influencer with his contributions on lead-user innovation.

What is co-creation? Here Wikipedia states that co-creation views markets as forums for firms and active customers to share, combine and renew each other’s resources and capabilities to create value through new forms of interaction, service and learning mechanisms. It differs from the traditional active firm – passive consumer market construct of the past. I like how C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy argue that “value will be increasingly co-created by the firm and the customer, they argued, rather than being created entirely inside the firm.”

These terms overlap which leaves plenty of room for confusion, but I hope this short overview helps.

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