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While the previous two methods – Netnography and Social Media Solution Scouting – outline the potential of passive methods in using the power of social media for innovation, the next two approaches enable companies to interact with consumers. Configuration Tools as well as Innovation Contests invite users outside the company’s four walls to become an active part of new product development. In part two of this article you will learn how Audi and Henkel empowered the crowd and turned them into co-producers.

Open innovation has found its way into companies’ innovation processes and is a widely used approach to spur collaborative innovation with consumers. A multitude of methods and tools have come into being, creating confusion about how to make the most out of users’ knowledge and creativity. This article provides innovation managers with insights into four popular open innovation practices at four German blue chips and contrasts the various approaches.

Booz&Co wrote in their article “The Social Life of Brands” on Strategy+Business that the value of a brand is linked with the relationships it has with its customers, creating and retaining them. For marketing, its fundamental task is managing these relationships. In a recent research by Gallup the results were striking, a 240 percent boost in performance was achieved when both employees and customers were enaged. This is exactly, in a highly technological driven business environment, digital innovation is the catalyst that improves engagement and provide means to manage relationships better, faster and in a cheaper way though digital.

Web 2.0 exponentially increased the transactional nature of the Web, and forever changed the way people express themselves, conduct business, learn about different subjects, shop, form communities, collaborate, and share their personal information. But the embrace of Web 2.0 has also introduced serious questions about the inherent risks associated with the use of these tools.

Just as modern technology has changed the way we interact with the world and our understanding of it, new technological solutions are also enhancing our legacy and our ability to rest in peace.

Organizations introduce web portals to help people share information and ideas. Time passes. Sites proliferate like kudzu strangling a pin oak. Their numbers keep people from finding the information they need and from engaging in the conversations that matter. Collaboration slows. What is the web gardener to do? In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores how the practice of collaborative innovation can help organizations trim their proliferating portals.

Grand Challenges represent enormous potential in their power to use open innovation practices to generate worldwide awareness of — and affinity for —private and public sector organizations. As challenge prizes grow and social media bring them to the attention of the world, Grand Challenges have also become an important part of public relations exercises for Grand Challenge sponsors like Virgin, Netflix and General Electric.

This is the outcome of IBM’s new survey on the marketing industry. Chief marketing officers (CMO) and chief information officers (CIO) must join forces in order to connect with today’s consumer across new channels including mobile devices and social networks. Sixty percent of marketers point to their lack of alignment with the company’s IT department as the biggest obstacle to reaching today’s consumers.

NineSigma launched yesterday the first open innovation social media destination which is free to innovation seekers and solution providers. NineSights is a secure and collaborative online community that connects innovators of all sizes with the resources and relationships needed to drive business value. The platform allows innovation seekers to post innovation needs and solution providers to submit proposals and post technologies and solutions that are “for sale.” NineSigma ensures quality on the site by vetting both seekers and providers.

Science has caused controversy for centuries. But scientific developments, such as addressing climate change, applications of biotechnology, and the use of stem cells or GM crops, and the resulting debates are becoming ever more central to our national economies and global wellbeing. Influencing those debates is, as a result, becoming more important to those on all sides of the arguments and those debates becoming ever more polarised; and protests increasingly violent. The greater part of the problem may not be public understanding of science, but rhetoric and values. Managing the emotional debate may be critical to future policy development and science based industries.

According to McKinsey’s first annual survey on the topic, most C-level executives say that the three key trends in digital business are big data and analytics, digital marketing and social-media tools, and the use of new delivery platforms such as cloud computing and mobility. These form the strategic priorities at their companies. However, they also report some tough challenges. Nearly half of respondents say their companies’ investments in digital initiatives are too small to deliver on their goals.

According to the IBM CEO study conducted amongst 1,700 CEOs from 64 countries and 18 sectors, Open CEOs’ identify openness enabled and supported by social media and technologies, as a major influence on their organization and its success. These organizations perform better because they are utilizing the collective intelligence, are more agile, able to act quickly to gain higher profitability and growth.

The European Open Innovation Summit, the only conference in Europe focused exclusively on open innovation (OI), will address key issues and uncover latest developments in efforts to utilize ideas from external groups when developing new products. This unique event will provide successful strategies for effectively collaborating with innovators outside of your group and offer solutions [...]

Stanford GSB Professor Jennifer Aaker talks about corporate brand experiments, such as Terminal Man, a famed Twitterer for an airline company, and other unprecedented tests in social media communications. Her analysis is that companies that embrace and interact with individual commentary in digital media will be far ahead of those that try to quash those who freely share their opinions.

The mission of this project is to support the EU Commission and the EU in general to help small & medium businesses, innovative entrepreneurs and the public sector to understand, adopt and leverage Social Media with the intention to more successfully grow their respective businesses, create additional jobs and better integrate government and population.