What is Open Innovation?
I attended a World Research Group (WRG) conference in New York with IP corporate counsel. The topic “Open Innovation” was on the agenda, featuring a panel with the senior corporate counsel from SAS, open innovation director from GSK, and an independent consultant.
The moderator started the session by asking how many people in the audience engaged in open innovation in their companies. No one raised their hands. This was very surprising to me. Were they multi-tasking and focused on something else, or was open innovation still that novel of a topic?
He proceeded by asking questions of the panelists about their involvement in open innovation, its qualities, and its risks and rewards. Following this discussion, a member of the audience raised his hand and said, “Now that you’ve defined open innovation, I would venture to guess that most of us have engaged in it but that we call it something else.”
The moderator queried the audience again: “How many of you engage in open innovation in your companies?” This time, about a dozen of the 50+ people in the room raised their hands. They just didn’t know it by this trendy buzz word.
Also of interest was GSK’s perspective on open innovation. Helene Rutledge, director of Open Innovation, was brilliant in her responses to the questions. Clearly she is an innovator in her own right in the space. According to Ms. Rutledge, GSK started doing open innovation four years ago, when less than 20 percent of its portfolio was open innovation-related. Its reason for embracing this methodology was to enhance its product development pipeline.
Today, GSK has more than 50 percent of its portfolio attributed to open innovation and it incentivizes people for their “Proudly Found Elsewhere” attitude.
The panel was engaging and interesting. Undoubtedly, the next time the topic of open innovation comes up, the attendees of this session will have a new perspective on the topic.
