Ever get that moment where you come up with an idea that your company (or any company) should adopt but never do because either you're an outsider or maybe they do take your idea, and you don't get credit for it! On the same token, imagine being the company, and nobody from inside can generate a good idea, or all ideas are limited to stay within the company. Isn't it so frustrating?
Well, this could all change with Open Innovation. Essentially, Open Innovation is when a company turns to the outside public to generate ideas and opinions instead of relying just on inside talent. This idea initially started with tech companies going to online communities for open source code and is also the basis of wikis where anyone can contribute and edit their opinions. This is now seen cross industry. Starbucks used Open Innovation to ask its customer and the general public about simple ideas to save costs instead of closing stores and laying off workers. Thousands contributed simple ideas such as using cheaper material for cups to simplifying furniture in stores. Starbucks used several of these ideas to save thousands on cost. IBM used Open Innovation to find uses for its Blue Gene computer - a complex supercomputer that can solve complex calculations. People submitted ideas to use Blue Gene to track and simulate cancer mutations to see the effects of heat on a gas turbine engine. Brilliant!
Speaking of brilliant ideas, it would be nice to consolidate my e-mail, igoogle, chat, facebook, linkedin, and schoolwork all into one page. Thankfully, that dream is getting closer to reality with gmail and yahoo trying to integrate their social network tools with e-mail. A majority of people use facebook as their social networking tool of choice, but google and yahoo are trying to compete with this by vamping up their own tools and integrating them into gmail and yahoo mail.
If this is successful, I think facebook will have some serious competition from the big hitters in Google and Yahoo. Of course, the best would be if either company merged with facebook so that consumers can get the best of all worlds. I'd hate to have to choose between different social networking tools, and would rather have all my preferred tools on one portal. Until that day comes, I'll stick to have 6 different firefox browsers open. That's not a brilliant idea, but it's all I have to work with at the moment.
Minus the Wonk
14 years ago
4 comments:
We've talked so much in our various classes about first-mover advantage and how that creates brand loyalty among customers. I don't use Facebook or MySpace, but my friends who do are extremely attached. I would think that in order for new social networking mediums like iGoogle and MyYahoo to be surpremely successful, they would need to create an alliance with Facebook or MySpace, or offer something so unique that people are willing to face the switching costs. You said yourself that you would prefer to have everything in one portal. If that wasn't possible, what would it take for you to switch?
It's funny you mention how nice it would be to integrate all those technologies into one and I literally laughed out loud when you mentioned having 6 browsers open in the meantime--beacause that is so me! I hope some Open Innovation source picks up on the idea. I really hope that the competition doesn't create segregation like the Iphone did when it first came out. I bought it but couldn't use my hotmail (without forwarding) nor my outlook and was going crazy. Now finally they've come around and it's made things a bit easier. Technology and innovation is great until you get addicted to it...i sometimes wonder what i used to do with my spare time before Facebook!
It seems like everything is becoming one gigantic integrated community with email, chat, etc.. It's like wal-mart all over again. I just hope that consolidating these features doesn't take away from the individual products.
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