Open Innovation | Page 3 | Esteve Almirall

January 23, 2015January 24, 2015 by Esteve Almirall

3D Printing – First resin toys now cars and buildings, the only question is: When?

3D printing started producing small pieces mad of resin. With time, this technology has become commonplace and now we can buy a 3D printer in a kit for $600. We realize to what extent this technology is being incorporate in our lives when we stumble upon one of these shops that produce a mini-you printed full-color in 3D for $100. Then, suddenly, we become aware that it is becoming mainstream.

However, not all technologies have the same transformative power. Some of them, radical and disruptive innovations can destroy economic empires, change our habits and create new meanings and social constructs in a matter of years. If you are not convinced of this, look into your pockets, what do you find there? A Nokia or a Blackberry? Chances are that you use an iPhone or Android based device. Only a few years ago these companies had market shares approaching 60% or 80%. Now, who do you know that uses a Nokia?

Is 3D printing one of this?

In many ways 3D printing as an innovation process resembles previous ones such as LCD TVs, PDAs (now called smartphones), … a pattern typical of disruptive innovation. A new technology appears that beginning as a toy, after a few iterations covers 70% of our needs with a huge price gap and eventually replaces and redefines a whole sector. This has been the case of LCD with CRT, SDD with hard drives or smartphones with mobile phones and so many other examples.

Always the puzzling story is that we know the outcome, we all know it. There is little doubt that eventually the old technology is going to be replaced. Looks this familiar? Do you think it fits well the pattern of 3D printing? Probably yes.

Open Innovation & Smart Cities

This is a quite old article that Henry Chesbrough and I wrote and got published in English on September 2014 due to the interest expressed by a large number of international delegations.

Our vision is changing, because Open Innovation is a moving field, particularly in the Public Sector and Smart Cities. However the one that we presented is still in many ways completely valid.

Here you can find the whole article and following the conclusions:

Innovation and cities are two concepts that have always gone hand in hand. Geoffrey West, who for many years was the director of the well-known Santa Fe Institute, has described the positive correlation between the size of cities and their innovation capacity in terms of a power-law (Bettencourt et al., 2007). That is, a city that is 10 times larg- er is 17 times more innovative, but a city that is 50 times big- ger is 130 times more innovative.

Large cities have always been considered places that welcome subcultures (Fischer, 1995) and non-conven- tional residents (Florida, 2005).

In this article, we have described the theory that the prevalent model of innovation in cities continues to be based on a structure of providing predefined services. This model does not include elements that enable cities to reinvent themselves, which is what is sought in smart city proposals (Florida, 2010).

The reinvention of cities, which should lead us closer to smart cities, requires the reinvention of the governance of cities themselves, particularly in terms of the manage- ment of innovation. This point is further supported if we consider the reality of cities as entities that compete for talent and creativity (Florida, 2008), in a world where competition is increasingly defined by the capacity to innovate, not just by efficiency or productivity.

In the article, we have focused particularly on inter- mediaries in innovation processes, particularly public intermediaries. We centred on a specific mechanism: the use of urban space as an area for research and experi- mentation by the citizens themselves through urban labs.

The existence of intermediaries is possibly one of the most relevant characteristics of open innovation process- es. However, although open innovation is prevalent in the private sector, it is only just beginning to be intro- duced in the private sector. Urban labs will definitely undergo considerable transformation in the coming years, and shape this new scenario of open innovation in the public field.

December 16, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

World Open Innovation Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEGa98r-KCw&feature=youtu.be

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December 13, 2014December 14, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

Open Innovation – new ways of reducing market risk

in the early days and still today Open Innovation focused in how to source new ideas, particularly the ones that were already half-baked pre-tested. Still most of what happens in Open Innovation revolves around scouting innovative products or projects that have a limited but significance acceptance in the market but that are not widely diffused and incorporate them into the innovation pipeline.

However, though important, sourcing ideas is probably not the biggest problem of a company. Most companies and startups try to clear what we call market risk: to elucidate which ideas will be successful in the market and which ones no.

If we take a look at the recent hits we will find plenty of ideas such as whatsapp which in the beginning their success was far from clear. How to reduce this uncertainty is probably the biggest problem in business, startups are at the end nothing else but a device for clearing this risk.

World Open Innovation Congress 2014

Estos días se ha celebrado en Napa Valley en California el 1er Congreso de Innovación Abierta (World Open Innovation Congress). Algo más de un centenar de personas procedentes de la academia y la industria han explorado el estado de la innovación abierta hoy, en 2014, once años después de su génesis.

Desde el principio Esade está muy ligada a los temas de Innovación Abierta y es uno de los motores del movimiento. En este congreso hemos participado Ivanka y yo mismo, aunque muchos de los investigadores como Henry Chesbrough, Wim Vanhaverbeke o Sabine Brunswiker estan con nosotros como profesores titulares o como visiting. De alguna manera, estamos en casa.

En estos diez años se ha recorrido un largo camino. Hoy Open Innovation es una disciplina consolidada con aportaciones en muchas áreas desde el entrepreneurship, hasta las SMEs, el mundo de la creatividad, lo público o las Smart Cities. Si quisiéramos resumir en una sentencia esta evolución, la describiríamos como el paso de la innovación concebida a partir de una relación entre 2 actores – una relación diadíca – donde uno obtiene innovación de otro normalmente más pequeño, a una concepción basada en ecosistemas donde la interacción es el protagonista principal.

En esta conferencia se ha evidenciado de una manera muy clara este cambio en practicamente todas las áreas. Muchos hemos tenido la sensación de final de una etapa, pero sólo un instante, sólo para caer en la cuenta que posiblemente esta conferencia no es el final de nada sino el principio de todo.

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November 25, 2014December 11, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

Open Innovation in Cities

A video summarizing the Open Innovation in Cities course from the Center for Innovation in Cities done in ESADE with the World Bank and Aalto.

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November 14, 2014December 11, 2014 by Esteve Almirall

La fórmula de los nuevos Silicon Valley – NYC

Probablemente nos sería difícil encontrar que en algún momento de su historia no ha intentando desarrollar un proceso de emprendimiento inspirado en el modelo de Silicon Valley.

La sensación de urgencia que ha recorre el mundo occidental desde hace un par de décadas debido al outsourcing y a la deslocalización primero y a la digitalización y robotización después.

Desde hace más de un decenio, crear industrias en lo digital parece ineludible si un país quiere mantenerse en la senda del progreso. Todo, o casi todo, se está digitalizando. No sólo música, libros, periódicos, revistas y fotos, elementos tan perentorios como la calefacción con NEST, las bombillas con HUE (Philips) o nuestros coches se incorporan a esta tendencia que parece imparable. Todo ellos nos ha llevado fácilmente a la conclusión que sin un industria digital sólida no hay futuro y ha lanzado a muchas ciudades y agencias de innovación a buscar ese santo grial.

Para sorpresa de bastantes – y esto pasa a menudo en el campo de la innovación – algunas ciudades más bien poco relevantes en lo digital se han convertido en muy poco tiempo en centros de primer order. Tal es el caso de algunas ciudades de la costa este de Estados Unidos como Boston, Washington y Nueva York. Sin ir más lejos la foto adjunta es la concentración de empresas digitales en Manhattan.

Nueva York era el centro financiero, la ciudad de la moda y la publicidad y bastantes cosas más, pero cuando se hablaba de apps e Internet, inmediatamente cambiábamos de costa y pensábamos en Silicon Valley. Sin embargo, hoy esto ya no es así. El centro de Manhattan y el Village primero y Brooklyn ahora está lleno de startups digitales, algunas de ellas con un éxito evidente.

Buena parte de este éxito se debe al trabajo de la administración Bloomberg en la alcaldía de Nueva York. Para ello hizo cuatro (4) cosas.