Since Henry Chesbrough coined the term in 2003, open innovation has been providing a framework for companies to tap a vast network of customers, experts, and other organizations. Companies such as Kraft, P&G, General Electric (GE), and Bosch have been using open innovation to source and develop outside concepts that spur disruptive innovation and help solve pressing challenges. Undeniably, open innovation has been a powerful tool for companies looking to boost innovation, but a lack in focus can sometimes lead to an overabundance of ideas that lack a connection to current business needs. Focus is certainly key as PG has proven with "…more than 35 percent of new products in market have elements that originated from outside P&G".

Although open innovation was not a new concept at Kraft Foods, the company was looking to focus their open innovation efforts. Moving from a single private submission form where the public could freely submit any idea on anything with Innovate with Kraft (IWK), to a focused platform, the Kraft Foods Collaboration Kitchen (KFCK) is a major shift in their open innovation strategy. The new portal manages ideas from the public on new products, solutions and technologies with specific topics in mind predetermined internally. With KFCK, the company's strategy focuses on solving specific needs or questions defined by Kraft employees, known as 'briefs', and inviting the public to contribute their ideas on those topics. KFCK is powered by Brightidea software which allows easy management and launch of numerous briefs while facilitating collaboration amongst users in an interactive online community. Kraft is expecting to release well over 70 different briefs over the next year across its different brands.

Big organizational changes have come to Kraft Foods over the past few years. In 2010 the company acquired the British confectionary company Cadbury and recently announced plans to split into two separate businesses, Kraft Foods Groceries and Mondelez International (a name crowdsourced internally in Kraft's Brightidea-powered Idea Kitchen). Kraft continues its commitment to innovation with the launch of KFCK, which essentially combines Innovate with Kraft (IWK) Open innovation portal together with Cadbury's Collaboration Factory under one roof.

With names like Oreo, Cadbury, and Jello-O, Kraft Foods houses some of the world's best-known food brands. Want to bring your own flavor to the products you love? Now is your chance to bring your ideas to Kraft. If you are university student, technology person, innovator, or just someone with great ideas and new products or patents check out the Collaboration Kitchen to get involved!

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) has long been using Brightidea software to drive innovation management at every level. The Garage, an internal innovation platform accessible to all 300,000 employees is designed to maximize the flow of new ideas on virtually anything and route them to where they are needed most in the organization. Employees can easily access The Garage and submit or collaborate on ideas, as well as stay up-to-date on innovation activities within the company. The name "The Garage" refers to the company's beginnings in a garage in 1939, which serves as a reminder of the where they started and history of innovation at HP.

HP's latest campaign is truly an evolution of the Garage and represents a new leap forward. InnoStream is an "organizational stream of consciousness" campaign where employees can submit ideas about anything related to HP software, such as new services and product enhancements.

Employees can collaborate and vote on submissions to indentify top ideas in hopes of winning the popular vote and getting a chance to create a business proposal for the idea's further development. Development teams will be built around ideas chosen by a review team and will have an opportunity to utilize customers as design partners, and showcase them to a design council for possible funding and implementation. Finalized ideas could become a part of HP's software portfolio or incorporated in existing products.

InnoStream is also introducing a host of new opportunities for innovation including 'InnoBlast', an event where people can present ideas or cool things they have created, and 'InnoMiles', a point system where users can win prizes and privileges as they build up to silver, gold, and platinum account status. Top winners with the most InnoMiles will receive 'InnoStar' ranking, designated to recognize outstanding contributors. These types of rewards and recognition are the some of the most common ways companies are engaging employees and encouraging participation while maintaining a thriving innovation community. Innovation is at work!

Only six months after General Electric (GE) launched a new open innovation challenge, Healthymagination, looking for breakthrough ideas on early detection and treatment of breast cancer, innovation is fueling change like never before possible.

Powered by Brightidea software, the challenge was open to the public and targeted academic institutions and thousands of researchers around the world to come together to collaborate on breakthrough innovations. Following the underlying business strategy of GE to open the company up to external ideas to fuel innovation across several business units, Healthymagination follows the success of GE's other open innovation challenge, Ecomagination, which sought breakthrough ideas to improve our energy future.

After a relatively short but thorough evaluation, the five innovations challenge award winners from the first phase have been chosen. A panel of independent judges selected these five winners from over 500 submissions. The winning teams come from The University of Akron, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Moffitt Cancer Center, and two teams from Vanderbilt University, with each group receiving $100,000 from GE to help develop thier ideas. GE is not stopping there as this summer additional venture capital funding will be awarded to participants and organizations to take their innovations to market.

Based on originality, feasibility, and impact, the following are the winning ideas:

• The University of Akron: a smart and safe breast implant that combines cancer diagnosis and treatment to promote healing.
• Vanderbilt University: creating more personalized chemotherapies for Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: creating the first breast screening programs in Uganda to help fight Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
• Moffitt Cancer Center: detecting patients' risk for spreading cancer after onset through genetics
• Vanderbilt University: developing MyCancerGenome, an online database helping medical professionals stay up-to-date with research and therapies.

Brightidea is proud to offer the most comprehensive software platform to fuel continuous innovation which is changing lives and solving pressing challenges. For information on Healthymagination and the winners, please click here.

Did you know that March 6th the Oreo cookie turned 100? For the last century, the Oreo has grabbed the attention of the always picky and imaginative taste buds of children. Beyond just the US, now the Oreo has been re-imagined to connect with children across the world, and most recently China. Let’s dig into this story a bit further to see how Kraft foods innovated this classic, fun, and delightful cookie.

Lorna Davis, SVP at Kraft foods, recently spoke with NPR's Planet Money in the 'Genius Ideas' podcast about launching the popular Oreo cookie in China. Kraft foods initially released the cookie with its original ingredients, but found that Chinese consumers were not very receptive to its taste, as they said it is "a little bit too sweet and it's a little bit too bitter," Davis said.

So it was back to the drawing board to re-imagine the Oreo cookie for the Chinese market. Davis sought ideas on how to modify the cookie. Kraft food's already-established online innovation community of global employees, the 'Idea Kitchen', powered by Brightidea software to was ready to provide suggestions and new ideas.

The result of these efforts was a new, more chocolaty and less sweet Oreo cookie that appealed to Chinese taste buds. An advertising campaign that promoted the 'twist, lick, dunk,' of eating an Oreo reached out to the unaccustomed Chinese consumers to acquaint them with an experience that is uniquely common knowledge in American culture.

Consequently "they saw sales of Oreos double in China, then double again and again. It's now the bestselling cookie there." The company has even gone as far as creating completely new Oreos, such as a green tea ice-cream flavored cookie. Kraft foods continues to innovate smarter and address new challenges through creative, purposed collaboration. We continue to relish seeing innovation at work, Kraft foods style.

Listen to the full segment and interview with Lorna Davis on NPR here.

This is Part Two in the series discussing Brightidea's Limitless innovation campaign looking to Brightidea employees for the latest technology and social application ideas. In the first post, we sat down to speak with VP of Product, Jason Hardy-Smith. This time we bring you Paul Tran, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Brightidea, who delves into the experiences of using Brightidea software and the methods utilized to achieve dynamic participation at all levels of the company.

Paul brings years of expertise helping customers use Brightidea software to deliver continuous results. However, using it for an internal campaign at Brightidea has surfaced new insights for Paul such as, "it allows us to firsthand experience what it's like for customers to use our software and that allows us to make the user experience better by actually putting it through our own internal processes." Using Brightidea internally makes it possible to take advantage of countless features and workflows. A few utilized include automated point-scoring for participation and campaign leaderboards, as well as advanced concept clustering to identify themes to inform proposal collaboration and scorecarding needed for proper decision-making.

Just like most campaigns, challenges and key insights emerge, such as learning how to formulate and present a concept clearly. Paul emphasizes the importance of how an idea is communicated because "not everybody knows how to pitch, not everybody knows how to communicate their idea very well." Through this campaign Brightidea employees gain knowledge on how to effectively present an interesting idea so that the idea itself is exciting with illustrations, clear presentations, pictures, and more.

Paul also helps Jason moderate the campaign and facilitate continuous communication internally. By actively engaging the community through spurring discussions around concept submissions via comments, as well as sending company-wide emails and directly speaking with employees around the office. "We made a formal announcement from the CEO in a town hall, subsequently we've pinned up metrics. For example I print out what the current stats are and put them on the office walls so when people walk down the halls they can see how many ideas have been submitted today, what the most recent ones are, and what the most popular are."

Paul believes that the ownership of the Limitless campaign at a VP level helps drive the success of the entire campaign. "What's really inspired the employees on Limitless versus different campaigns is that there's a true owner," says Paul. "No doubt we've run countless employee-facing campaigns in the past. It is not that nobody's listening to them, and ideas aren't being implemented, but partially these campaigns act as a system of record too. With Limitless, we have an owner at a department level driving it who is extracting enormous value from the collaboration with a vested interest in the findings and insights being surfaced." Giving employees from every area of the business one space for collaboration around new technology, as Paul passionately notes is "extremely valuable".

Be sure to follow Paul on Twitter at @paultran888.

This post is part of the Innovation Management Practitioners Blog series.

The "green" message is clear: use less energy and leverage renewable energy sources. From the use less perspective, the concept seems simple, however population growth and income increase due to globalization are causing a swell in energy consumption, mainly in the form of coal, gas, and oil. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published their Annual Energy Outlook 2011 looking at the state of energy by 2035 and projected a growing reliance on liquid fuels of 44% by 2030 – a trend that is not sustainable. The way we consume energy needs to change as the world is facing a major crossroad in consumption and supply. But the biggest opportunity for innovation may not just be in new sources and delivery optimization but in the way companies seek to source and collaborate on building those breakthrough innovations. This in fact, maybe the biggest opportunity that will shift the way we consume and source energy in the future.

The Context

With respect to renewable resources, alternative energy sources, such as wind, biomass and solar power continue to increase in funding and capacity, but in 2011 only made up 16% of the global energy consumption. The energy industry is indeed different from other industries in that constant innovation is highly necessary to keep up with overall growth and build a sustainable future. But how exactly are big energy companies innovating? Looking further, a few unique challenges are faced by big energy, and unique ways in which companies are refactoring their approach to innovation to meet growing demands.

Cost drives the energy market, as corporations and governments are constantly on the search for the cheapest form of energy, which may not necessarily be the most sustainable. Although there may be an ample supply of coal in the United States, the environmental cost of burning such fuels is quite high as toxins and greenhouse gases are emitted, while extraction is becoming increasingly expensive and difficult. Oil carries many of the same problems as coal with the added risk of environmental disasters, such as the infamous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

With regards to the US, the country's high demand for energy has brought about numerous challenges, such as dependence on foreign fuel in nations. When looking energy challenges in America, CAN, a non-profit research organization, stated, "without stable and predictable energy prices, business leaders, farmers, and especially large industries cannot effectively plan, hire, and remain competitive in a global market." Dependence on energy affects all parts of the country, from government policy to small businesses.

The recent high-profile bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy, highlights some of the challenges with energy innovation. Innovating in the energy market is risky and may require millions of dollars towards a project or company that could easily fail.

New Approaches To Innovation

China Light and Power (CLP), a leading power company in the Asia-Pacific region, focuses their innovation initiatives on the foundation of the company, employees and corporate culture. Engages employees spread across continents, an innovation program called innov8, powered by Brightidea seeks to tap the intelligence of employees to find efficiencies and sustainability in day to day operations, but on a large strategic scale as well. Targeted campaigns encourage employee involvement with support from top management and creative branding and marketing for each campaign. "innov8 gives us the platform to connect, collaborate and innovate across geographic boundaries," Joe Locandro, CIO of CLP has stated. One campaign, Earth Heroes, looked to its employees for ideas on eliminating waste that could be contributed to Hong Kong's Energy Efficiency & Conservation program. It utilized Brightidea's iPhone app and spurred interest through a variety of marketing mediums including posters featuring the company's top management as action heroes. CLP donated HK$5 to green initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region for every idea submitted. Another campaign, Sustainability Jukebox, expands the range of people involved by bringing employees from Hong Kong, Australia, and India to collaborate within a dual-language interface on various sustainability strategies for the organization. CLP has been recognized as a leader for its various efforts, and to learn more about their innovation program, a full case study is available here.

This post is part of our One-on-One at BOF video series featuring interviews from innovation leaders at Kraft's Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event.

Peter Neumann, Innovation Manager at Bosch, a leading power tool and accessories corporation based in Germany, talks with Brightidea about the open innovation. When asked how he defines success, Peter stated, "Well one way is we have an open innovation from one of our Dremel Link group members and we're going to release this product in about another month." 

Bosch is clearly demonstrating the power of open innovation through implemented product ideas and increased customer collaboration where unmet needs and wants intuitively inform the product roadmap.

Find below Peter's full interview.

Join our BOF Community of Innovation Leaders today and get insights, access, and instant connections to practitioners around the world.

This is part of our One-on-One at BOF video series, featuring interviews from innovation leaders who presented at Kraft's Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event.

EllisDon, one of the largest building contractors in Canada, was present with their Web Application Manager, Christine Zakrajsek, to discuss the company's innovation strategies. After her presentation we had a chance to catch up with Christine for a quick interview and when asked about how the company defines success, she responded, "We define success at EllisDon about engagement because we believe that engaged employees are happy employees and happy employees are successful business." Christine continued by saying, "once you get the sharing and the engagement, the innovation almost happens naturally, and once you have that natural organic innovation the ROI bubbles up."

Take a look at her exclusive interview below.

Join our BOF Community of Innovation Leaders today and get insights, access, and instant connections to practitioners around the world.

This is part of our One-on-One at BOF video series, featuring interviews from innovation leaders who presented at Kraft's Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), a leading multinational information technology company, brought their IP and Innovation Strategist, Silvi Steigerwald, to BOF where she talked to Brightidea about the company's innovation portal The Garage. We had a chance chat with Silvi directly about how the company utilizes Brightidea and she said, "We also use it to recognize our inventors and idea submitters too. We try to highlight news, hot ideas, so more than just gathering ideas and collaboration we use it as a communication vehicle."

Watch Silvi's full interview below.

Join our BOF Community of Innovation Leaders today and get insights, access, and instant connections to practitioners around the world.

It's December, the holiday season is upon us and gift giving is in full swing. But, did you know giving a child the chance at a better life is possible this year by doing something other than opening up your wallet? World Vision, a global humanitarian organization, presents an alternative type of gift – one composed of your time, thoughtfulness, expertise and ideas. The organization has recently launched Sponsor a Solution, a Brightidea-powered challenge looking to the public to donate their software development skills to help solve vital technology challenges encountered while providing aid. Technology is critical to World Vision and its field workers around the world as they continually use it to properly communicate and better help disadvantaged children, families and communities around the world.

World Vision handles numerous challenges when facilitating aid and have chosen to focus on the two most crucial areas identified by field workers scattered across the globe: field data and collection and fixed asset and inventory tracking. Since launching, the platform has already received a series of ideas, such as a proposed offline capability to collect children's data and the creation of a mobile app. Sponsor a Solution is currently open for submissions.

Join World Vision and Brightidea in spreading the word and embracing the holiday spirit of generosity by donating invaluable time and ideas to those in need. Post a solution today!