Terms like "open innovation" and "customer-driven innovation" are all the rage and these strategies can certainly help organizations become more innovative. Yet most companies approach open innovation the way Tom Sawyer approached whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence. Meaning, they think they can convince others to paint their fence for them.

But not everyone is as smooth as Tom Sawyer. If your open innovation initiatives aren't working, here are some ideas that might help you get them on the right track.

Problem

Your open innovation program isn't working. You've put a problem out there that your company needs help solving, and no "community" is showing up to solve it for you. If open innovation is so great, what are you doing wrong?

Solution

Tom Sawyer was a genius at convincing people to do his bidding. But not every company can be like Tom Sawyer. Sure, there are companies out there like Starbucks (you've probably seen or heard about their oft-mentioned "My Starbucks Idea" site) that have the brand reach and broad interest to employ a Tom Sawyer-like open innovation strategy.

The first step is to show some humility and admit that you are no Tom Sawyer.

And then switch the problem around. Rather than thinking "how can I convince a community to solve my problem for me?" ask yourself "Are there communities out there that my company could join that might be experiencing problems similar to mine?"

After all, why does it have to be your community? The mistake most companies make with open innovation is that they assume that the ony way for open innovation to work is for the community to be built around them.

Not only is this an arrogant approach, it often doesn't work, especially for smaller companies. A much better approach is one that has worked very well for companies in the open source software movement; to become humble members of existing communities rather than attempting to build new communities around you.

Think of a world where not just your fence gets painted, but where everyone's fence gets painted at the same time. By participating in a community bigger than you, you might solve your problem faster, and you'll be much more likely to find people to help (because you'll be helping them solve their problem at the same time).

What's more, you might actually (gasp!) contribute to something bigger than you.

Practical Impact

There are a few obvious impacts of this approach.

1. You become a good citizen instead of a king. Being a participant is a role with humility, and being able to participate as a citizen versus having to "own" or control everthing will make people much more receptive to your ideas and needs. No one likes a self-appointed king.

2. You may benefit from perspectives other than your own. In a company-based open innovation approach, you define the problem and others (in theory) solve it. But if you are working on a problem that many different groups/interests are trying to solve, and you are all defining the problems together, you may realize that your initial definition was wrong, or that there are better ways of thinking about or tackling the issue.

3. You may see results faster. Rather than starting from scratch, you may be able to tap into an existing network of people who are already thinking about the same problem as you. Why start from scratch when there are others who could give you a head start?

First Steps

The first step is to stop creating communities and start looking around for communites you can join.

Once you've found a community that you think you can help, start considering what resources your company could bring to to the table that may help this community achieve its goals. Could your company provide:

Funding?
People?
Good ideas?
Powerful endorsement?
Wider attention?

I'm sure you'll think of other things as well.

Credits

I've previously explored the Tom Sawyer mentality approach in a few blog posts:

http://darkmattermatters.com/2009/09/09/tom-sawyer-whitewashing-fences-a...
http://darkmattermatters.com/2009/10/13/tom-sawyer-part-2-where-can-your...

And I certainly had this way of thinking beat into my head by some of the best community architects in the world while I was at Red Hat, including Greg DeKoenigsberg (http://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/), Karsten Wade (http://iquaid.org/), and Max Spevack (http://spevack.livejournal.com/).

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August 2, 2010 at 7:35am

Chris Grams

Hi Sam--

Thanks for the great thoughts! To answer your question, I believe both types of communities-- those built around a company and those that a company joins-- are valuable, but in different ways.

Any company that has enough goodwill or brand power to have a group of people who want to create or join a community based solely around their products/services is in a fantastic position. I worry more for smaller companies and brands that approach community building around themselves as the _only_ way. They may see little or no success with their community efforts because they don't have the convening power of a bigger brand.

In my opinion, successful community engagement strategies will involve both methods-- building community around your company where you can, but also being a humble participant in communities bigger than your company as well. In fact, doing more of the latter may end up helping you be more successful at the former in the long term.

July 30, 2010 at 9:35am

Sam Knuth (Folk-Williams)

Chris,

Great thoughts and perspective as usual. One challenge I've noticed is that often times members of a community that use or benefit from the open innovation of a company that contributes to the community (as in the open source software example) can be quite different than a lot of the customers of the company. That is, there can be a need to create a community around customers, who may value different things than people in the related communities already out there.

I was in a meeting of knowledge management folks from various technology companies in California last week and this was a pretty hot topic. I'm wondering how you see the difference in strategy between participating in communities of people related to a certain topic in the public arena vs. creating communities of customers who are looking to their vendor for value. In both cases we use the word "community", and in both cases the company is both looking to create value (if we give them the benefit of the doubt) and to benefit from it.

-Sam

August 10, 2010 at 9:44am

Raj Kumar

Hello Chris,

In contrast to the sense of relief I felt in reading your 'Deault to Open' hack for promoting happy accidents, I felt awe on encountering this one for two reasons:
- You are saying that mankind has finally found the means to harness its greatest driving force: the desire to create property and own it. The means - creation of communities of shared interest - has been tried out and works swimmingly well. In fact it is a win-win for the customer who gets IP free of charge, and for the community for it has a happy time at the bank.
- It is the easiest thing to participate in a community. They are here, amongst us, and all that one has to do is divest ones own self of the baggage of individual ownership and join up!

The future has yet to unfod but I did get the feel that we are onto something to create it, though it does have overtones of the tower of Babel - a struture made possible by no differences. However, true to my selfish human nature I am not perturbed for it also means my work in compelling energy to organize and drive the application of Knowledge will be needed. There will still be conflict of interests in the world and with the environment requiring communities to keep in touch with reality.

Rgards,

Raj Kumar

August 3, 2010 at 11:19am

Randy Pilkenton

Aw shucks, I love Tom Sawyer! Now, I agree that if you emulate Tom only to get others to "do your bidding" or "do the work for you", particularly in innovation, you are going to fail.

Tom Sawyer though can be interpreted as being quite skilled at getting those who otherwise are disinterested (because they are anything from lazy to political to territorial) but needed (because they own key customer relationships, they have institutional knowledge that needs to be leveraged, etc.) to see it being in their own self-interest to join the effort.

Getting key stakeholders or other constituents inside the tent can make it far easier to work on reducing the barriers to true partnership even further, helping them see that you are willing to (and encourage) ceding of control and encourage (and are willing to offer) their being an equal owner of what is being innovated and produced.

Self-interest is a natural human behavior and can't be avoided. Acknowledging it and harnessing it to draw others to your ideas seems useful -- who knows, maybe Tom Sawyer would agree!

This is a good Hack and I enjoyed reading it, and thank you for inviting input.

RJP

July 30, 2010 at 8:24am

Geoffrey Morton-Haworth

Hi Chris

You make a good point. A community wont engage (or stay engaged) if its leadership is disengaged (or just plain lazy).

And, of course, it is particularly relevant to this site.

Look at the number of orphan threads here, posted (especially by newcomers) and left unanswered by other contributors. The originators will be disappointed that they have had no reaction. Why aren’t the MIX moderators posting a follow up, even if it does not provide the answer? Such as “Hi, welcome… I’m no expert… but I see that contributors at this other hack, barrier, or story have been addressing issues like the one you’ve described, maybe you should take a look and give them a call…”

Good moderators don’t force people to contribute. They don’t point fingers or threaten. They show contributors that this is not a chore, a contest or a test. Good moderators are there to help others succeed.

If your forums fall short at the most basic level of competent moderation, it really does not matter how sexy the graphics and code.

Kind regards

Geoffrey

July 28, 2010 at 1:40am

David Mason

The only thing I would add to this is something you and I have talked about before Chris, that well-run communities are meritocracies. The goal should be for a person or company to contribute smartly so that they rise in the community to become leaders. This can only be done by showing that your intellect, quality of work, transparency, and contributions toward the community and the community's goals are worthy of being a leader. At that point, the magic of what a community can mean for an organization really starts to fly.

The benefits are exponential to the level of trust and leadership given back to the community.

Great stuff as usual, thanks for sharing.