Etherium Announces Open Plan to Cut Energy Use

How fundamental will this change be?  Mining to move beyond proof by work?

Ethereum Plans to Cut Its Absurd Energy Consumption by 99% 
IEEE Spectrum      By Peter Fairley

The Ethereum Foundation, and the broader open source movement devoted to advancing the cryptocurrency bitcoin, this year plan to field-test an overhaul of Ethereum's code. The typical Ethereum transaction consumes more power than an average U.S. household uses in a day, but by the end of 2019, the goal is for the new code to complete transactions using just 1% of that amount of energy. Zaki Manian, who is advising the cryptocurrency upstart Cosmos, said Ethereum's development process means multiple coders and organizations must collaborate in the open, converge on specifications, invent all of the technology to implement them, and make them work together seamlessly. He said, "It is by far the most technically ambitious open community project that has ever been attempted."  .. " 

Future of Innovation is Open

In CustomerThink, a well put overview:

Why The Future Of Innovation Is Open     By Jacob Morgan  

With the growth of technology and new ways of working, innovation is playing a huge role in the workplace. The most successful organizations are those that can prep for the future and push the envelope creatively to find the next innovative idea. But what if how we have been thinking about innovation is all wrong? Open innovation is a newer idea that is spreading across industries and changing how companies work together and plan for the future.

What is open innovation?

The traditional way of thinking about innovation has been to create the best ideas for your individual company and then keep them to yourself so you can sustain value. If your organization creates a new way of manufacturing a certain product, tradition has said that your group needs to be the one to own it and continue developing and distributing it. .... " 

Open Versus Closed Innovation

Irving Wladawsky-Berger  on closed versus open innovation.  Very nicely described.    He Writes:

Open Innovation 2.0

I recently read Twelve Principles for Open Innovation 2.0, an article published last year in Nature by Martin Curley.  Curley, - who’s long been involved with innovation in both his business and academic positions, - nicely summarized its evolution over the past several decades, first from closed to open innovation, and now to what he calls open innovation 2.0.  Let me discuss each of these phases of innovation.     .... " 

Nestle Innovation Platform

Previously mentioned,  my former colleague Pete Blackshaw announces Nestle's Open Innovation  Platform. :

" ... I’m extremely excited to unveil our new “Open Innovation” platform, Henri@Nestle.com (http://Henri.Nestle.com). Check it out! If you are an entrepreneur, tech enabler, or partner, sign up and tag your interest areas. Henri facilitates the rapid sharing of ideas and solutions in response to business challenges. Four challenges are now up, including one related to Nespresso and sustainability, micronutrient deficiency, and the future of bottled water. Each brief owner clearly outlines expectations, and we’ve tried to make the platform mobile friendly in every way possible. 

“With the ingenuity and innovative spirit of startups Henri@Nestlé can help address some of the world’s biggest nutrition, health and wellness challenges, creating funded opportunities to drive real impact at scale," said my colleague Gerardo Mazzeo, Global Innovation Director. ...  " 

See also Procter's Connect and Develop.

Nestle Open Innovation Platform

Via Idea Connection.   Former colleague and P&Ger Pete Blackshaw is quoted.

" ... In an interview with The Drum, Pete Blackshaw, global head of digital and social media at Nestlé, said:  '…the way that will work is we will take businesses challenges from within Nestlé. That might be how to figure out the next generation Nescafe or figure out the Internet of Things for Nespresso, and it will allow entrepreneurial technology start-ups to almost bid for the opportunity and then we have to respond in a certain amount of time.'  ... " 

Reshaping Open Science

Opening science and the data always involved.

A Reboot of the Legendary Physics Site ArXiv Could Shape Open Science
To get a sense of just how important arXiv is, consider these stats. In 2014, the site passed its million-paper mark. It received 105,000 submissions in 2015 alone, and last year boasted over 139 million downloads. It has become the go-to place to find out what’s going on right now—in the fields it covers, and in the workscapes of individual scientists. “When I give seminars, I give the arXiv numbers for my papers,” says David Hogg, an astronomer at New York University. “Why? Because I know that my arXiv papers are available to any audience member, no matter what their institutional affiliation or library support.”  ... " 

Open Innovation at Electrolux

Open Innovation at Electrolux. Appliance manufacturer we worked with for a while.  The how is always interesting, but also the kinds of application being addressed:  " ....   she presented several Electrolux open innovation success stories, including one of a company that approached the multinational offering a system to automatically calibrate assembly lines.  They didn’t want any money, but were looking for partners to help them test their solution and share risks.  Today, that company is a trusted supplier. ... " 

Open Innovation in CPG

Interview with my colleague Wayne Fisher

" ... For more than 25 years, Wayne Fisher worked for Procter & Gamble in a variety of Corporate R&D and Business Unit roles. 

He was an Upstream Product Development Manager, an Innovation Guide and a Technology Entrepreneur for P&G’s widely lauded Connect and Develop program. Wayne also introduced TRIZ and other innovation methodologies into the multinational, training thousands of engineers and scientists around the globe. He led the early discovery work on water soluble pouches, including Ariel laundry detergent Liquitabs and Cascade dishwashing detergent Action Pacs. Today, he is President of Rockdale Innovation and continues to work with P&G on a consultancy basis, as well as helping other multinationals install innovation best practices to drive revenue and profit growth. 

In this interview with IdeaConnection, Wayne shares his thinking about open innovation, the importance of effective problem definition, and the power and potential of creative problem solving. ... " 

Open AI Emergent

Why not?  Anything to get the ideas closer to many specific business purposes.   Following.   How can companies ally themselves for this kind of open innovation?   Their OpenAI introductory blog post.   See OpenAI.  Will be approaching.

Elon Musk + Sam Altman launch OpenAI Nonprofit that will use AI to 'benefit Humanity'.
Let by all-star team of Silicon Valley's best and Brightest, OpenAI already has $1 Billion in funding.   By Daniel Terdiman

Silicon Valley is in the midst of an artificial intelligence war, as giants like Facebook and Google attempt to outdo each other by deploying machine learning and AI to automate services. But a brand-new organization called OpenAI—helmed by Elon Musk and a posse of prominent techies—aims to use AI to "benefit humanity," without worrying about profit.  Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, took to Twitter to announce OpenAI on Friday afternoon. ... " 

Replacing Your Chief Inno Officer

In Innovation Excellence: If you have one, that is.   Even if not, some thoughts about what that person should be like.   Also relevant to open innovation, though that will require more flexibility.

Future of Shopping at SF Lab

Always interested in innovation center ideas.  Here a look at the Westfield Malls experimental startups labs.  See also my extensive writing on innovation centers and their value at the tags below.

Talk on the Digital Age

Recent talk by my colleague Suna Polat from CimData on innovation in a digital age.   As it relates to PLM.   Slides and audio. Nicely done.  Also some interesting details about how P&G worked in this area.  They write about the Webinar:

" ... Many companies are still struggling to make innovation a repeatable, systemic process that leads to consistent business growth. Besides critical human aspects, such as leadership and culture, systemic innovation requires the implementation and use of strategic business platforms. An innovation platform is a business platform designed to enable an enterprise’s innovation processes. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is evolving to become a strategic product innovation platform. Another trend started in early 2000’s, now widely adopted, is "Open Innovation." This strategic direction led to new approaches to innovation, such as crowdsourcing and co-creation that CIMdata collectively calls "Collaborative Innovation." Through Collaborative Innovation (CI), an organization can reach to diverse internal and external networks to address its critical innovation needs. Companies that practice CI typically use solutions that are outside those provided by traditional PLM solution providers.

In this webinar, through a systemic innovation case study from P&G, we will describe use cases appropriate for PLM and CI. We will also describe how PLM and CI solution providers have an opportunity to connect and collaborate to expand their markets by developing consistent terminology and communication around innovation and clarifying how their offerings complement each other and fit into the solution architecture of their clients with clear benefits. With such clarity more companies should be willing to invest in these solutions.  ...  "

NineSigma and Open Source Innovation

Listened in on a talk from NineSigma.  Slides. Had been a while since I have connected with them.  I like their direction:

" ... Dr. Mehran Mehregany founded NineSigma in 2000 on the premise that industry needed an effective means for broadcasting corporate needs to potential solution providers to stay ahead of the technology curve, similar to the methods employed by the U.S. Government research group, DARPA. ... 

The concept of looking beyond one's four walls to find novel solutions and ideas to internal research challenges didn't firmly take root until the early 2000's. NineSigma was at the forefront, and continues to be at the forefront, of this growing business strategy that is now widely adopted within the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

NineSigma is responsible for a large part of how open innovation is practiced today and continues to evolve its offerings and organization to ensure that your organization will be prepared to move to the next level of open innovation capability, regardless of where you are today. ... " 

More at NineSigma.

Coke to Open Innovation Center at GA Tech

Coke and Ga Tech start Center in Atlanta. A favorite topic in these pages.  We established innovation centers starting in 2001.  As places to provide the infrastructure for innovation and link to our regional partners and the increasing amount of data involved.   Also there is increasing interest in emphasis on open innovation approaches.   Later we also looked at regional innovation links to university creativity.   These centers appear to be primarily software oriented. " ... The innovation center, which opens next month, will house about 20 software developers. CCE is attracted to Tech Square for access to Georgia Tech's students, faculty, research. "It's about tapping into Georgia Tech's ecosystem of innovation and people," ... " 

Barriers to Open Innovation

With a link to a broader article: Interview with Anders Hjalmarsson of Viktoria Swedish ICT, Götegorg, Sweden. Author of “Beyond Innovation contest: a framework of barriers to open innovation of digital services”  .... .

Fraunhofer Study on Open Innovation

Fad or phenomena?  Download from link below.

 UC Berkeley and Fraunhofer study how large companies practice innovation
The Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have conducted the first large-sample survey of open innovation adoption among large companies. Their study of European and U.S. companies gives an extensive overview of the ways that companies are now practicing open innovation, along with the trends that can be discerned. ... " 

An App Enabled Innovation Future

A followup on the GE - Quirky open innovation collaboration.  They hold a meeting on the App Enabled Future.   To perform 'Wink Product Evaluations' with a number of innovators: " ... The Eval panel featured a number of special guests, including CoolHunting’s Josh Rubin, Undercurrent’s Aaron Dignan, and Hugo Fiennes and Kevin Fox, co-founders of our Wink technology partner Electric Imp. The GE team sent a strong contingent as well, including Brad Irvine, the CEO of GE Idea Works playing the role of realist-in-residence (love that guy!), Bill Kernick, CTO of Idea Works, and Linda Boff, Executive Director of Global Digital Marketing at GE.ple competing providers. No, this is an open innovation partnership, and so the key question in my mind is. Will it work? ... " 

GE and Open Innovation

Working with Quirky ... " ... Last week GE and Quirky announced a new partnership where GE will make some of its library of patents available as part of Quirky’s new inspiration platform, allowing inventors to use some of its patents in their potentially novel consumer product invention ideas. This on its surface is a very interesting and logical open innovation partnership (no, not crowdsourcing). It isn’t really crowdsourcing because the work product is not well-defined and being sourced from multiple competing providers. No, this is an open innovation partnership, and so the key question in my mind is. Will it work?  If you’re new to open innovation, be sure and check out A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing edited by Paul Sloane (free sample chapter), to get a good grounding in the open innovation and crowdsourcing elements of social business.... " 

See also Quirky's blog.

Cisco and GMills Open Innovation

How Cisco and General Mills use Open Innovation. In APQC.  Views based on physical and virtual site visits.    Examples of how to bring in external innovation.

New P&G Open Innovation Website

In its second decade of running their Connect & Develop approach, P&G has updated their approach and website.  See it here.  I have worked using it to connect to specific innovators.  " ... “As P&G enters its Second Decade of Connect+Develop, our focus is on strengthening areas of our open innovation work to deliver more discontinuous, breakthrough innovations. Part of that work means making connections both easier and more effective,” said Laura Becker, General Manager Connect+Develop and Global Business Development.

The website lets innovators link directly to P&G’s posted needs, which are organized by business area and searchable by topic. Innovators also can access a full description of every need, including scale and success criteria. On the back-end, the site links P&G innovation managers with submissions, letting them search by topic or work area, share internally and track progress.... "