It’s already happening - the individual Innovator (capitalized to show it’s “proper” place - at least in this blog) is coming.  Our new B2B Marketplace for Commercializing Innovation has only been up for a little while (with no marketing yet) and we are seeing a steady flow of inquiries from individuals (around the globe) wishing to share, market or license their innovations to an appropriate implementer.

I am excited to see those persistent Inventors continue to look for ways to get their inventions to market.

My first global inquiry was from a group of 4 developers within an R&D Lab at a top petrochemical company in Saudi Arabia.  I’ll spare the name to protect the team (seems bizarre to think that, but you never know-they somehow found us…).  Suffice it to say their employer would hit the F500 deep within the top 100 based on revenues.  They wanted to know if we would represent the individual inventor.  They described a software innovation they had been working on “in their spare time.” and made it clear they did not represent their current company.

My sales instincts to this inquiry are “absolutely!”; however, we want to be smart about our focus and sparce resources. We are focused mainly on the F1000 and the Top 200 Universities.  It isn’t an exclusive approach;  it’s just a small company willing to stay disciplined with a specific target audience for now.  That said, we anticipated this exact type of inflow and our technology platform does account for this eventuality.  I call it architecting for the Fortune One Million.  If we’re right it may actually be the Fortune 10 million.  The Innovation flow across all disciplines is endless.

Another new friend approached us from India and made an inquiry about an IDE for gaming he is working on (outside of his day job), but it wouldn’t be done until early 2009; he wanted to be prepared.  A week later he pinged me back and said he’d finished another desktop application and wanted to go ahead and publish it on our marketplace in search of a licensing partner.

Regardless, I am going to work even harder to hurry our programs and platforms for these indivduals.  Stanford grads and Silicon Valley don’t need to have the corner on the next “Google”.  The treasure hunter, Kid-on-Christmas-Eve in me needs to get a look at all this innovation right away!

And personally, I’ d love to see more than oil pouring out of Saudi Arabia.

Tom

Forrester Research is holding one of its many IT Forums in Lisbon Portugal this week. 

In an interview with one of the attendees, Maggie Miller, CIO of Warner Music Group she comments, “Every IT leader needs people on their team who are smart and brave free-thinkers, who challenge us. We need to listen to what they say – and not how they say it – if we are to innovate.”  She continues, “There is a vast array of good ideas both inside and outside of most companies, …The important thing is to open the door to those considering difficult or challenging concepts.” Full article here or here.

 Ms. Miller is spot on in both regards.  Not only do you want encourage a few free radicals, but you have to be willing to entertain outsiders who may have the best/right answer to your nagging issues.  None of us has the corner on all the brilliance required to solve every problem in our respective businesses.  Furthermore, it may be that you already have the solution to solving another firm’s most complex problem - unfortunately, neither one of you knows that.  But you should.

Additionally, I’d like to caution on the implementation of Open Innovation in the Enterprise. Aspirations aside, it has implications well beyond the IT organization, existing business processes, and senior management.  Haste may waste the opportunity.  I am living at the street level with many early adopters of these ideas and the pioneers are take a few arrows.

It will take a little more to unwind the linearity of decision-making and problem-solving that has been ”the way its always been”.   Cutting to the quick - nothing makes this transition go faster than some fiscal results.  Contrary to logic, the best place to start this process is to work in reverse. 

Ms. Miller, my advice:  go explore your organization and find innovation that you believe is best served in the hands of another organization.  Cycling through that process will do two things: 1) illustrate the organizational change required to invite the outside in going forward, and 2) by selling, or licensing your non-strategic innovations to others those dollars will peak senior management’s curiosity.  That’s your invitation to present the whole of Open Innovation as you describe above.  Tails wag dogs all the time…

Ms. Miller, it would be a pleasure to sit down and explore the specifics of making Warner Music Group truly innovative not only in solutions but organizational practicality and real results.

Tom

Company alert: we made our announcement today with Boeing becoming our latest Enterprise Client disclosing their software Innovations on our B2B Marketplace for Commercialization Innovation.

(author note:  I worked at Boeing from 1987 to 1989 in Facilities & Finance and my father was a 35 year veteran - long since retired now. And we had a bumper sticker on our car growing up that read: “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.”)

We are excited most by Boeing’s level of sophistication and maturity around software commercialization and IP licensing.  They have been doing it (well) for years and it shows.  They have been embracing Open Innovation for a long time given their requirement to collaborate so deeply, with some many suppliers, and so many industries to get an airliner built or a new government program launched.  For them to avail some of their compelling technology innovations to others has simply been integrated into their corporate DNA.  Furthermore, the team we work with is amazing - thorough, professional, and frankly fun to be around.  For you potential Buyers - they will work hard to ensure a great deal for your firm; don’t get nervous that you have to work with a Fortune 66 firm.  They will be good stewards of your time and resources.

Even better, once one of my Buyers found out about this announcement, I think his quote was, “well, now the the “Boeing store” is open here is a specific list of things I am looking for”[to license].  He is in the CAD/Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software segment and prior to my outreach did not know that Boeing would commercialized its software innovations to companies like his.

I hope you’ll join me in thanking them for choosing to work with us and we promise to work hard making this relationship a wild success for each other, the Buyers and the industry at large.

Tom

Just reading about Facebook’s interest in providing the enterprise with enterprise caliber Facebook and FB applications.  Here is the interview as reported by Internetnews.com with Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of marketing and operations at Facebook and some retort from guys I know and trust - like David Thompson, CEO of Genius.com.

The proverbial “behind the firewall” version - stuff that dreams are made of - for the wildly successful consumer application winners seems so appealing, Siren-like.  I am mixed about the concepts for a mixed up bunch of reasons:

1) I was one of the early employees within Yahoo!’s Corporate Yahoo! division (2001) - selling my.yahoo content as part of the raging early Enterprise Portal software days.  Every F500 thought they had to have a corporate portal akin to Yahoo! or AOL - as that would “get them on the web”.  I was responsible for partnering with the Enterprise software guys to convince them that OEM’ing my.yahoo content would spice up their portal software sales.  CIOs were definitely intrigued by the idea, but I don’t think we made BEA, SAP, Oracle, Sun’s quarterly portal software sales.  Oh, and the first feature we had to turn OFF - ads.

2) A $10 Billion Enterprise software marketing figure was quoted.  That’ a big number.  But I have to agree with David that those Big Dogs spending the Big Bucks - will take a pass on the ad stuff.  They realize that their employees are wasting time on Facebook (at the same pace they started wasting time on my.yahoo seven years ago) and embracing the beast won’t solve much - in the near term.  Not saying it won’t get here in my career-lifetime, but I am pretty close to some very big spenders in the F500 and this is not on their radar.  What the CIO really desires is the mass appeal, rapid adoption, zero training, and no maintenance costs (for us lucky consumer users).  Quick name the fastest adopted enteprise software application on the planet!

3) I do however want (and need) the concepts of Facebook, LinkedIn, Jigsaw and the like to pervade the fabric of those same IT Enterprises as platform concepts - social networking, mass collaboration, prediction markets, rapid application development - to blow open the door on the abject linearity of problem solving within those same Enterprises.   These application platforms are illustrating how to make the process more effective.  The best ideas, the best minds unfortunately don’t work in “your” firm.  It’s a big world; how do you invite the right minds in at the right time, or invite your friend whom you know is the right mind for the problem you just reviewed - and do it productively, securely, (insert CIO buzzword here).

4) Here in Austin we just saw our friends at Austin Ventures make a $50 Million commitment to Jeff Dachis, former CEO of Razorfish - to create social enterprise software and services.  It’s the right trajectory, but the pioneers have it a bit rough; the good ones survive to tell the tales and pave the way.  We need them.

I wish the Facebook PMs well on this one.  Guys, if you want some words of advice (or encouragement) before hitting the CIOs office - I’ll go get my notes.

So what does all this have to do with Fluid Innovation? I’ve got my reason, what do you all think?

Tom

Here in Austin we just ran a week or so of record setting heat.  It’s clear summer is here, if not by calendar, at least by temperature.  Call me crazy, but hot is fine with me.  Just like those in the northern climates in winter you find ways to embrace it.

It takes resourcefulness and creativity to embrace extremes - whether temperatures, ideas, business models, or macro economic trends - and then create something of interest or usefulness.  Which is why we are thrilled to have been selected by Gartner Research - Brian Prentice & Martin Reynolds - as one of 3 firms to be tapped as a “Cool Vendor in Intellectual Property 2008″.

We were honored for combining three extremes: decision science modeling - Prediction Markets, mass collaborative community engagement, and the stately business of Intellectual Property licensing, specifically software commercialization.  It’s called Virtual Ventures (here).   And it is but one of a number of extremely innovative concepts we are providing the IP Licensing and Software Commercialization industry.  More cool announcements about some hot new ideas this summer.

 Read more about it in our press release, or better yet go ahead and buy the full report.  It’s well worth the price. (here)

Ok, back to baking.

Tom

Well it has been a crazy 2 months here at Fluid Innovation.  Things are really heating up in the Open Innovation landscape and we are ready to get the word out.  Expect a lot of exciting announcements from Fluid Innovation about new clients, completed technology commercialization deals and creative new partnerships which will be hitting the wire over the coming weeks.

A little reflection time - we have been head down on so many big projects that sometimes it feels like nothing is getting done but one day you finally get a moment alone to reflect on just what progress has transpired and you are amazed at the result.  I think the idea to innovation process works much the same way, when you are in the moment you often don’t realize what your efforts are creating.  What can begin as a simple comment on a conference call can evolve into something truly unique.  In our case, an organized effort to bring standardization, collaboration and communication together to help shape and evolve the growing market for Open Innovation.  Expect an exciting announcement about how we are working with, not for, our clients to bring efficiency and visibility to the technology commercialization marketplace. 

As always, get involved and help the invention to innovation process by sharing your opinions on fluidinnovation.com and virtualventures.com. 

One of the foremost executives pressing Open Innovation into the decision fabric of Corporate America is on the move again. This time he has written about Open Innovation “v2.0″ in the form of his book ““The Game-Changer,” (Crown Business, 2008), which he wrote with Ram Charan.  I’ve ordered it from Amazon and I am keen to see what’s new from a mature Open Innovation “believer”.  I’ll blog my review once I’ve finished it.

Here’s his interview with the New York Times.

The notion of Open Innovation is turning the mainstream corner from what I can see as a Sales Executive here at Fluid.  The phone calls I’ve made to Enterprises or Sellers in our vernacular, (some 6 to 8 months ago mind you) are being returned: a new executive is in place; a new revenue target is set; they have a very hot, interesting technology they want to license.  Whatever the latest mandate, of course, I’m happy to accommodate on our new commercialization marketplace.

From the Buyer side - much, much more openness to licensing innovation in now.  Anyone?  Can you say gas prices, ailing economy - small software and technology firms are not in a position to take full market risk with a brand new product or line right now.  Licensing is a reasonable, plausible option.  Supply, meet your friends, demand.

 My selfish economic desires aside, I am genuinely enthused to see the momentum at the street level grow and I can’t wait to see what materializes from the Inventors and what the Implementers decide to do with it. Join me down here on the front row - great seats to watch a big show.

So if you find Lafley’s latest compelling I’d like to encourage you to go back “to the beginning” and (re)read Open Innovation by Henry Chesbrough.  And if you hurry you can catch up right quick.

Tom

You’re the CEO of a growing software company.  You’re successful but always under pressure: how can I grow my revenue?  How can I get new products to market faster and cheaper?  How can I get quality reference customers for my products?

Traditionally, software company growth was driven by developing new products or winning new customers.   Software commercialization presents another opportunity, and you may find that it’s a better option.

Through software commercialization, your company licenses or buys a technology developed by a Fortune 500 company originally for internal use.  The Fortune 500 company had a business problem and needed software to solve it.  Unable to find that software on the market, it developed it from within. 

This presents a great opportunity for software companies:

• License a proven technology for which you know there’s a need (after all, the company that created it acknowledged the underlying need)
• Get to market much faster and cheaper than developing in-house
• Use the original company as a reference for the value of the software
• Often times get sales leads from the Fortune 500 company’s peers

This sounds good, but isn’t all of this software not ready for primetime?  After all, it was built for internal use. 

Yes and no.  Usually there’s some work involved with “fixing up” the software and documentation.  But you may be surprised at the quality and ingenuity of these software technologies.

If you’re interested in learning about technologies developed by companies such as Northrop Grumman, SAIC, Microsoft, and Mayo Clinic, click here.

Fluid Innovation VP, Intellectual Asset Management Gloria Archuleta will present at the LES Spring Meeting and International Conference in Chicago, IL on Tuesday, May 6.  The workshop is “Content Licensing for Converging Devices”.  Gloria will speak with Tyler Lenane of RealNetworks and Joy Murray of Microsoft.

For more information, visit the conference web site.

Each week Fluid Innovation receives unsolicited inquiries from companies interested in commercializing a software technology it developed for internal use. Of course, everyone thinks what they’ve developed is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But here are two simple screener questions to determine if it’s worth exploring commercialization:

1. Why did you develop the software internally rather than buy it?

There are two common answers: a) We couldn’t find a software product on the market to solve our problem or b) it was cheaper to build it in house than buy it.

The answer we’re looking for it A. If your company had a business problem and couldn’t find an available solution, then you have likely identified a market need. Your home grown product is a solution to a problem that likely hasn’t been addressed yet.

2. How much benefit does the software provide to the company?

Consider how much it saves the company or generates in revenue. For example, a new human resources process application may cut annual overhead costs by $5 million. Although generally the higher the number the better, this isn’t always the case. Think about the total market size. If an application saves $5 million but would only be purchased by a few companies, then an application that saves $100,000 but could be purchased by 1,000 companies is better.

These are just the first two questions to answer as an initial screen. Stay tuned for more considerations when considering commercializing your software intellectual property. (Hint: note that I didn’t ask anything about patents.)