My morning began at 7am with the GE group who came in seeking input from me for their challenge. The early mornings are a great time to explore and have good discussions. I know some of my students are night owls, like me, and would rather work with me in the evening after 5 pm. I am happy to accommodate both groups. I personally love working with young people who are looking forward with many aspirations to achieve in their lives. Mentoring people brings me much fulfillment. I do want my students to feel the freedom to knock on my door any time.
Each one of the sponsors called me following their telephone calls and spoke well of my students and expressed that they are keenly looking forward to working them. I am very happy that the semester is off to a great start!
About my class time today: Today was a great day in terms of class participation. Many students were very engaging and contributed new insights to the discussion. I look forward to reading their blogs and learn about their takeaways and insights they have gained. As I am taking off to Russia for a full week, I am going to miss my interactive discussions with my students!
Today’s class was particularly interesting for me (probably because I had a long night’s rest beforehand so I was more focused than usual). My main takeaway from the first part of the class is that just because you have an idea that doesn’t fit with your current business model doesn’t mean you should put it aside and let it gather dust. Rather than being selfish and keeping a good idea to yourself (but making no money from it) you can create a dynamic ecosystem through partnerships that will lead to more revenue and an expanded business model. In reading Chesbrough’s “Open Business Models” he explains how letting other companies access your unused ideas will lead to shared risks, faster times to the market (before the demand disappears) and lower costs of innovation. Understanding open innovation a bit better now, I feel more confident approaching the challenge. Thanks Professor Darwin for a very insightful and educational lecture today!
Same here! I find it really insightful that as the business world is becoming increasingly global and competitive, we should create a dynamic ecosystem whereby ideas are shared and knowledge is passed around. Closed innovation is no longer a successful platform and businesses should be less rigid about their priorities in keeping secret recipes to themselves. Instead, businesses should be open for innovation to be circulated everywhere. Just like Professor Darwin mentioned, value that is created should be captured. And in order to do that, companies should realize that they do not necessarily have the competitive edge in the market and should therefore be willing to exchange ideas through partnership, licensing, etc.
I totally agree with both of you. Businesses should be open to new ideas and be sure to integrate them into the company and be sure to capture the value created. We would for sure create much more value and we will probably reach goals that could seem harder at first, faster and more efficiently.
Chantal
It was very interesting hearing Professor Darwin talk about about Xerox PARC today, and how the Closed Innovation System used in PARC failed to capture the value of the many disruptive innovations that was being created there. The failure of the Closed Innovation System led to the new Open Innovation Model in which ideas no longer “sit on the shelf” and is shared and licensed to others. However, I would argue that many companies are now doing something similar to PARC. Google’s Google X division, Amazon’s Lab126 are all examples of organizations similar to PARC, established by the large companies to create innovations internally. I believe that Google’s willingness to release and develop projects that are completely unrelated to its core products, such as Self-driving cars, Google Glass and Elevators to Space, appears to show that it is at least open to addressing different markets and sharing its innovation to the world. However, it will be interesting to see if Google X or Lab126 will be able to succeed in the long run and be able to capture the value of their innovations.
Professor Darwin’s talk about Xerox also really stood out to me. I had heard about Xerox before, but only from the perspective of technical engineers. It was interesting to see the different points of view from people in varying fields because these different points of view form the whole story behind any company. From the point of view of the an engineer, I had heard that Xerox had tried to monetize some product but failed since they couldn’t make anything user friendly. Or, in other words they couldn’t capture the value and gave up. But those engineers who saw the true value didn’t give up and went on to monetize the inventions of Xerox. Thinking about closed versus open innovation also gives a different perspective on companies today. The most successful companies that Robert mentioned, such as Google and Lab126, have all deviated from their original business models and have divisions dedicated to finding and capture the value of new ideas. I’m excited to see where all that will lead.
The biggest takeaway from this lecture for me was about the concept of the Triple Helix Model. I learned that although your organization may have great innovators and researchers, nothing will happen without a catalyst. Catalysts are essential for any successful organization. On another note, the Triple Helix Model helped me to visualize the relationship between the government, universities, and businesses. I used to view all three as completely separate entities (which they technically are) because I didn’t recognize their interdisciplinary relationships with each other. I thought that this framework really captures the essence of the complex dynamics between the three groups required to spur innovation and to help our economy. The model inspires collaboration and is another wonderful example of the importance of partnerships.
I definitely agree – the Triple Helix Model was a great way to visualize the different key players necessary for innovation. I also found the “Who Are You?” exercises to be particularly interesting. For both the inventor/innovator and traditional/dynamic capabilities exercises, I was one count away from a tie score between the two outcomes. I found that interesting and wonder if any of my classmates experienced something similar? Maybe this means we need to be mindful and decide when to flex our innovator and researcher mindsets, depending on the people we’re working with and the project at hand. The exercise was also a fun way to get to know my fellow classmates and I’m excited to see how we collaborate on our challenges this semester.
I was also intrigued by the character assessment test. I personally found the questions to be very insightful and they spoke more to me than when I did the Myers-Briggs analysis for leadership. Maybe it’s because there are less types (only X vs Y and A vs B) rather than the many types of the Myers-Briggs model so it’s easier to know who you are in relation to others. Anyhow, I think that both are relevant. I had a tie personally between inventor and innovator and I have traditional capabilities. I think that describes me pretty well.
I also found the character assessment to be insightful. I tended to score more points under the “innovator” side opposed to the “inventor” side. This is somewhat accurate because I tend to look at businesses and think of ways to make them even better. It was interesting when Professor Darwin showed us a table including the invention, inventor, and the innovator (most popular person associated with the invention). The innovator brings the invention to life; however, the inventor brings the invention into existence. Both innovator and inventor play crucial roles in the practice of open innovation.
Based on the dynamic relationship between the government, university and businesses, I strongly agree with the professor’s advice he gave the Russians if they were to replicate Silicon Valley in their own country they would have to send the students to Berkeley and Stanford even at the risk of some of them not coming back because they relish life more in California than in Russia. In the relationship I see the first step to initiate open innovation is for the government who retains tax money they received from traditional companies to fund transformation of the educational institutions which would develop their own faculty and students to provide valuable and innovative ideas to the companies that would channel these ideas into tangible business ideas which would become tax money for the government. Also, the renovated educational system would gradually foster a culture of open innovation and entrepreneurship that are indispensable elements that make up Silicon Valley.
I really enjoyed this class. I consider that the concept of universal knowledge as something that anyone from any part of the world can have described perfectly the time we are currently living. As you say,Knowledge is flowing,wants to be free.I find this sentence really inspiring .Nowadays, thanks to the Internet,there is a democratization of knowledge ,most of the people of the world can reach it. Knowledge is not anymore unevenly distributed as on the closed innovation time .I consider that companies should take seriously into account this fact if they want to compete.Otherwise,they would be underestimating the competitors and missing great opportunities.
That´s why the diagram about the knowledge flowing from the government to universities to business is so accurate and indispensable to be innovative and sustainable.
Knowledge wants to be free, nowadays it comes out one way or the other. However, the most interesting thing about this is that when knowledge is shared it grows. At this moment whenever you share some information you create or continue a chain of information which involves so many people with different backgrounds and abilities that makes the development of knowledge have an exponential growth.
Although learning about ourselves (whether we are A or B and X or Y) was a key takeaway, this lecture taught me about the importance of a team. We learned that no one person in the group is the same; therefore, a group is filled with unique traits. These dissimilar personalities can provide never before seen perspectives that can alter the overall outlook on an idea. It was interesting to hear Professor Darwin note that all human beings like to keep their ideas hidden. This provided a counteracting argument to teamwork because sometimes a single individual knows what is best. However, there does come a point in which working in a team is necessary because others’ inputs will eliminate the ever so harmful tunnel vision.
I definitely learned alot about my team as well from our class exercises! We all were lucky enough to have a balanced outlook and very diverse backgrounds, so I am excited to work with them in the future. I think the Myers Briggs personality tests are also a great self-assessment tool (available for free online). It was also really cool to see how so many of my peers’ goals aligned with mine. As a newly admitted junior into Haas, I feel as if I have found my niche here at Berkeley and I have more people similar to me in classes than ever before. This only encourages me to go above and beyond and collaborate with me peers, thereby making those 7am meetings a little less brutal. 🙂
Yesterdays class was packed full of great content. I really appreciate how engaging Solomon is and how the information conveyed.
What stood out to me the most was the “who are you?” exercises. It was great to learn my team members strengths and weaknesses. This excursive will help us a lot with our group project. In my own self reflection I am grappling with where I would be categorized. I rated high as an inventor, but see myself as more of an innovator. In the Triple Helix Model I see my most substantial strength as a Catalyst and yet, I see myself also having strong talents with research and innovation. I have been the sole founder of several companies and doing so has forced me to wear many hats. This exercise has stimulated the importance of doing some more self reflection as to what my greatest strengths are and how I can best contribute to my group.
Agreed with Nicole. Those exercises were more fun not because I got to learn about myself, but it helped me learn a little bit more about our teams, and potential dynamics that may occur. Additionally, it was also intriguing answering some of those questions that were more black and white than others. It made me make a decision, on the spot, about how I best described myself given those two choices.
Another test that I’d be interested in taking (all members of our team, same format), would be the strength finder test. Apart from either being an innovator/inventor and A-team/B-team, it’d be useful to know exactly what each of our strengths are, and how we can play them to our advantage for the ultimate group success. (link: http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx)
Hi Kaushal!
Thank you so much for providing the link to strength finders. I’ve heard nothing but great things about the test. Also we can take for free through UCB the Myers Briggs test and the Strong Interest Inventory. Super great resources as well.
Also if you are into personality stuff. The Enneagram video’s are a great way to understand different perspectives and how different people function in the world. Check out some of the three minute videos.
Point 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5mkOvJB_s
Point 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z34j7jCGsfg
Point 4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dASbLZU7eus
Point 5 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESFwnQb0pz4
Point 6 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzZOZZJn5pE
Point 7 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6XfaOD2Ck
Point 8 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Jd_nQBKvA
Point 9 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0bDoojNckU
Point 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIf4zUNCxcI
Check out this test about personalities as well called 16 personalities and it really does work! I am an INTP, what personality are you? http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
Thursday’s lecture was full of real cases. I especially like the case with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), since a lot of ideas were born there. Xerox used the model of closed innovation rather than open innovation (it might not have a concept back then) and literally killed itself. But the innovative ideas came from Xerox PARC were fundamental ideas of Apple, Adobe and etc. I like the idea of “false positive” and “false negative” since in real business you never know what is right or wrong. All we need to do is to allow an open innovation model to support as much as possible, like how Google and Apple do.
No matter how competitive a company is, innovation has got to be open. With open innovation, not only is the extra cost of innovation eliminated, the gap for new streams of income is fulfilled.
It was eye-opening the difference between close innovation and open innovation. The funnel graph made it really clear how open innovation actually opens new ways to import and export innovation (and even outsource it to the market in order to improved and reacquired). One of the aspects I’m most valuing of this class in term of lecture of knowledge delivery is Professor Darwin’s ability to make every concept visual and simple to grasp.
I also enjoyed the self-evaluation for innovator vs inventors. It was a little uncomfortable to stand up in the “limited social skills” item on the list, but once I did, it felt surprisingly liberating. I look forward to more of these self-discovery exercises.
The story of Xerox Parc in lecture #3 was really interesting in terms of how important is it to have open innovation. Open innovation The funnel diagram was a really great way to really depict the importance of it. The triple helix model also helped me visualize how everything relates to one another. Overall, the lecture was really good in helping me tie everything together and seeing how each independent identity related to one another.
I also enjoyed today’s interactiveness in the class with the self-evaluation of innovators and inventors. It was also really surprising in seeing the difference in mentalities, actions and decision making between the two types.
While discussing the differences between open and closed innovation, our class highlighted how the human nature of greed creates the foundation for “shelving ideas” in closed innovation (among other factors, like inappropriate market timing, lack of production resources, and product portfolio cannibalization). Given this thought, I began thinking about how Elon Musk shared his concept of the Hyperloop to the public, despite the profitability and publicity he would gain from owning the project himself. He truly cares for rapid technological advancement for the betterment of humankind; allowing another party to bring the Hyperloop to life earlier (while Musk’s bandwidth is taken by SpaceX / Tesla Motors) demonstrates how adopting open innovation creates more benefits than its closed counterpart.
This class was my first in the course and since I was not enrolled during the previous ones I was afraid I would have a hard time just jumping in on the topic. However, the introduction of the concept of closed vs open innovation was very clear to me and I also realized its importance in today’s fast changing business climate. The ideas got me thinking about the ongoing disputes between Apple and Samsung about patent rights in almost every product and software. Obviously they are rivals and need to keep their most imporant new ideas secrets to be able to reap the benefits from them. But still, probably all ideas and new inventions will not be included in their own products and instead of declaring them dustcatchers they might as well share or license to each other. To instead declare patent war is obviously very costly but might help them believe they are doing everything they can to be as competitive as possible. But when that is the case, it will also be much easier for smaller companies with more friendly and open business relationships to catch up these two gigants.
Note: I was told today that we are supposed to comments in this blog within 24 hours of the lecture so I am sorry for this late respone and I will be in time next time!