Technology and Organizations

Entrepreneur and aviation executive George Bye was the guest speaker in my Technology & Innovation Management course last night. He presented The Green Flight Project, an open innovation collaboration among alternative energy and aerospace industries with the goal of an electric hybrid propulsion system for aviation. Besides the “cool factor” of building an electric airplane, Mr. Bye provided evidence that the time is right for this endeavor — and provided yet another example of the value of open innovation for complex development projects.

Here is one of his opening slides:

Just as you would expect from a combined 4000+ hour pilot and experienced entrepreneur, Mr. Bye is staying ahead of the airplane and ahead of the industry ecosystem. He’s positioning his organization and collaborators to be ready rather than wait for photovoltaic or battery technology to make the needed jumps.

The project requires tight integration across a variety of technically-sophisticated partners. Bye Energy, Ascent Solar, Porous Power, Scion Aviation, UQM Technologies, Vertical Power, and Bye Engineering must work as one to succeed. These technical partners are supported by an equally sophisticated advisory board and more than ten additional sponsors.

From my perspective this is a strong example of systems savvy. Not only are these enterprise partners managing the technology to get us to electric hybrid flight, but they are also managing the organizational dynamics of tight integration. I’m guessing that some of the technical capabilities exist in multiple pieces of the partnership. I’m guessing too that technical decisions are made with a combination of technical, organization, and business dynamics in mind. Making these decisions and providing the needed integration is systems savvy at both macro (across organizations) and micro (within organization) levels. I look forward to learning from their management experience as well taking advantage of their end product.

For more on electric aircraft, please see this EAA announcement of the electric aircraft activities planned for AirVenture 2010.

Thank you to all who provided support for Mr. Bye’s presentation, including:

• The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
• Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering
• The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network

What’s the best support system for open, collaborative innovation? There are sites to help you find collaborators (e.g., Build It with Me) and there are sites focused on collaboration around specific areas of interest (e.g., DIY Drones, Local Motors, & AeroInnovate). Should you add collaboration to community of interest pages or should projects build their own collaboration spaces (perhaps with Google Sites, Huddle, or within the enterprise, Brainstorm)? These are the questions my Managing Technology & Innovation students will be addressing in their Spring term (focusing on Electric Aircraft collaborations). But first, I’m going to spend some posts following my own advice: doing an audit.

First audit question: Who are the participants? Ans: Companies, individuals, and teams.

Henry Chesbrough, David Teece, Eric von Hippel and others have drilled holes in the traditional innovation funnel. “With knowledge now widely distributed, companies cannot rely entirely on their own research, but should acquire inventions or intellectual property from other companies when it advances the business model.” Instead of companies having closed R&D processes where ideas are generated and developed within the walls of the company, we now see ideas coming from non-research focused employees, customers & users; collaborations across past competitors; alliances; and acquisitions as being the dynamics of R&D.

At the same time, individuals and teams are seeing the value of small batch entrepreneurship, hackerspaces, and the Do It Ourselves (DIO) economy. Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson presents this shift as “The Next Industrial Revolution:”

The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more. They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.

In the case of electric aircraft the list of participants is long, and diverse: Enthusiast organizations, foundations, and government agencies (e.g., EAA, NASA, CAFE Foundation, FAA); companies like Boeing and Yuneec; and component firms and inventors (see the preliminary program for Cafe Foundation’s 2010 symposium for a flavor).

Next up: What activities does an open innovation infrastructure need to support? Hint: I’ll be building from Gibson & Gibb’s discussion around innovation teams. Thanks in advance for comments that suggest sources outlining the activities that companies, individuals, and teams need to be supported by an innovation infrastructure and/or tools that support these activities. Personal favorites or ones to avoid especially appreciated. For some background, check out Open Innovators and their list of platforms.

Chris Anderson (Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine) presents a spectacular cover story on “The New Industrial Revolution.” The teaser reads:

The factory, the investors, the workers — obsolete. In the age of DIY manufacturing, all you need is a garage and a great idea.

He opens with an example of a crowdsourced car:

Local Motors will officially release the Rally Fighter, a $50,000 off-road (but street-legal) racer. The design was crowdsourced, as was the selection of mostly off-the-shelf components, and the final assembly will be done by the customers themselves in local assembly centers as part of a “build experience.” Several more designs are in the pipeline, and the company says it can take a new vehicle from sketch to market in 18 months, about the time it takes Detroit to change the specs on some door trim. Each design is released under a share-friendly Creative Commons license, and customers are encouraged to enhance the designs and produce their own components that they can sell to their peers.

The Rally Fighter is a great example and raises the possibility of crowdsourcing for complicated systems. …but then the article goes into overdrive:

Here’s the history of two decades in one sentence: If the past 10 years have been about discovering post-institutional social models on the Web, then the next 10 years will be about applying them to the real world.

This story is about the next 10 years.

Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they’re ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital — the long tail of bits.

The article is part economics lesson, part how-to. Chris includes his own story, describing the founding of DIY Drones, a community site focused on amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Within the community, he met like-minded and skilled collaborators and now markets autopilots and other related products. He includes great detail throughout, including tools and production outsourcing links.

Wired Sidebar

We need to get our minds around the possibilities of this new industrial revolution. Chris Anderson and others have focused on D-I-Y (Do It Yourself), but I think it’s more than that. I see this new approach as D-I-O (Do It Ourselves). Each of his examples highlights the value of collaboration. These are not stories of lone inventors (except for his description of professor Bob Kearns’ invention of intermittent windshield wipers — but he apparently goes mad — so much for the lone inventor…).

My own interests are around how to support DIO organization through my teaching and research. In an earlier post, I claimed that “Recruiting, Knowledge, Evaluation, Tools, and Market seem to be five foundational ways Web 2.0 supports innovation.” Now I realize that DIO is more than about just innovation. DIO seems to be providing the foundations for what Anderson calls small batch entrepreneurship (with credit to blogger Jason Kottke). A new industrial revolution. I look forward to your comments as I think out loud.

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For a different take on the value of crowdsourcing, please see Sarah Cove’s (for Wired News) Interview of Douglas Rushkoff What Does Crowdsourcing Really Mean.

Soon: A review of Cory Doctorow’s Makers (free download):

Perry and Lester invent things—seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent entirely new economic systems, like the “New Work,” a New Deal for the technological era. Barefoot bankers cross the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal mini-startups like Perry and Lester’s. Together, they transform the country, and Andrea Fleeks, a journo-turned-blogger, is there to document it.

The energy around innovation activities is keeping me sane as we get to the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Web 2.0 infrastructures and Enterprise 2.0 ideals are energizing innovation in a way not possible with just a few people in a garage. Recruiting, Knowledge, Evaluation, Tools, and Market seem to be five foundational ways Web 2.0 supports innovation.

Last week I ran across BuildItWith.Me:

Build It With Me is a tool that connects design & development entrepreneurs. It exists to make creating apps easier by connecting you with like-minded designers & developers with the same goal: create cool & useful apps. Getting funding for your app idea is hard and often unrealistic. Most of the time you may just need to connect with a partner who has a skill set you lack to finish off your app. This is where Build It With Me is comes in, connecting you to those people. Skip the funding. Build It With Me will help you bootstrap your ideas into actual apps.

Recruiting

Build It With Me supports innovation through both knowledge and labor. You may be able to find someone with a skill you don’t have, but need, for your innovation — or you may be able to find someone to just share the workload. Key is that you find them by skill/interest rather than location or ad hoc connections.

Knowledge

But not everyone who helps your with your innovation has to be a member of the team.

Communities of practice have always shared knowledge amongst their members. Knowledge sharing is one of their hallmarks. Web 2.0 versions of Communities of Practice increase the reach, speed, and ease of the process. For example, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Home-Builders Corner was part of their 1953 newsletter (pdf). Through the wonders of the Internet I can find not only that 1953 information, but of course have access to the current 24/7 searchable discussion board version of Homebuilders Corner.

Evaluation

Not all ideas are good ones.

Many innovation support systems allow people to rate the idea, point to where aspects of the project might have already being done, etc. Cisco used a hybrid social networking approach in its I-Prize. The I-Prize was an open innovation prize competition, but the early stages were evaluated by the community. Intuit’s Brainstorm tool similarly provides a hybrid approach offering evaluation and more (recruiting, workflow support, etc.) across either an internal audience, or one that crosses organizational boundaries.

Tools

In this first example, when I say tools, I mean tools: lasers, saws, 3D printers:

TechShop is a 15,000 square-foot membership-based workshop that provides members with access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative and supportive community of like-minded people so you can build the things you have always wanted to make. You can think of TechShop as a health club but with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment.

Technically the tools themselves aren’t Web 2.0, but the Web 2.0 connection is there in that members collaborate and share knowledge via the TechShop Member Forum.

Other examples of Web2.0 tools are more straightforward (e.g., open source software), but not as likely to throw off sparks.

Market

One of the keys to user innovation (versus closed corporate innovation) is that it be able to compete (Von Hippel, p. 118, free pdf of book). Software/web innovation has it easy in that transportation costs are virtually nil, but all innovations can take advantage of social media to gain immense marketing reach for little to no money. (Perky video on Social Media ROI: Socialnomics.)

Recruiting, Knowledge, Evaluation, Tools, and Market. Web 2.0 provides us with collaborative avenues toward innovation. What have I left out? How about incentive? Are we more likely to participate in innovation activities when we can interact with many more like-minded collaborators – even if we never get to meet? Are we more more or less likely to participate when our actions can perhaps been seen on a global stage? I’m hoping to write a follow-up post on Generating and Maintaining Energy for Open Innovation Platforms and would be happy to collaborate….

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For more on Open Innovation – with a review of some of Carliss Baldwin & Eric von Hippel’s recent work, please see More proof that sharing is good, von Hippel style.

Great visit with Fresh Express this morning (starting with a 6:30 a.m. bus ride) as part of Santa Clara University’s relationship with Purdue’s Center for Food and Agribusiness and Syngenta. Jim Lugg gave us an early morning tour of some of Fresh Express’ experimental fields and then told the story of packaged salads and greens. Short version: a subsidiary of Fresh Express took their deep knowledge about the “respiration” rate of leafy greens to polymer film manufacturers in an effort to figure out how to provide salads in a bag — that’s not just any plastic! This is a beautiful example of early open innovation in that Fresh Express approached an external firm rather than trying to do the R&D of polymers on their own. The benefit is that my refrigerator contains clean and ready to go lettuce, arugula, and spinach seven days a week.

Wonderful trip. Thanks to all involved — especially as, according to my notes, Fresh Express’ research results in growers using using 30% of the water of standard leafy greens farming approaches.