This is the 3th part of our series on the best books about crowdsourcing and open innovation. As I probably forgot some books, the floor is yours to suggest other key readings through the comment function below the post. The current list of 12 books can be found here. I look forward to your suggestions!

The last 4 books:

1. Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy
   - by Ron Goldman, Richard P. Gabriel
   It’s a plain fact: regardless of how smart, creative, and innovative your organization is, there are more smart, creative, and innovative people outside your organization than inside. Open source offers the possibility of bringing more innovation into your business by building a creative community that reaches beyond the barriers of the business.
   —
2. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
   - by Yochai Benkler
   Yochai Benkler shows us how the Internet enables new commons-based methods for producing goods, remaking culture, and participating in public life.
   Downloadable for free: here
   —
3. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
   - by Keith Sawyer
   A pioneering expert on creativity and innovation shows the power of collaboration for individual organizational creativity.
   —
4. The Wisdom of Crowds
   - by James Surowiecki
   While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.

Other parts of the series:

• 12 Books on Crowdsourcing & Open Innovation - Part 1
• 12 Books on Crowdsourcing & Open Innovation - Part 2
• Complete List

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From November 8-14, an interesting master class on Corporate Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation will be organized at the Conference Hotel Willibrordhaeghe in Deurne, the Netherlands. The master class is designed for entrepreneurs, incubators, and corporate managers (responsible for R&D, new business development, and/or corporate venturing).

The course provides insights into the key aspects of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and corporate venturing:

• How to scan the environment for new ideas
• How to generate successful (corporate) start-ups in an Open Innovation setting
• Searching for complementarity: the role of partners
• The role of incubators, spin-ins, spin-outs, and corporate venture capital
• How to use new business development and venturing as a tool in strategy making processes and corporate transformations

Tuition fee is 4500,00 Euro per participant, and 2500,00 Euro for start-ups and universities. The master class is led by two internationally leading management experts: Kenneth Morse from the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, and Henry Chesbrough from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. For more information, follow this link.

Read about and share other open innovation and crowdsourcing events.

While many companies are implementing open innovation approaches, the Catholic Church -or a small part at least- is starting to adopt open innovation techniques too.

KJG, the Catholic youth organization of Cologne (one of Germany’s largest dioceses), launched an online open idea competition. On the competition platform, young people are encouraged to submit their ideas about what they would like to change at the Catholic Church. You can find the website at aenderwas.de, which is German for „Make a change“.

More information on Frank Piller’s blog.