The beginning of a new month brings a new edition of the Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing carnival. Just like last month, the carnival provides an overview of interesting articles on topics related to open innovation and crowdsourcing.

• The New Values of the 21st Century Citizen takes a broader view on how the values of people are changing in reaction to new challenges as well as opportunities. Especially the focus on collaboration, is interesting. The article isn’t directly related to crowdsourcing, but it outlines the importance of wikinomics in the context of a rapidly changing society.
• In Tyrannis Populi the key question is Who are “the people” anyway and who says they’re always right? Along with recognising and encouraging the contribution of the crowd to new developments in the world, the article reminds us it is imperative to recognise the dangers so that we can make the best use of this abundant resource. An interesting read.
• Trust Networks vs Search Engines: According the article, crowd sourcing works on the same core principles as social trust, and that trust network has the potential to unseat the supremacy of search engines.
• Open Innovation meets Web 2.0: Talks about Fellowforce and Spigit, and whether there’s a viable business model in facilitating open innovation. “Open innovation meets web 2.0″ isn’t entirely correct with respect to Fellowforce though: on the fellowforce platform possibilities to collaborate on posted challenges aren’t available (yet).
• Philips builds Open Innovation Campus in Shanghai: a good example of how to open up to high-tech start-ups, fostering collaboration and open innovation.

This concludes the second edition of the carnival. Thanks to all writers for submitting, and please share your comments below.

Next edition

As of now you can submit your blog article(s) to the next edition of Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing! Use the carnival submission form, or send us the link to your article(s) through carnival@openinnovators.net.

Subject of Edition 3: Government 2.0.
Release date: October 1, 2007

Interested in Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing? Subscribe to RSS!

This is the first edition of the new Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing carnival. You can read more about the carnival, future editions, and past editions, on the carnival home page.

Open Innovation

Carl Lens presents a brief introduction on open innovation. He explains both the outside-in flow (’not all smart people work for you’) and the inside-out flow of open innovation (’80% of all patents in companies is never used’). He also introduces Eric von Hippel’s user-centric innovation approach, which basically states that by involving (lead) users in the process of innovation, companies can develop products and services that have an inherent fit with needs in the market. The article provides a good introduction for people not familiar with both concepts.

I would like to add that user-centric innovation or crowdsourcing innovation could be integrated in a broader view on the outside-in flow of open innovation, in which companies look for external ideas and competences from universities, research institutes, lead users, competitors, suppliers, large crowds and others. It should be mentioned though that Henry Chesbrough (the founding father of open innovation) didn’t pay much attention to this role of users and large crowds in his original open innovation model. Nonetheless, I think this integration contributes to a better understanding of both concepts.

Crowdsourcing

Kiss 5000 Frogs is a follow-up analysis about Cambrian House. Carl Lens explains how Cambrian House shifted from a company that commercialised ideas from the crowds into a company that allowed the crowds to commercialise their own ideas.

When crowdsourcing is defined, open source software is often mentioned as a leading example. How entertaining is your 3D software explains how most open source programmers program for exactly the reason most artists paint. Because it’s fun. The greatest dis-service done to developers and programmers is to relegate them to the realm of well-oiled automatons. Samir Bharadwaj postulates that in order to have enthusiastic spokespeople and a motivated community of developers, your code base should be entertaining and fun to work with. Do all crowdsourcing initiatives require this ‘element of fun’ to be successful?

Applying crowdsourcing to public and development sector

Giulio Quaggiotto wrote two excellent articles about how crowdsourcing can add value in the public and the development sector. The first article, Crowdsourcing development data, discusses innovative business models for the public sector, based on the principles of the long tail and wisdom of the crowd. Public institutions should embrace the vision that “citizens can create, re-use and distribute [data] in ways that add maximum value.” In other words, the best collective knowledge may reside outside, not within the organizations themselves. The article is based on an interesting report sponsored by the Cabinet Office, calling for the UK government to embrace a new strategy for producing and disseminating public information.

The second article deals with the question how web 2.0 and crowdsourcing can change and improve development initiatives. Giulio Quaggiotto provides an inspiring post about how the Development 2.0 world could look like. Imagine, for instance, combining Google maps with crime data, just like Chicago Crime does, to help police authorities and citizens in developing countries.

The last article of this carnival edition gives an overview of three important influences that have contributed to the development of the OER movement (Open Educational Resources): open source sofware, open content, and learning objects. These influences help to understand how projects like Connexions, MIT OpenCourseWare, and Merlot, have developed.

To end, I want to thank all writers who submitted their articles. Reactions, thoughts, and other interesting articles can be shared through the comment section below.

Next edition

As of now you can submit your blog article(s) to the next edition of Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing! Use the carnival submission form, or send us the link to your article(s) through carnival@openinnovators.net.

Carnival Home Page: Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing
Submit your articles to the next edition: carnival submission form

We will be hosting a carnival on open innovation & crowdsourcing in July for which bloggers and writers can now submit their articles (submission form).

What is a carnival? A carnival organizer assembles interesting blog posts and articles on a given topic, and then puts all those posts together in a blog post called a “carnival”. Consider some examples: example one, example two. Carnivals are a great way for bloggers and writers to recognize each other’s efforts, organize articles around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere. Carnivals come in edited “editions”, just like magazines or journals. The fact that carnivals are edited (and usually annotated) collections of links, lets them serve as “magazines” within the blogosphere.

Bloggers and writers can submit relevant articles for inclusion in the upcoming edition. The carnivals provide a nice aggregation of recent posts by bloggers on a given topic, and the host provides a level of editing and annotation that helps readers find posts they are interested in. Writers who submit their articles to blog carnivals are rewarded with traffic and exposure for their blog posts and articles.

Submit your blog article to the upcoming edition of Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing! Use our carnival submission form, or email the link to your article(s) to carnival@openinnovators.net!