The world is changing at an unprecedented rate – cycle times for everything keep plummeting in quest of instant gratification and a rabid global demand. However, as exciting of an opportunity as this is, it represents an ever growing problem for companies: how to innovate while keeping pace.

There are many great organizations that have developed great products and services over the years, and continue to do so. However the nucleus of people required to imagine, collaborate and produce these gems is traditionally small, insular and getting harder to keep together; yet alone get together. Moreover, the diversity needed to differentiate one’s offering, combined with the sheer volume and frenetic speed of the times, is increasingly requiring us to re-think our approach; and fast.

With the emerging markets having figured-out manufacturing and services, it behooves us to plan for the day in the not-so-distant future where they master innovation as well. With their social and cultural norms being more collaborative by nature, they’re already ahead of the curve. With their work ethic, they can pull away mighty fast. Instead of bucking this trend, how about embracing it?

Our own research shows that traditional innovation processes are slipping and are now working in the 37% efficiency range (down from a peak of 51% aggregate in 2003). Increased volumes, scarcer resources, longer turn-around times and accelerated response requirements have conspired to outmode the current linear approach. Even so, if the objective is to maximize the effort, and if 51% represents the best we could do across the board, then there was a process problem right from the start. Another trend that is influencing this shift and influencing response times is the target of innovation initiatives. What was formerly an activity heavily-focused on operational efficiencies is today heavily emphasizing top-line growth in its many permutations. The differences are stark: efficiency-focused ideas are predominantly focused on cost savings, take less time to process and implement, and yield net dollar results. Revenue generating ideas on the other hand require more planning, analysis, investment and time; their risk profile is much higher and they only yield gross dollar benefits after a longer gestation period; and have a lower approval rate. The pay-off for those revenue-generating ideas that make it is disproportionally huge. However, the current process to get there is difficult and is often taxing to everyday operations. But it need not continue this way.

The advent of Web 2.0 has engendered transformational change to the way we communicate, create, exchange information and buy goods & services. Blogs, Wikis, mash-ups and communities have transformed the user into the creator. Why not tap into this? If one looks at communities like FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr, Wikipedia or LinkedIn, people are searching for more to do. They are self-organizing, democratic and motivated. With their diversity of experience, skill set, expertise, social attitude and cultural backgrounds, they represent more than new source of conversation – they are a rich source for collaboration and represent a conduit for the future of management innovation.

But innovation collaboration means more than just ideas and conversation. Many attempts have been made over the years to formulate innovation; much to the disappointment of their proponents. These visions failed for a simple reason – they weren’t organic.

The goal here is to go beyond conversation and into participation. A truly open innovation environment creates opportunities to co-create and delegate idea-building related tasks in order to make ideas evaluation-ready for internal company operatives. To that end, configurable stage-gate templates can provide idea development rigor commensurate to client organization standards and ensure that ideas are developed enough to warrant company’s precious time. These templates can be configured to have select criteria and weightings that align favorably with the organization’s goals, resources and corporate strategy. These weighting of these stage-gate components also can enable the sum of certain ideas to rank higher than others in the Innovation Portfolio; adding a useful if not critical metric to facilitate the decision of which ideas to go after first.

With these internal and external operatives (or communities) engaged in your innovation activities, one can quickly understand the value generated when the convergence of varied inputs creates accidental discoveries that can be quickly leveraged into robust opportunities. The ascension of an idea is both quantitative (through voting) and qualitative (through co-creation); the focus is to make each idea a collaborative best-of-breed. The self-organizing and broad base of potential collaborators can create an immediacy impossible to match by the resources of any one organization.

There are new roles and responsibilities that need to be considered.

External Idea Champion

The position of External Idea Champion is one that has the charge of shepherding an idea through the various stages that the organization feels are necessary before dedicating resources to its pursuit. By configuring idea development standards to pre-determined acceptance levels, ideas are developed to an extent that becomes useful for internal folks to start spending time on. The External Idea Champion is a vital link in reaching-out the vast and immediate pool of expertise available on the web to get to the crux of an innovation quickly. Rewards for approved ideas can vary, and should include all Task Collaborators and the Innovation Ideas Vetter. The External Champion is also the liaison between internal operatives (Product, Brand, Operations and other Managers).

Internal Idea Vetter

The Idea Vetter role is one who insures that all incoming ideas are devoid of foul or defamatory content prior to community publication. The Vetter should also determine whether an idea is good enough to be Fast Tracked immediately (without being shared with any community – internal or external, and by-pass any established routing); because not all ideas warrant or require sharing. In fact, some may be so great in their “now & wow” potential that they deserve to be shot-to-the top right away.

Task Collaborators

These participants add direct value to the idea by providing solutions to the Stage Gate components. Whether it represents a Benefits Analysis, Market Intelligence, ROI Calculations, Engineering Drawings or Implementation Plans, these External Community users all bring value to the table – and are rewarded only if/when the idea is approved – that is explained and understood from the start.

The beauty of this approach is its simplicity, efficiency, immediacy, speed and access to a broad pool of expertise, opinion and motivation; for best-of-class creation through top-mind collaboration, the leveraging of motivated talent and global diversity of inputs.

Best of all, management can adjust the barriers to this garden to suit their cultural and competitive comfort levels, while maintaining full system control at all times.

Besides offering a rich mosaic of cultural and professional experiences, as well as diversity of know-how and best practices coupled with the dynamics of these interactions, there is one overriding benefit to this type Open Innovation that trumps them all: time-to-market immediacy. And it’s not just that economies and organizations around the world are competing for ever shrinking and fragmented markets. Ask any operational manager how many projects they’ve had to shelve in the last quarter for lack of time and you’ll get a unanimous “too many to count”. So why not get better ideas that are developed to the point where traditional front-end risks have been mitigated? And only pay for the performing ones.

The pay issue brings me to my final point. Social networks are growing in users and type. But even on this cutting edge, the winds of change are blowing. Members are looking for ever more rewarding experiences and they’re not going to keep doing stuff for free. Now think of the viral buzz when users come to your company’s Innovation Portal, are invited to participate and contribute, get recognized for their achievement in a forum open to all users and get rewarded in some equitable fashion. That is opportunity of Open Innovation.

The idea isn’t to replace – it is to enhance, augment, refine and accelerate.