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Nasa goes Open Innovation

Jan Wilhelm, one of our invaluable research assistants, has written this blog post about his latest discovery on the web:

Two days ago, NASA and Microsoft corp. launched the brand-new and fancy designed website ?Be A Martian? that offers many different opportunities for users. Like 2001?s NASA application ?Clickworkers?, the new website follows the crowdsourcing idea to engage volunteers in exploration tasks that require human perception and common sense instead of scientific skills. The main incentive is a credit point system that rewards discoveries made. Interested laymen can join the online community, ask questions about the red planet and vote for particularly interesting questions. Chosen questions are addressed online by experts.

In addition, NASA starts four so-called Pathfinder Innovation Challenges for different target audiences that follow the idea of innovation contests. The first one invites participants of at least 14 years of age to contribute videos to the ?The Martians? video-series. As the website is also supposed to be educational, the second challenge is about creating interactive applications for instructive use. Adult web developers can participate in two other challenges. One calls for additional applications that enable users to find and label interesting objects on mars, veiled in fun games. The last challenge is about programming autonomous applications that accomplish the same task without human supervision.

Mündliche Abschlussprüfung in TIM

(For our English speaking readers: this is an announcement for our German students)

Die mündlichen Abschlussprüfungen in Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement finden am 24.11.2009 in neuen Räumen des Lehrstuhls statt. Nähere Informationen entnehmen Sie bitte nachfolgendem Dokument.

Gastvortrag - “Innovation Strategy in Practice”

Am Dienstag, 17.11.2009 (F03 (Karmann-Auditorium), 14:50 - 17:15) freuen wir uns, in der Vorlesung Strategisches Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement einen in Praxis und Wissenschaft renommierten Gastdozenten bei uns begrüßen zu können.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Gerd Servatius wird uns einen Einblick in die Praxis des strategischen Managements und dem Zusammenspiel von Unternehmens- und Innovationsstrategie geben.

Wir freuen uns, Sie am Dienstag zu diesem spannenden Vortrag an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis begrüßen zu können. Die Gastvorlesung ist für Gäste aus der RWTH und der Aachener Wirtschaft ausdrücklich geöffnet.

Hans-Gerd Servatius ist Gründer des Management Systems Network, einem auf Beratung und Führungskräfteentwicklung spezialisierten Unternehmer-Netzwerk. Daneben lehrt er als Honorar-Professor Unternehmensführung an der Universität Stuttgart.

Herr Servatius verfügt über mehr als 25 Jahre Erfahrung in internationalen Consulting-Unternehmen. Nach ?Lehrjahren? bei der Boston Consulting Group hatte er Führungspositionen bei Roland Berger, Deloitte und Horváth inne. In dieser Zeit hat er 21 der heutigen DAX 30-Unternehmen und namhafte Mittelständler beraten.

Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte liegen in den Feldern strategische Führung, Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement sowie Organisation und Wandel. Er ist Autor von acht Büchern und über 120 Fachartikeln.

We are moving: RWTH-TIM at new address

We are moving. Today and tomorrow, we are moving into our new building in a research park in the suburbs.  The growth of the group within the last two years (from five to 18 people working full time in the group, plus about 25 student assistants and tutors) required that we need new space. And as often, new space only is available in new buildings.

The RWTH has acquired the old headquarters of AIXTRON,  an Aachen high-tech company. Among other institutes and research centers, we can move into this building (and we are happy hat we got the former floor where the executive board was situated

Our new colleagues will be material science researchers, civil engineers, textile engineering and electrical engineers — so we are moving to a space where new technology is developed.  While it really is a pity that we have to leave the core building of RWTH’s School of Business & Economics, I am excited about these opportunities for cooperation.

But most importantly, we will have sufficient space for our own researchers, and a more communicative office environment that should foster communication and creative exchange.

Our new building is close to Ford’s European Research Center, Microsoft’s Aachen Lab, and many further corporate research centers and start-ups. The building is well connected with many bus lines with the RWTH core campus.

Our new address:

RWTH Aachen, Lehrstuhl für Betriebswirtschaftslehre mit Schwerpunkt Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement
Kackertstraße 15-17, 52072 Aachen, Germany

All phone numbers  and e-mail contacts remain the same !!!

How to find us: Go to Contact Section of our homepage.

We hope to meet you soon in our new offices!

2009 Meeting of the Division VHB-TIM in Aachen

[Updated] This is an announcement of the upcoming VHB-TIM 2009 conference, which we are happy to host this year in Aachen. The TIM 2009 is the annual meeting of the Division “Technology and Innovation Management” in the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB). The conference is in German language, and so is this posting.

Unser Lehrstuhl ist sehr erfreut, der Gastgeber der diesjährigen Jahrestagung der VHB-Kommission Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement (VHB TIM) sein zu dürfen. Mit mehr als 60 Teilnehmern wird es ein großes Treffen der deutschen TIM-Community.

Für alle Teilnehmer:  Hier finden Sie zum Download:

- das aktuelle  Programm mit den Abstracts der Vorträge der Haupttagung

- das Programm des Nachwuchs- und Doktorandenkolloquium 2009

- Praktische Hinweise zum Tagungsort, zur Anreise und Unterkunft

- Hinweise zu Parkmöglichkeiten

Die im Jahre 1997 als eine der jüngsten Kommissionen des Verbandes für Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft e.V. gegründete VHB TIM hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, Innovationen und technologische Entwicklungen aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Perspektive zu betrachten. Die Kommission strebt an, die fachlichen Beziehungen zu den Ingenieurwissenschaften und zu den Naturwissenschaften besonders zu pflegen.

Für die diesjährige Konferenz hat das Programmkommitee aus einer großen Zahl an Vortragsvorschlägen 14 spannende Beiträge ausgewählt. Das Programm runden drei Plenarvorträge, eine Paneldiskussion und die Mitgliederversammlung mit Auszeichnung der Nachwuchsforscher ab. Zum Tagungsdinner sind wir am historischen Ort im ?Postwagen?, ein originelles Restaurant im Aachener Rathaus.

Für weitere Informationen zu Anmeldung oder zur Tagung wenden Sie sich bitte an Dr.  Christoph Ihl oder Alexander Vossen.

Das ganze Tagungsteam in Aachen freut sich herzlich auf Ihr Kommen!

Customers #1 Source of Innovation, Global Innovation Study Finds

A new innovation report by Grant Thornton International (GT), a consulting and advisory firm, examined the thoughts and attitudes of business executives globally towards innovation. The report is based on a survey conducted by the renowned Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Students, beware: As usual with these kind of reports, it should not be considered as a rigid academic research but more than a snapshot of company perceptions.of its authors. Still, the reports are good starting point for further study. Also, their purpose often is to drive the consulting business

In the GT 2009 report, the role of customers, along with the attitude of companies to their customers, emerges as a defining characteristic. “No longer simply passive recipients of goods and services, customers now help to shape the future of their own consumption.” They are now the leading source of innovations globally (41 per cent), more important than anything inside companies, including research and development.

Firms in Asia Pacific are particularly attuned to what their customers want with almost half (48 per cent) of the best innovative ideas coming from customers against 40 per cent in Western Europe and 35 per cent in North America. Globally, heads of business units followed as the best origins of ideas followed by general employees and the inhouse R&D team (both 33 per cent). So the customer is king, then comes the boss, then the R&D team.

The report also asked about the notion of open innovation, broadly defined in the survey as “leveraging both internal and external ideas and information”. The answers show an interesting picture: 33 per cent of the companies say they have applied open innovation and will continue to do so, as they regard open innovation as a key for future growth. This figure is lowest in North America (30 per cent) and highest in Western Europe (35 per cent). This seems interesting, but confirms my earlier notion that companies in Europe are better networked and organized in associations and university networks for innovation. But at the same time, a lot of companies also have major concerns against open innovation.

The report’s authors draw four main conclusions:

• Pay more attention to what your customers say and their ideas for innovations
• Consider expanding your open innovation projects and working with more third parties
• Look outwards, explore new markets, rather than drawing back into your domestic market
• Capitalise on the great shifts of the age, the move away from carbon-based energy and the emergence of China and India as major trading nations with huge consumer markets.

GT offers the reports for free download here.

I got notice about the GT report by reading a blog posting at Promise, a UK innovation market research and co-creation company. Promise, together with the LSE, also recently published a good report on the status of co-creation and the role of customers in the innovation process.

Participate in our opinion market “Open Innovation”: How will the concept develop within the next month?

How will the concept of open innovation be perceived by German managers in October 2009?

This is a question that is traded on the opinion market “X-Market“, initiated by our partner Management Zentrum Witten and our RWTH-TIM research group as part of the joint research project INTEGRO

If you understand GERMAN, please read on and poll your opinion how the buzz around open innovation will develop in the next weeks!

X-Märkte sind Informationsmärkte, die als virtuelle Börsen über den Marktmechanismus kollektives Wissen bzw. individuelle Wahrnehmungen zu validen Prognosen bündeln. Zusammen mit ausgewählten Fachpartnern werden zukünftig relevante Entwicklungstrends in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft sichtbar gemacht.

Neben anderen Themen ist diesmal auch das Thema Open Innovation mit von der Partie. Wie wird sich die Wahrnehmung bezüglich der Open Innovation verändern?

Machen Sie mit, geben Sie Ihre Einschätzungen über die Zukunft ab, informieren Sie sich zugleich über Zukunftstrends, und vielleicht gewinnen Sie einen der lukrativen Preise! Den Zugang zu den X-Märkten finden Sie hier.

Veranstaltungen der TIM-Group im Wintersemester 2009/10

Liebe Studierende, 

das neue Semester naht und wieder hat die TIM-Group ein spannendes Vorlesungsangebot. Informationen zu den einzelnen Veranstaltungen finden sie im Campus-System und auch hier.

Wir freuen uns auf das neue Semester und wünschen Ihnen viel Spaß und Erfolg.

Ihr TIM-Team

Report from MCPC 2009 in Helsinki: RWTH-TIM on the Largest Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization

Several members of the TIM group are visiting the MCPC 2009 conference in Helsinki during this week. MCPC is the largest conference on Mass Customization and Personalization and offers a very broad spectrum of events to practitioners and researchers in the field of Mass Customization. It was started in 2001  by Frank Piller and Mitchell Tseng in Hong Kong and takes place every two years.

The 2009 conference started on Sunday with three pre-conference workshops that allowed the participants to learn some basics of Mass Customization in an interactive manner. On Monday and Tuesday the program was continued with a research conference that allowed for discussions on more than 100 paper presentations and keynote speeches.

So far the conference has taken place in the very inspiring surroundings of the University of Art and Design Helsinki. It has been a great experience for learning and discussing about the exciting topic of Mass Customization so far, but it will even continue today with a business strategy seminar and tomorrow with different interactive labs on three fields of application of MC.

It was great to come here and meet many of the researchers and practitioners we only knew from the literature before. For a more detailed report of the conference, head to Frank Piller’s personal blog where he provides some longer summaries.

There also is a strong Twitter discussion on the MCPC 2009, where you can follow the conference live!

Mass Customization Media Blitz in the German Press

After 15 years in the business, I have see many waves of hype around mass customization. But in the German media, it never has been as strong as recently.

Probably triggered by a report in BrandEins (the most innovative German business publication) and a report about mass customization by dpa, the German Press Agency, many newspapers and weeklies followed with articles in the last weeks . There was a report in the main news show of RTL. And last weekend, even taz - die tageszeitung, a German newspaper on the left side of the spectrum and normally far away from reports about MC hedonistic products, had a long report.  And of course we are very happy that RWTH-TIM is frequently quoted in these reports

The theme (similar to the article in BrandEins): Mass Customization of food. I have commented on this category in a previous posting to my blog.

What do I learn from the sudden media attention about a phenomenon that is 20 years old?

1) Perhaps the time now is ripe? People are more internet savvy, willing not just to shop but also to configure custom goods online. At the same time, there is a growing level of sophistication of the market, more knowledge how to create a great MC website has been distributed …

2) In economical bad times, people love easy sophistication with a bit of affordable luxury - which a custom chocolate bar or your own tea creation probably offers. So this is a great product for bad times.

3) Some journalists are not too creative, and when one is writing a nice article, other copy.

4) The idea to customize an item still is big news and a real novelty for most consumers. In my classes for students and executives alike, I am still astonished how many people have never ever heard about the possibility to customize products or services online. We finally have to create a better understanding how to communicate mass customization!

Context information: For a collection of press articles covering mass customization, please head here.

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