Do you see a trend where companies are increasingly going outside the four walls of the firm to source innovation and bring it inside rather than being vertically integrated in R&D?
Yes, it is a major trend. But it is important to note that there are many different flavors to the notion of looking outside a company’s four walls. Understanding of what is possible and effective is evolving very rapidly. There is also a lot of confusion on terminology right now. For instance, “open innovation” is a term that I use to mean innovation that is freely accessible by all via an information commons. That is how I use the term in this interview with you, and that is what people in open source software mean by the term. Others use that same term to refer to the buying and selling of closed, proprietary intellectual property among firms. Can be confusing unless you are careful. The challenge firms face is to make clear to their employees that they are still needed and can provide major contributions and have major job satisfaction in the new model. How successful and willing have firms been at taking the lessons learned from your research on user innovation and open source dev
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