Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 2009 Kathleen Diener and Frank Piller The Market for Open Innovation Increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the innovation process A market study of intermediaries facilitating the integration of external actors and information from the firm's periphery in the innovation process Supported by �� 2009 by Kathleen Diener and Frank Piller, RWTH Aachen University, TIM Group

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 2 Information about the authors of this study: Kathleen Diener: Kathleen Diener is a member of the Technology & Innovation Management Research Group at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany, since June 2007. Her research activities consider investigating the Not-Invented-Here phenomenon and the degree of openness in the innovation process in terms of different collaboration forms. Before becoming a PhD candidate and a research associate she studied psychology at the Humboldt University to Berlin (2000-2007). She wrote her thesis on the topic of lead user method and in specific she validated a screening instrument for lead user recruitment. Contact: diener@tim.rwth-aachen.de Frank T. Piller Frank Piller is a chair professor of management at the Technology & Innovation Management Group of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, one of Europe���s leading institutes of technology. He is also a founding faculty member of the MIT Smart Customization Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Before entering his recent position in Aachen in March 2007, he worked at the MIT Sloan School of Management (BPS, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, 2004-2007) and has been an associate professor of management at TUM Business School, Technische Universitaet Muenchen (1999-2004). Contact: piller@tim.rwth-aachen.de General contact information: Mailing Address RWTH Aachen University Technology & Innovation Management Group Templergraben 64, 5th Floor 52062 Aachen Website www.tim.rwth-aachen.de

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 3 Preface Recently, the term open innovation has become a major buzzword in innovation management. But behind the buzz is a sustainable message: Successful innovation is not solely performed internally within a firm, but in a cooperative mode with other external actors. Sources of external input for innovation are plentiful, including market actors like customers, suppliers, competitors the scientific system of university labs and research institutions public authorities like patent agents and public funding agencies and mediating parties like technology consultants, media, and conference organizers. The core idea of a new era of open innovation is the integration of these actors in a flexible and informal way beyond the traditional notion of innovation alliances or contract research. New forms of organizing distributed problem solving like crowdsourcing have become a leitmotif for many innovation departments. Especially small and medium size enterprises (but also many large corporations), however, face the challenge of creating the internal ecosystem that allows them to profit from external input in an efficient and effective way. This challenge is twofold: 1. Firstly, companies have to know which new and established models and tools exist to tap into external knowledge for innovation in a flexible way. They have to gain knowledge how to operate these approaches and learn about their success factors. 2. Secondly, companies have to identify and reach the external partners which can help them in their open innovation process. They require an overview of methods and possible partners who are specialized in applying these methods. This report wants to address these challenges. For the first time, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the providers and platforms for open innovation. These intermediaries can help SMEs to accelerate their open innovation initiative. That is why we call them Open Innovation Accelerators (OIAs). In the following sections, we take a detailed look on the methods, sectors, cost, and project structures for open innovation. Our purpose is to deliver a basis for strategic decisions when planning an open innovation venture. This market study shall provide managers advice ��� �� to identify possible methods existing in practice to collaborate for open innovation, �� to understand the market of companies offering help with an open innovation process, �� to identify different approaches when outsourcing an open innovation initiative, �� to gain an overview of the actors available for open innovation from a global perspective, �� and finally to address potential partners for an open innovation project in a directed way. The authors thank the Stiftung Industrieforschung for their generous support to conduct this study and to survey almost 50 intermediaries for open innovation in a rigid way. We hope that this study may help managers from SMEs and large enterprises alike to profit from open innovation.

Contents Table of content Preface ....................................................................................................................................3 Contents..................................................................................................................................4 Table of content .............................................................................................................. 4 List of Take Aways.......................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables and Figures............................................................................................... 5 1 Open Innovation: A New Approach to Increase the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Innovation Process ............................................................................................8 2 Methods of Open Innovation ��� A Description of the Three Major Approaches ....10 2.1 The Lead User Method........................................................................................ 10 2.1.1 The search for existing lead user innovations....................................................... 11 2.1.2 The search for actors with lead user qualities....................................................... 12 2.1.3 Stages of a lead user project ................................................................................ 13 2.2 Toolkits for open innovation................................................................................. 17 2.3 Innovation contests and "broadcast search" platforms........................................ 18 3 Intermediaries in the innovation process.................................................................23 3.1 Evolution and notion of intermediaries................................................................. 23 3.2 Roles and functions of intermediaries.................................................................. 25 3.3 Classification of intermediaries............................................................................ 29 3.3.1 Specific characteristics of intermediaries.............................................................. 29 3.3.2 Types of intermediaries......................................................................................... 31 3.4 Summary ��� What to know about intermediaries .................................................. 33 4 The Open Innovation Accelerator (OIA) Survey: Mapping the Landscape of Intermediaries for Open Innovation ..........................................................................36 4.1 Methodology: The OIA Questionnaire ................................................................. 37 4.2 Sample Composition............................................................................................ 37 4.3 Analysis: The structure and market of open innovation offerings ........................ 40 4.3.1 Self-understanding and positioning of the OIAs.................................................... 40 4.3.2 Methods offered for the open innovation process................................................. 50 4.3.3 Project structure and project costs........................................................................ 70 4.4 The OIA-Cube: A conceptual model to map the collaboration between an organization and its external environment........................................................... 76 4.5 Clustering the market of OIAs.............................................................................. 79 5 Collaborating with Intermediaries: Managerial Implications ..................................83 5.1 Define the context and kind of information required ............................................ 84 5.2 Considering cost and success rates when engaging an OIA .............................. 87

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 5 References............................................................................................................................89 Appendix: Profiles of the Open Innovation Accelerators.................................................95 Overview ....................................................................................................................... 96 Profiles of individual OIAs ........................................................................................... 101 Profiles of individual OIAs not considered in the analysis........................................... 145 Stiftung Industrieforschung ��� Sponsor of the OIA survey.............................................152 List of Take Aways Box 1: Open Innovation as a new approach for innovation management................................9 Box 2: Core principles of open innovation..............................................................................22 Box 3: What are intermediaries in the innovation process? ...................................................35 Box 4: What are open innovation accelerators (OIAs)? .........................................................36 Box 5: Survey approach and data sample .............................................................................39 Box 6: Summing up the OIAs self-understanding and positioning .........................................41 Box 7: Markets of OIAs��� projects............................................................................................48 Box 8: OIA size and market....................................................................................................49 Box 9: OIAs and the stages of the innovation process they operate in..................................51 Box 10: Kinds of open innovation approaches OIAs offer......................................................62 Box 11: Community manager and their community characteristics .......................................70 Box 12: Average costs for OIA services.................................................................................75 Box 13: Open innovation approaches and their forms of collaboration..................................82 Box 14: The development of the OIA market .........................................................................88 List of Tables and Figures Table 1: Intermediaries in the scientific literature (building on Howells 2006)........................25 Table 2: Function cluster 1: Facilitating the collaboration between organizations (Lopez-Vega 2009)..................................................................................................27 Table 3: Function cluster 2: Connecting actors like users, science, policy initiatives (Lopez-Vega 2009)..................................................................................................27 Table 4: Function cluster 3: Providing service for stakeholders (Lopez-Vega 2009) .............27 Table 5: Classification of intermediaries.................................................................................31

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 6 Table 6: OIAs surveyed for this study ....................................................................................38 Table 7: OIA market and industry focus.................................................................................43 Table 8: Geographical distribution of OIA activity ..................................................................45 Table 9: Focus of OIAs on different stages of the innovation process...................................51 Table 10: Types of open innovation approaches ...................................................................53 Table 11: Methodological approaches of OIAs and tools to accomplish open innovation .....56 Table 12: Service approach and kind of competition offered .................................................59 Table 13: Service approach and kind of competition offered .................................................60 Table 14: Service approach and kind of workshop offered ....................................................60 Table 15: Service approach and kind of workshop offered ....................................................61 Table 16: Service approach and toolkit / virtual market place offered....................................62 Table 17: Type of community applied by OIAs.......................................................................63 Table 18: Access regulation for the OIA community ..............................................................65 Table 19: Community affiliation..............................................................................................66 Table 20: Categorization of OIA's integration of different external actors by need vs. solution information................................................................................................68 Table 21: Matching access and the kind of information integrated ........................................69 Table 22: OIA communities regarding their access regulation and type of information .........69 Table 23: OIAs participating the survey and interview ...........................................................71 Table 24: Fee structure of OIAs .............................................................................................72 Table 25: Price range for open innovation projects................................................................72 Table 26: Fee structure of the OIAs .......................................................................................73 Table 27: Type 1: Open call ��� restricted access ��� need information .....................................80 Table 28: Type 2: Open call ��� restricted access ��� solution information.................................80 Table 29: Type 3: Open call ��� non-restricted access ��� need information ..............................80 Table 30: Type 4: Open call ��� non-restricted access ��� solution information..........................80 Table 31: Type 5: Open Search ��� restricted access ��� need information ...............................81 Table 32: Type 6: Open Search ��� restricted access ��� solution information...........................81 Table 33: Type 7: Open Search ��� non-restricted access ��� need information ........................82 Table 34: Type 8: Open Search ��� non-restricted access ��� solution information....................82 Table 35: Defining the right open innovation approach: Matching information requirement and type of initiating the collaboration................................................85

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 7 Table 36: OIAs regarding open innovation approach and information type ...........................85 Table 37: Open call ................................................................................................................86 Figure 1: Evolution of Intermediaries......................................................................................24 Figure 2: Classification of Intermediaries in the innovation process ......................................34 Figure 3: Self-reported core competencies of OIA.................................................................41 Figure 4: OIA market and industry focus................................................................................42 Figure 5: Geographical distribution of OIA activity .................................................................45 Figure 6: Type of market focus...............................................................................................47 Figure 7: Cumulative increase of OIAs in the past decades ..................................................48 Figure 8: Stages of the innovation process............................................................................50 Figure 9: Type of service approach........................................................................................53 Figure 10: Methods to accelerate the open innovation process.............................................58 Figure 11: Type of community access....................................................................................64 Figure 12: Type of external actors integrated by the OIAs.....................................................67 Figure 13: OIA Cube: A Framework to map the activities of an open innovation accelerator 76 Figure 14: Mapping an OIA in the cube: Two examples ........................................................79 Figure 15: Types of OIA cluster..............................................................................................79

1 Open Innovation: A New Approach to Increase the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Innovation Process Managing uncertainty can be regarded as a core practice of successful innovation management. Firms face various sources of uncertainty with regard to their technological and managerial capabilities and their target markets. Thomke (2003) differentiates uncertainties of an innovation project into technical, production, need, and market uncertainty. To reduce these uncertainties, firms need to access and transfer different types of information (Cassiman and Veugelers 2006). In a generic framework, this information can be divided into two groups (Ogawa 1998 von Hippel 1998): �� Information on customer and market needs (���need information���), i.e. information about preferences, needs, desires, satisfaction, motives, etc. of the customers and users of a new product or new service offering. Better access to sufficient need-related information from customers is increasing the effectiveness of the innovation activities. It reduces the risk of failure. Need information builds on an in-depth understanding and appreciation of the customers��� requirements, operations and systems. This information is transferred by means of market research techniques from customers to manufacturers. �� Information on (technological) solution possibilities (���solution information���), i.e. information about how to apply a technology to transform customer needs into new products and services best. Access to solution information is primarily addressing the efficiency of the innovation process. Better solution information enables product developers to engage in more directed problem-solving activities in the innovation process. The more complex and radical an innovation is, the larger in general the need to access solution information from different domains. All innovations are characterized by both types of knowledge, although their relative proportions may vary (Nambisan, Agarwal, and Tanniru 1999). Need and solution information may be located physically in different places which are often external to the firm's innovation process (Nonaka and Takeutchi 1995). It is necessary to transfer at least a certain amount of each type of information from one place to another as successful innovation requires a combination of the two. Caloghirou, Kastelli, and Tsakanikas (2004) conclude after a study of information exchange in new product development projects that "[���] both internal capabilities and openness towards knowledge sharing are important for upgrading innovative performance." The innovation process thus can be seen as a continuous interaction between internal actors of a firm and external actors in its periphery (Allen 1983 Berthon et al. 2007 Blazevic and Lievens 2008 Brown and Eisenhardt 1995 Chesbrough 2003 Freeman and Soete 1997 Reichwald and Piller 2009 Szulanski 1996). Along all stages of this process, need and solution information has to be transferred from various external actors into the innovation function of the firm. One of the fundamental sources of information for innovation is the customer. Today, the common understanding of the innovation process builds on the observation that firms rarely innovate alone and that the innovation process can be seen as an interactive relationships among producers, users and many other different institutions (Laursen and Salter 2006). Mansfield (1986) showed that innovation projects which are based to a

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 9 large extent on external developments have shorter development times and demand less investments than similar projects based solely on internal research & development. As a result, the early Schumpeterian model of the lone entrepreneur bringing innovations to markets (Schumpeter 1942) has been superseded by a richer picture of different actors in networks and communities (Laursen and Salter 2006). These actors are seen to work together in an interactive process of discovery, realization and exploitation of a new idea. Innovative performance today is seen to a large extent as the ability of an innovative organization to establish networks with external entities. The main effect of including external information is to enlarge the base of information that can be utilized for the innovation process. In a conventionally "closed" system of innovation, only information about needs and solution information that is in the domain of the manufacturer can be used as creative input for the innovation process, a problem that has been called the "local search bias" (Lakhani et al. 2007 Stuart and Podolny 1996). In an innovation system more open to external input, the need and solution information of the firm is extended by the large base of information about needs, applications, and solution technologies that resides in the domain of customers, retailers, suppliers, and other external parties. Thus, just by increasing the potential pool of information, better results should become possible. Recently, the term open innovation has been used to characterize a system where innovation is not solely performed internally within a firm, but in a cooperative mode with other external actors (Fredberg et al. 2008 Reichwald and Piller 2009). Open innovation is opposed to closed innovation, in which companies use only ideas generated within their boundaries, characterized by big corporate research labs and closely managed networks of vertically integrated partners (Chesbrough 2003). Open innovation is characterized by cooperation for innovation within wide horizontal and vertical networks of universities, start- ups, suppliers, and competitors. Companies can and should use external ideas as well as those from their own R&D departments, and both internal and external paths to the market, in order to advance their technology. Sources of external information for the innovation process are plentiful, including market actors like customers, suppliers, competitors the scientific system of university labs and research institutions public authorities like patent agents and public funding agencies and mediating parties like technology consultants, media, and conference organizers (Hauschildt 1992 Knudsen 2007 Tether and Tajar 2008). Box 1: Open Innovation as a new approach for innovation management The open innovation mechanism allows organization to acquire, integrate and process external information more efficiently and effectively. It is a new form of interacting and collaborating with the external environment of a company including various potential external actors (beyond suppliers, customers, universities etc). By applying methods of open innovation an organization can overcome its local search bias and acquire precise need information and therefore innovate more successful and cost efficient.

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 10 2 Methods of Open Innovation ��� A Description of the Three Major Approaches In this section, we introduce three methods that help to put open innovation into practice. While consultants and companies often announce fancy new methods of open innovation, all of them can be brought back onto these three basic approaches which have been described in the literature. In this chapter, we take the perspective of a manufacturer who actively wants to create and stimulate the process of open innovation. All methods focus on either accessing need or solution information, or on providing a combined access to these factors. Some instruments are designed for an active integration of innovative users and customers into an innovation process. Other instruments focus on the transfer of solutions from external experts answering an open call for cooperation. In particular, we will describe the following clusters of methods: �� The lead user method first identifies innovative users. In a second step, these users are then integrated by means of innovation workshops. Although the focus here is primarily on accessing need information, the lead user method also is a proven practice when it comes to accessing innovative (technological) solutions. �� Toolkits for open innovation are Internet-based instruments which aim at supporting users in transferring their needs into new product concepts. When accessing need information, toolkits should help overcome the problem of "sticky��� information. �� Innovation contests aim at the generation of input for all stages of the innovation process. Competitions between users and customers aim at encouraging innovative ideas at the frontend of the innovation process. Innovation contests can also begin in a later stage in the innovation process usually in searches for innovative approaches to a technical problem within a broad field of problem solvers. 2.1 The Lead User Method The lead user method is a qualitative, process-oriented approach. It aims at the active integration of selected users to generate ideas and concepts for new product or process innovations. Lead users have, before others, within a target market a personal need for a specific solution (a product, a process, a certain type of material, etc.). They expect a very high personal benefit from the new development fulfilling their need. Lead users thus anticipate early on innovative characteristics, which are relevant only much later for other customers. Lead users additionally have the ability to develop a fully functional solution for their needs. They, hence possess not only need information, but equally also solution information (von Hippel 1986, 1988). An example of a lead user could be a master technician in a factory who is the first to use a new material. The master technician realizes that the machine does not fulfill certain

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 11 requirements for processing this material. The factory���s sales department has asked him to process the material in a certain way so that new security regulations on an export market are fulfilled. However, the master technician cannot properly process the material using the existing machine. Because of the pressure coming from the sales department, he experiments, for example, with different settings or makes modifications to the machine which enable him to process the new material in the required way. These activities take place autonomously in the domain of the user and remain unknown to the manufacturer (in our case, the machine builder of the processing machine). This example demonstrates that a lead user does not have to be a single person, but can also be a group of different actors in the user's domain (in our example, the need information lies in the sales department the problem solving competence, however, with the master technician). Although the lead user method has already been described in the past (Urban and von Hippel 1988 von Hippel 1986), there is still some confusion over what this method is exactly about. Therefore, we distinguish between two procedures how companies can profit from lead users: �� Searching for existing lead user innovations in the user domain and transferring these to the company. �� Searching for people with lead user qualities and integrating them into an innovation workshop organized for solving a given technical problem 2.1.1 The search for existing lead user innovations As an initial strategy, manufacturers can look for existing lead user innovations within their sector. This idea supports the common view on lead users as independent innovators. On one hand, the general consensus is that these users become active and innovate because of an unsatisfied need. On the other, lead users become active and create new applications because they want to benefit from the solution themselves. But their solutions must be transferred to the manufacturer���s domain. Here, the focus is on accessing need information. Lead users innovate autonomously and to a great extent not in cooperation with a manufacturer. A manufacturer���s job is to "merely" recognize the finished innovation and convert the idea into a marketable product, which then becomes readily available to other customers. Consider the example of the sporting goods industry. Since discovering the lead user phenomenon, many sporting goods manufacturers today systematically observe customers who are active in extreme sports, and the equipment they use when competing. In this way, manufacturers stay on top of developments occurring within the user's domain (Baldwin, Hienerth, and von Hippel 2006 provide a good documentation of this development in the extreme sport of rodeo kayaking). In a narrower sense, however, sheer observation is not enough. The lead user approach goes further and builds on an intensive interaction and cooperation with the user. Manufacturers can support customers while they are innovating. Stata Corp., a leading manufacturer of statistical software, sets a good example. The company counts on users to interactively co-develop their products. In the process, they have also found an acceptable way to deal with the resulting output, which closes the gap between an ���open��� and ���closed��� system. Stata���s customers are often scientists or industrial quality controllers, who use the

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 12 software for a large number of statistical tests. In case the applications provided within the software cannot solve a certain task (elegantly) enough, new tests can be programmed simply. Therefore, Stata has divided its software into two modules. One module contains basic features developed by the company and is protected by proprietary rights (sold over a traditional software license). The second part is open. A user community contributes new statistical algorithms and tests. Stata supports these expert users by providing a development environment and a forum on the Internet where users trade tests, ask questions, and expand the developments of others. But since not all users are well-versed in, or have sufficient programming knowledge, Stata has developed a procedure in which the "best" or most popular developments from the user community are regularly selected by the company and made part of the next commercial release. This decision is made entirely by Stata���s software developers, who take and improve user applications and integrate them smoothly into the standard software. This additional value created by Strata is also an incentive for users to make their personal developments available to the company without asking for monetary return (simply because their motives for developing a new application were using it in their own scientific work in the first place). In this understanding of the lead user method, the company���s sales force takes an important role. Sales employees should be made aware of and given incentives to look out for innovative solutions coming from customers, who ���think outside of the box���. Alternatively, a separate department within the company can also search directly for innovative customers. For this purpose, the stages 1 to 3 of the lead user process, as described in Section 2.1.3, can be used to search for people with lead user characteristics. However, this understanding of the lead user method basically falls back on those lead users who have already created innovative solutions. Because of this, for many manufacturers the lead user method often appears unsystematically and its outcome left to chance. 2.1.2 The search for actors with lead user qualities The second interpretation of the lead user method counts on a far more active role of the company and is based upon developing new solutions interactively with internal and external actors (Herstatt and von Hippel 1992 Lettl, Hienerth, and Gemuenden 2008 L��thje and Herstatt 2004 von Hippel, Thomke, and Sonnack 1999). This idea is based upon the realization that there are people with lead user characteristics, who may not yet have become actively involved in a problem solving activity. If suitable methods are available for identifying and convincing these people to cooperate, then a given problem could be solved cooperatively and innovatively with internal and external developers. Accessing solution information and broadening the field of search for innovative alternatives is at the center of attention here. A typical indicator for this type of approach is lead user workshops. An ideal structure for this method follows four phases, which will described closer in the following passages. Still, another important point needs to be made. Lead users found through this method are often not users in the manufacturer���s domain, but come from analogous industries. They have the same basic problem, but often at a higher, extremer level. Or they have already dealt with it under conditions in the past, which needed a solution more urgently. Since they are not users (or even customers) from the manufacturer���s point of view, they are also called

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 13 "lead experts." A well-known example comes from the development of the antilock brake system (ABS) in the car industry (repeated here in a simplified version). In dangerous situations, the tendency of wheels to block through strong braking pressure is counteracted by regulating brake pressure in short intervals. The idea originated in the field of aviation. Already in 1920, the French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin used a hydraulic anti-blocking system. Mechanical systems prevented the wheels from blocking, so that when the airplane landed, it remained safely in the track. In 1936, Bosch received a patent for a device, which prevented wheels from blocking on an automobile. The machines existed of about 1,000 analogous parts and were very unwieldy and slow. Digital technology reduced the amount of parts to about 140 pieces, which allowed ABS to go into mass production. It was first presented in 1969 at the International Motor Show by the American company ITT Automotive. In this example, the lead users were members of the aircraft industry, where the same problem (the prevention of wheels blocking and therefore getting off track) was more common, but at a higher extreme than in the vehicle industry. Therefore, the search for a suitable solution started in the field of aviation first, was found and then used. Thus, the search for a solution to the problem of wheels blocking in the car industry profited from a search for solutions in another area. In the following, we outline a way for companies to find lead users or lead experts in order to receive access to innovative solution information. The first two steps are rather general in nature and are typical activities in many innovation management projects. The pivotal phase lies in the identification of lead users or lead experts. The last phase, developing a common concept together with identified lead users or lead experts in a workshop, builds on the idea of an interactive value creation process, in which an innovative solution is developed collaboratively between manufacturer and customers. 2.1.3 Stages of a lead user project Phase 1: Initializing the Project: In the first phase, the company assembles an internal project team, which is responsible for the method���s implementation. As required for many tasks in innovation management, this team should consist of experienced employees from the areas of research and development, production, and marketing. When choosing team members, time restrictions should be kept in mind. Case studies report that each team member commits an average of about 20 hours per week to a project lasting from four to six months (Herstatt and von Hippel 1992 von Hippel, Thomke, and Sonnack 1999). Through interviews with decision makers, team members first evaluate, which product range is especially suited for the lead user method: Is there a high amount of pressure to innovate within a specific product area? Is the product���s management persuaded by the method and ready to invest time and financial expenses? Are innovative customers already known to the product management or does good access to the customer base exist? Phase 2: Trend Analysis: The lead user process starts with a trend analysis. A trend defines a basic, measurable social, economic, or technological development. Different options are available to identify these types of trends. Commonly, first definitions of trends come from studying sector and technology reports, publications by external research institutions as well as applying methods of interpolation and historical analogy. In addition, internal experts from research and development or sales can deliver first clues on new

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 14 trends. Furthermore, qualitative techniques like the Delphi Method or scenario analysis assist in forecasting trends (de Lurgio 1998 Hanke and Reisch 2004). There is always a divergence between the forecast and the time when the actual event occurs. To minimize at least the amount of mistakes in forecasting, trend research requires special care, attention and methodological knowledge. While the activities in phase one and two are common activities in many innovation projects, they are very important in relation to the lead user method and therefore, should be carried out by the same team which is also responsible for the following steps ��� so that the contributions and ideas of lead users can be interpreted within one context determined by the company. Phase 3: Identification of Lead Users and Lead Experts: Now it is a matter of identifying innovative users and experts who are leaders in the defined trends. The main challenge is to find the characteristics of innovative users represented in the population of all potential users in order to separate lead users from less innovative users. Especially with radical innovations and market innovations, defining the basic population is often difficult. Further, empirical studies have shown that innovative users exist not only in the real target market of the innovation, but also in analogous markets (P��tz and Franke 2005 von Hippel, Thomke, and Sonnack 1999). An analogous market resembles the target market with regards to customer needs and/or the technology used, but often belongs to another industry. Especially lead users coming from these markets can contribute to an innovation in an interactive value creation process decisively, because they permit a combination of knowledge from various domains and therefore, often broaden the solution space (an example would be using military experts as lead users in the evaluation of satellite pictures for defining an innovative solution for the automatic interpretation of X-ray pictures). However, the identification of analogous markets is often not easy, and no textbook methods exist in this area. To identify innovative users, a range of methodological possibilities are available to companies. "Screening" and "pyramiding" are the two search techniques that are most often discussed (von Hippel, Franke, and Pr��gl 2005). Screening for lead users resembles the procedure of a dragnet investigation. A defined group of people are checked against a list of characteristics and requirements. Those who match with the listed criteria are selected as lead users. The pyramiding approach describes a networking between actors. The approach follows the idea that experts regarding a certain topic are able to nominate another person with even more expertise than themselves (von Hippel 2005). During the search, the lead user team starts with asking people "whom would you ask to solve this problem". The identified target is asked the same question. Experience shows that after some iteration, a few experts are named frequently. Pyramiding draws back on the fact that most radical innovations come from lead users in advanced analogous fields. Those experts face a problem similar to the one of the target market but to a higher extreme and with different constraints. Such conditions force the lead users to come up with new solutions (von Hippel 2005). In general, experts in a certain field dealing with leading-edge problems need to pursue a search across boundaries to find relevant solution information. Thus they tend to know specialists with even more knowledge in advanced fields. This process of networking from one innovator to a more advanced one has been identified in studies as an efficient and effective way to identify lead users (von Hippel, Thomke, and Sonnack 1999).

The Market for Open Innovation: The RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey 15 Both procedures require first that the characteristics of innovative users are transferred to a set of questions pertaining to the innovation project. The way interviewees answer the questions gives insight on whether a person is likely to be selected for participation in a lead user workshop. Whereas screening describes a parallel search method, pyramiding is a sequential search. Which search method is most suitable in identifying innovative customers cannot be exactly determined. However, the following assumptions may be considered. �� Pyramiding is particularly suitable when the future population of potential innovative customers is hard to separate (technical and radical innovations) within the area to explore, a strong social network among the interviewees exists, and the questionnaire for identifying innovative customers consists of a few simple questions to be answered. �� Screening is suitable when the population of potential customers can be well separated (incremental and market innovations) or only a very weak social network among the interviewees is assumed, and the questionnaire for identification is extensive and complicated (see Lang 2005 for a current example taken from industry). At this point, it should be clear that there is no "right way" of identifying innovative users. Each method has its advantages as well as its disadvantages and in some cases, it might be sensible to combine different methods. For example, after successfully applying pyramiding conducting a screening as a follow-up for more information about the suitability of selected users. In the end, this phase results in a pool of innovative people from which to choose from. In many cases, however, lead users become active out of their own accord without a manufacturer animating or identifying them. Therefore, manufacturers can select users, who have already shown innovative behavior. Many lead user innovations are discovered by manufacturers by chance, (and are often at first classified as unimportant), or are brought by the lead user to a manufacturer. In this way, the company also receives access to lead user information without a formal process. Users, who already have brought innovations to the market independently in the past, often represent a bundle of potential for future company- defined innovation projects. Building a relationship with a successfully identified lead user becomes thus an important task. Phase 4: Concept Design in Lead User Workshops: In this phase, the identified innovative users and experts are invited by the manufacturer to attend an innovation workshop, in which ideas and concepts are further developed for the defined project. All preliminary steps served basically as a means to carry out the workshop successfully. The quality of the workshop���s results determines the success of the lead user project. Even if there is no exact, fixed way of successfully executing a lead user workshop, there are some elements in particular that we want to talk about in the following. A workshop is made up of approximately 10 to 15 users, the company���s internal ���lead user team,��� and an experienced moderator, who monitors the workshop. Workshops last between a half-day and two days (depending upon the complexity of the problem). The role of the (usually external) moderator is to mediate the contributions made by the participants. The moderator also performs important methodological support in stimulating and structuring participant contributions. Besides professional exchange, workshops are also marked by