open2012 Speaker Highlight: Reuben Oder

Here at Maven, we are still digesting the wealth of information that came from the open2012 conference. Of all the great speakers from the event, there are a couple who really stand out in my mind. One of those was Maven Advisory Board member, Reuben Oder; he gave a presentation that jumped out to me as something that could be ground-breaking regarding Open Innovation.

Reuben took a fictitious case study on diapers (of all things!) and applied this example to a full spectrum of Open Innovation tools that are currently available on the market. I don’t want to steal Rueben’s thunder, but I would like to highlight some of the points, as his presentation really brought the concept of Open Innovation together for me.

Reuben laid out a very well thought out process for how a company can tackle a major strategic initiative using Open Innovation tools and provided the estimated price for each step. Additionally, he included the price that it would take to do the same tasks if a company tried to do all these steps on its own. He ended with a strong call to arms about trying to find a way for all the different OI providers to figure out a way to work together.

In my eyes, what Reuben did was create the first concrete process for Open Innovation. This represents an important step for OI as a discipline. Too often, OI is looked at as something that only R&D departments use for exotic projects. We, as OI, are no longer a fad but a part of the everyday business process that all companies need to employ if they want to remain relevant. Innovation and Open Innovation are business processes like any other that can be tracked and repeated. With a whole lot of help from Reuben and other thought leaders, we are making the necessary steps to making this mission a reality. Thank you Reuben for a great presentation and helping pave the way for the next step in this journey for all of us involved.