NORDIC INNOVATION REPORT 2012:22 // JANUARY 2013 Innovation Communities: Trust, Mutual Learning and Action Innovation Communities: Trust, Mutual Learning and Action Authors: Michael J. Lippitz Robert C. Wolcott Jørn Bang Andersen With: Bradley Hartfield Marmon Pine Talya Press Jennifer Yee January 2013 Nordic Innovation Publication 2012:22 Innovation Communities: Trust, Mutual Learning and Action Nordic Innovation Publication 2012:22 © Nordic Innovation, Oslo 2012 ISBN 978-82-8277-049-1 (URL: www.nordicinnovation.org/publications) Author(s): Michael J. Lippitz Robert C. Wolcott Jørn Bang Andersen With: Bradley Hartfield, Marmon Pine, Talya Press, Jennifer Yee Publisher Nordic Innovation, Stensberggata 25, NO-0170 Oslo, Norway Phone: (+47) 22 61 44 00. Fax: (+47) 22 55 65 56. E-mail: [email protected] www.nordicinnovation.org Cover photo: iStockphoto.com Copyright Nordic Innovation 2012. All rights reserved. This publication includes material protected under copyright law, the copyright for which is held by Nordic Innovation or a third party. Material contained here may not be used for commercial purposes. The contents are the opinion of the writers concerned and do not represent the official Nordic Innovation position. Nordic Innovation bears no responsibility for any possible damage arising from the use of this material. The original source must be mentioned when quoting from this publication. Project Participants Kellogg School of Management, Center for Research in Technology and Innovation Michael J. Lippitz, Ph.D. (Project leader) Senior Research Fellow Kellogg Innovation Network Robert C. Wolcott, Ph.D. Founder and Executive Director Nordic Innovation Jørn Bang Andersen Senior Innovation Advisor With: Bradley Hartfield Marmon Pine Talya Press Jennifer Yee Contents Project Participants ...........................................................5 Research Motivation and Scope ..................................................8 Project Team ................................................................ 11 Summary ....................................................................13 Background ..................................................................15 What Do We Mean By Innovation and Innovation Management? . 15 Open Innovation . 17 Communities of Practice . 20 The Innovation Community (InnoComm) Phenomenon ............................21 The Emergence of InnoComms . 21 Definition of InnoComms . 23 Types of InnoComms . 26 Online Communities . 46 Observations and Open Questions about InnoComms ..............................57 InnoComms and Regional Development . 57 Regional Differences . 60 Conclusion ...................................................................63 Case Studies .................................................................64 Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) . 66 Nordic Innovation . 68 Kea New Zealand . 76 The Colorado Innovation Network (COIN) . 80 Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) . 84 Manufacturing Innovation Network (MIN) . 91 Berkeley Innovation Forum . 94 Cardiff University Innovation Network . .. 97 The Innovation Network (Cornell) . 101 Reference Center for Innovation, Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC) . 106 Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) . 111 Knowledge Center for Innovation (KCI), Technion . 116 i-Net Practitioners Alliance . 120 Intelligent Formulation . 123 Club de Paris des Directeurs de l’Innovation (CP) . 126 Contents Society for Organizational Learning (SOL) France . 131 UK Innovation Forum (UKIF) . 137 Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) . 140 Aalto Entrepreneurship Society (Aaltoes) . 145 Built In Chicago (BIC) . 150 Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) . 154 Honey Bee Network . 158 MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) . 163 Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) . 168 Mistra Centre for Urban Futures . 174 Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) . 180 ROI Community . 189 Table of Abstract. 194 8 Innovation COMMUNITIES: TRUST, MUTUAL LEARNING AND Action Research Motivation and Scope Nordic Innovation, supporter of this research1, is a joint effort of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the autonomous regions of Greenland, Åland and the Faroe Islands under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordic Innovation aims to create cross-border, cross-sector relationships among companies and other institutions in its member countries focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable growth. It also promotes the Nordic region as a leading innovation hub for international partners in other parts of the world. Jørn Bang Andersen, a Senior Advisor to Nordic Innovation, has been an active participant in the Kellogg Innovation Network2 (KIN), founded and directed by Robert C. Wolcott. Though this experience together, we conceived this research project aimed at identifying and characterizing groups around the world that, like KIN and Nordic Innovation, are engaged in mutual learning about innovation and entrepreneurship management. Initially, we were not certain what kinds of groups we would find. We were aware of a handful of groups with which we had been in contact in the course of creating and growing KIN and in the networks around Nordic Innovation. Much of the early work involved an iterative process of finding candidates through a combination of Internet searches and outreach to our professional networks, while at the same time defining and redefining what exactly we were trying to find. (As of this writing, a Google search for the phrase “innovation network” yields almost four million results.) As we discovered groups that seemed to exemplify what we consider to be special and different about KIN, we began to develop taxonomies and refine exactly what characteristics differentiate groups of interest. Over time, although the formal title on the research contract with Nordic Innovation is “Mapping Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Networks,” we came to use the term Innovation Communities (InnoComms) to emphasize groups that focus on relationships, 1 Contract 10109, Mapping Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Networks. 2 www.kinglobal.org RESEARCH Motivation AND SCOPE 9 common interests and experiences, and personal inspiration and support. We distinguish these from groups that focus on achieving specific business, macroeconomic or social results or on academic research. We will develop this distinction and others in depth in the body of the report. For now, what is important is that doing so has narrowed the scope of our research considerably. We considered that advantageous, as it allowed us to focus on the emerging phenomenon of InnoComms and to eliminate organizations and networks that, while very important and valuable, have been studied extensively elsewhere. Examples of organizations that were mostly outside the scope of our research included technology transfer offices, IP brokers, start-up incubators, technology parks, industry lobbying groups, corporate supplier or user networks, funding agencies, investor groups, standards bodies and research consortia. That said, we do include certain of these kinds of groups, to the extent that they facilitate peer-to-peer learning that is directed at building general innovation-enabling skills, rather than at solving specific problems. We have been publishing excerpts from our case studies online3 and maintain a project website4 where people can send us information about their groups. In the end, we found and collected basic information on more than one hundred InnoComms. From that set, we conducted interviews and wrote case studies on twenty-seven of them, in ten countries. Our database includes examples from every continent, though limitations in our connections and languages made it difficult to find and identify InnoComms in certain parts of the world. We also might not have recognized certain forms of organizations as InnoComms, and their leaders might likewise not have recognized themselves as exemplars of our framework. There are fundamental differences even within a given country or culture in how people perceive and articulate trust, community, relationships, change and innovation. Although InnoComms generally do not focus on building actual businesses or fostering collaboration among participants on specific innovation and entrepreneurship challenges, we believe that they can support company and industry competitiveness, expansion into international markets and regional economic development. Of particular interest for Nordic Innovation—a group of small, highly-educated countries seeking ways to collaborate with others in order to remain competitive—is the relationship between InnoComms, where people come to learn from and support each other, and the phenomenon of “open innovation,” in which companies increase their reliance on external collaboration globally. We address these topics in various places in this report. We expect our research will be useful to a wide range of innovation and entrepreneurship 3 www.innovationexcellence.com 4 www.inetnets.org 10 Innovation COMMUNITIES: TRUST, MUTUAL LEARNING AND Action leaders. Our work can contribute to a better-informed discussion of the range of structures, programs and methods that InnoComms have so far developed. It also can help us begin to see the significance and evolution of InnoComms and their role for economic development, competitiveness and innovation partnerships in a global economy. The primary target groups are as follows: • Policymakers seeking to support innovation, entrepreneurship and