From Open Source to Open Research: Horizon 2020

Last week I took part in a meeting at the European Parliament entitled “Horizon 2020: Investing in the common good”. Here's the background:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Open Data Startups and Open Businesses

Last week I was invited to talk at the South Tyrol Free Software Conference which took place in northern Italy, in the city of Bolzano (disclosure: a paid gig.) As its title indicates, this was a more local, specialised conference than some of its more famous international siblings, but I was impressed just how much activity was going on. It was also interesting to see that open data was already a hot topic here - it's not just national holdings that are being opened up.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open for Business in Every Way

For some reason, I seem to be giving talks all over the place this month. I've already written about the one that I presented at the European Parliament at the end of May, and I'll be blogging about my presentation at the Open Knowledge Conference in Berlin this week in due course (once I've finished writing it....).

But in this blog post I want to expand on some of the ideas I explored at a meeting entitled “The Future is Free”, held in Kortrijk, Belgium, last week. The session was recorded, so there should be videos of the talks at some point: when they're available, I'll add the link.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Open Source and Open Innovation

Last week I wrote about a talk I gave with the title “Innovation inducement prizes as a possible mechanism to unlock the benefits of open innovation models”. I explored the idea of inducement prizes then, and now I'd like to look at open innovation.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Glyn Moody: The great prize: open innovation

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Profits Without Intellectual Monopolies

Great interview with Mr Open Innovation, Eric von Hippel, who has these wise words of advice:

It is true that the most rapidly developing designs are those where many can participate and where the intellectual property is open. Think about open source software as an example of this. What firms have to remember is that they have many ways to profit from good new products, independent of IP. They’ve got brands; they’ve got distribution; they’ve got lead time in the market. They have a lot of valuable proprietary assets that are not dependent on IP.

If you’re going to give out your design capability to others, users specifically, then what you have to do is build your business model on the non-design components of your mix of competitive advantages. For instance, recall the case of custom semiconductor firms I mentioned earlier. Those companies gave away their job of designing the circuit to the user, but they still had the job of manufacturing those user-designed semiconductors, they still had the brand, they still had the distribution. And that’s how they make their money.

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Unlocking the Value of Open Innovation

It's a truism that there are more clever people out there than in here, wherever "here" may be. So it makes sense to try to tap into that cleverness - which is precisely what open source and cognate movements attempt to do. Now it looks like business is slowly getting the hang of this:

Barrick’s Unlock the Value program is a unique opportunity for scientific problem solvers. We invite proposals for an economically viable way to recover silver from silica-encapsulated ore. For proposals judged to have merit, Barrick will:

* Fund your research
* Pay you a consulting fee
* Provide resources and expertise
* Help you develop and test your idea

For a method or technology that is successfully implemented, Barrick will pay a performance bonus of $10,000,000.

(Via Peter Murray-Rust.)

Open Innovation...

...is all very well, but will only work properly if attitudes to current intellectual monopolies change. Simply licensing stuff to and from others will prove too sclerotic without a radical simplification in the area of patents.

What is needed is a commons-based approach, where most ideas are available for all to use: then the value is added in the way ideas are combined, not just in coming up with them in the first place.

A Different Perspective

As part of my random reading around the Web, I came across this site. For once, what caught my attention was not the espousal of "Open Innovation" at the bottom of the page, but the image at the top.

It's only small part of a well-known scene; I wonder why they chose it. Is there a hidden message there, perhaps - how, despite all this terribly deep and clever stuff we deep and clever chaps rattle on about, the dogs go on with their doggy life?

Their Words, Not Mine

Since this whole blog is predicated on the commonality that exists between open source, open genomics, open access, open content, and open blah-blah-blah, my own posts that argue for the power of openness will hardly come as a surprise.

So it is always handy when I can point to somebody else who is saying exactly the same thing - particularly because in this case that "somebody else" is about as far as you can get from your stereotypical sandal-wearing, Guardian-reading, weedy liberal.

It comes from the US Committee of Economic Development - "the best of business thinking", no less - which "has addressed national priorities that promote sustained economic growth and development to benefit all Americans," apparently, so nothing wishy-washy there, then.

And yet its latest report is entitled Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of Openness. Its peroration is positively dithyrambic:

Openness is not an overriding moral value that must prevail in every circumstance. But, its extraordinary capability to harness the collective intelligence of our world requires us to consider its implications carefully, nurture it where possible, and avoid efforts to foreclose it without compelling reason. We should not miss the opportunity to harvest the benefits openness might bring.

Their words, not mine.