The Million Dollar Idea Inside You

Interesting article over at Harvard Business Online about open source innovation.

While what BIG is doing may seem exciting at first, it's not until the comments that you see how they've gotten it wrong. To quote Phil Meyers' (from TunedIn Blog) comment:

Interesting stuff. I'll have to pick up Michael's book. Our research found that the best innovations didn't come from inventors looking for big ideas but practical folks looking to solve a problem that they found a bunch of people had.

That's what so many of these crowdsourcing/open innovation/open invention plays seem to be missing - Engaging the crowd is only innovation 1.5. Having the balls to let the crowd lead your innovation process is Innovation 2.0 (of course OneEyeDeer will be Innovation 3.0 ;)

Why do so many people find it so difficult to get over this company-centric view of the world?

Sydney Open Coffee Club

I've been reading a bit about Saul Klein's brainchild - Open Coffee Club.

Essentially its about making an informal (no name badges...ever!), regular (i.e. same place, same time) meeting spot where people know that if they want to roll up to meet other entrepreneurs, developers, investors, tech journalists or whatever, they can.

Because I like the idea so much, I'm trying to organise (what I think is) the first Sydney Open Coffee Club (OCC)

Here's my post over at the Open Coffee Club site.

If you're interested in coming to the Sydney OCC please answer the 2 questions I've put there and tell your friends/family whatever so that we can get this thing started.

I really believe we have the necessary ingredients to put Sydney on the tech map, to produce an excellent investment environment for those willing to invest, to create amazing projects for develops to work on and maybe to stop our budding entrepreneurs from having to go overseas for recognition and reward.

Remember - spread the word!