Every 4 months or so, innovation-3 conducts a practitioner’s workshop with experts and managers from leading firms on the issues that really matter within the context of Open / Collaborative Innovation.

The topics that these firms are discussing can be seen as an early warning sign of things to come. In the past, issues such as “Innovation networks”, “Merging of Open Innovation / Enterprise 2.0” and “Embedding Open / 2.0 in the organization” clearly showed the route that Open Innovation is taking in Central Europe.

At the end of June, the next of these workshops is coming up. Participating firms include BASF, Bayer, Beiersdorf, Continental, Evonik Industries, GKN, Henkel, Heraeus, Lufthansa, Postbank, RWE, SCHOTT, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom.

The headline of the workshop is “Open Innovation and core competences”. We will be discussing on three key issues:

• How should “core competencies” be defined in the age of knowledge explosion, globalization of knowledge, R&D shift to Asia, Emerginnovation, etc.?
• How can / should historically defined core competncies be strengthened via Open Innovation? What is the role of and how should we organize smart-risk-strategies, organizational alignment, global / regional Open Innovation strategies, legal frameworks, “Partner of choice” Marketing campaigns, etc. etc.?
• How can historically as “non core” defined competencies be re-evaluated in the light of Open Innovation? What are the best approaches with respect to aligning the organization, searching for relevant innovation partners, innovation networks, knowledge management 2.0 etc. etc.?