Crowdsourcing Innovation vs. The Economics of Elitism
by Mark Prus
Which Is Better?
A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.
If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company.
Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while "home grown" innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas.
I love Apple (full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a big fan of their products). However, I am not sure that the "elitism model of innovation" is one that can be expanded to a lot of companies. I believe that Steve Jobs is a true visionary, and that people like him come along far too rarely for this to be a workable model of innovation. It does work for Apple... but how many other companies can implement it?
Your thoughts?
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Mark Prus is a marketing consultant who offers a name development service called NameFlashSM.
Which Is Better?A recent article in The New York Times discussed the innovation process at Apple. Clearly the process begins and ends with Steve Jobs. And clearly Mr. Jobs is a creative genius. He also has a lot of help with top notch design engineers. As a result, Apple is perceived as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.
If you have visionary leadership at your company, this might be a good way to go. But companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) also have strong leadership and they have taken a different route to innovation. P&G has been a leader in Open Innovation, and many of the new products they have launched in the past few years have come from outside the company.
Which approach is better? Some say that Crowdsourcing produces a lot of good ideas, while "home grown" innovation is capable of producing bigger breakthrough ideas.
I love Apple (full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a big fan of their products). However, I am not sure that the "elitism model of innovation" is one that can be expanded to a lot of companies. I believe that Steve Jobs is a true visionary, and that people like him come along far too rarely for this to be a workable model of innovation. It does work for Apple... but how many other companies can implement it?
Your thoughts?
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!
Mark Prus is a marketing consultant who offers a name development service called NameFlashSM.Labels: Apple, Creativity, Design, Innovation, Mark Prus, Open Innovation, Strategy
posted by Blogging Innovation at 12:30 AM
7 Comments:
Interesting article, though it may be best to use a bit of both. Anybody interested in the subject of crowdsourcing please check out http://what-is-crowdsorcing.com and share your views.
Hi, I think you are right that Apple ( Jobs) like innovation is very rare and needs a certain rigour and DNA to prove successful.
Not many companies can emulate it and in fact shoudlt try to emulate it either unless they can find leadership with an IQ , an EQ and an AQ ( adversary Quotient) comparable to some of the better names in the industry.
However I do see a specific country trying to emulate Steve Jobs's model - CHINA. Actually if you see it a bit differently - a lot of what happens in the future around products , services, goods and essential resources and more importantly innovation will be driven by ecosystems rather than individuals or countries. It is now left for some of our better thought leaders to participate or contribute and even lead such ecosystems. These ecosystems can be countries or companies or cities or a combination of companies. Get ready to welcome the new world order :-)
Ashish Thomas
Director - SingTel Group Innovations
Singapore
Excellent point. I think Apple is overused as a source of inspiration. Or, at least, often misused. Some of what Apple does only works because they're Apple (i.e., they have Steve Jobs). Ask yourself whether you're really Apple. If not, you probably cannot get away with a lot of what they do.
Steve Jobs is clearly a visionary but not necessarily an innovator. Having a clear vision on where you want to go is only part of innovation. The other part is inventing stuff that realizes the vision. I am sure there are countless Apple innovations that Steve Jobs had nothing to do with.
You need a vision to guide the innovation crowd or you will just get a hodgepodge of great ideas with no unifying theme.
Crowdsourcing is like fake boobs.
People with the real thing don't need it. People without think it'll be just as good.
I think a bit of both too...an open mind is the key, no matter how many geniuses you have in the room or at your fingers (personally, I like a lot of them!).
I'm wondering how much innovation can come only from inside the building. Each person that Steve Jobs interacts with alters his environment in some way, the same with this counterparts. Also, I have to believe that Apple does some amount of research on people that do not work there. I would almost say that all innovation has some sort of external quality to it. Great article btw!
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