The aim of this post is to create a collection point for open innovation web sites that offer innovation components up for trade. An objective is to provide innovators seeking to locate innovation components with a place from which to embark on their search.

You might care to contribute by sharing your views on the usefulness of some of these innovation component collections or by raising our awareness to collections we are yet to identify. Please make your contributions by leaving a reply below.

Here is our resource list:

BirchBob helps customers who are selling and buying technologies. BirchBob identifies technology seekers and thereby meets offers and demands. By the same token, BirchBob’s ability for marketing innovation is directly related to contacts made in the course of its Procurement business.

yet2.com is focused on bringing buyers and sellers of technologies together so that all parties maximize the return on their investments. Whether you are working with a team of our licensing experts or using our virtual technology marketplace, yet2.com offers companies and individuals the tools and expertise to acquire, sell, license, and leverage some of the world’s most valuable intellectual assets.

YourEncore is a network of retired and veteran scientists and engineers providing our clients with proven experience to help accelerate their pace of innovation. We are uniquely positioned to help our clients recover lost knowledge and to enable them to make remarkable connections to solve challenging problems using expertise from a variety of industries.

NineSigma enables clients to source innovative ideas, technologies, products and services from outside their organizations quickly and inexpensively by connecting them to the best innovators and solution providers from around the world. Our unique “Discover-Connect-Solve” approach is based upon the principles of Open Innovation. Our clients access the largest and most comprehensive open network of scientific researchers in the world to solve their business needs.

UTEK is a technology transfer company focused on open innovation. UTEK enables its clients to find and acquire technologies from universities and research laboratories worldwide. UTEK has developed a proprietary database of intellectual properties available for immediate license, which combined with its network of over 2,000 universities and research laboratories provides its clients with access to external innovation.

The Innocentive Open Innovation Marketplace, allows Seekers- commercial, academic, and nonprofit organizations - to draw on a global network of Solvers - more than 125,000 engineers, scientists, inventors, and business people - to meet challenging needs and move their organizations forward in various areas.

Strategic Allies, have experience in the global search for innovative technologies, products, strategic alliances and other business growth generating opportunities.

AUTM, the Association of University Technology Managers includes a search engine for university, non profit and for profit organisations on its website.

CORDIS technology marketplace is a free on line service of the European Union where you can find research and technological development results and search for innovative business opportunities on emerging technologies.

The InnovationXchange (IXC) is a commercially neutral, not-for-profit, global knowledge network which delivers the ground breaking IXC Intermediary Service to business and research - a new way to find the connections you need.

US Agriculture Research Service - ARS continually looks for opportunities to partner with businesses, other federal agencies, state and local governments, and universities. These partnerships are designed to augment research programs, expedite research results to the private sector, exchange information and knowledge, stimulate new business.

Techno-L - is a free and open listserv (with about 1,300 members) geared towards the university technology transfer community.

Scienteur is a web based method of facilitating the business of science and technology by connecting scientists with projects.

BiOS - is an online response to inequities in food security, nutrition, health and natural resource management. BiOS’s goal is to democratise problem solving to enable diverse solutions to problems through decentralised innovation.

BioForge - is intended to serve as a portal to a dynamic protected commons of enabling technologies in the life-sciences, available to anyone for improvement and to use in new innovations, both commercial and non-commercial.

FLC Technology Locator serves as a point of entry to federal laboratory expertise and technology. In meeting this need, the network also handles requests from other organizations working with the private sector.

Federal Partners in Technology Transfer (FPTT) is an established network of federal public servants committed to working together to enhance their professional capacity and to ensure the expeditious transfer of the value created in federal laboratories. The strength of FPTT is measured by the relationships it builds, the knowledge it helps develop and share, and the technology transfer it enables.

DoD TechMatch is a web-based portal designed to provide industry and academia a Deparment of Defense-sponsored solution to find Research & Development Opportunities, Licensable Patents, and information on nearly 120 DoD Labs located across the U.S. Registered users receive a daily e-mail taking them to their matching R&D opportunities from FedBizOpps, Grants.gov, SBIR/STTR solicitations; Calendar events; and Licensable Patents relevant to your business.

Asian and Pacific Centre For Transfer of Technology (APCTT) is a regional institution of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) servicing the Asia-Pacific region.

University-technology showcases the latest technology licensing opportunities available from all Scottish Universities in one convenient location.

SparkIP is a newly launched (2007) search engine for licensable intellectual property. The site also uses algorithms to cluster IP into realted groupings.

Techquisition facilitates the technology transfer process in an efficient, cost-free, and effective manner.

Texchange is a free and efficient method for professionals to locate new technologies via database search.

iBridge Network provides the research community an additional channel through which to disseminate discoveries, research methods, and findings. The iBridge Network encourages more open and efficient access to research by interested parties.

Flintbox is an online platform for marketing and licensing the outcomes of research. It allows organizations to describe and publish research projects online and associate products of this research for online license, purchase and download.

Pharma-Transfer (subscription required) is a source of research and business development opportunities for the international pharmaceutical market. Opportunities come directly from biopharma companies, government agencies, research institutes and academia encompassing areas of pipeline development, from early-stage discovery, through pre-clinical and clinical trials, to registered products that are all available for co-development or licensing.

Uventures serves to connect those seeking cutting-edge physical science technologies with the leading universities and research institutions that are developing these innovations.

Techex (subscription required) offers an online Technology Exchange for the biomedical sector where members can identify and introduce technology and intellectual property that is available for partnering.

Science|Business Network (subscription required) is an independent news service that brings together buyers and sellers of emerging technologies - through its online news coverage, its subscriber-posting service, and its networking events.

KnowledgeExpress eMarket offers a free service to post and search for products and technologies available for partnering.

The Innovation Relay Centre Network offers a pan-European database of technologies available for partnering, covering biopharma, energy, environmental, IT, telecoms, and industrial technologies.

Adis Business Development & Licensing Insight (subscription required) profiles the most significant early-stage innovations and summarizes key features in a consistent, easy-to-review format.

Pharmalicensing is the leading online partnering exchange for biohpharm products and technologies. The site is free to access, with companies posting partnering opportunities paying a fee to post.

Please make your contributions by leaving a reply below.

The term innovation roadmap is one that I have started using … I’m convinced that it must have been used before…

The reason for adopting the term is to distinguish between roadmaps that hold different ‘qualities’ - and to my mind different levels of usefulness - in assisting the reader to achieve ‘tranformational’ outcomes from innovation.

Some roadmaps attempt to project into the future incremental advancements that most people already know are going to happen. The result is a timeline with a set of technology stretch objectives. To draw some (unkind) parallels, this is a technology metaphor for minimalist approaches to ’strategic planning’ that extrapolate an organisation’s expected financial performance based on past growth.

Don’t get me wrong, such documents are valuable. They promote a common understanding and assist an organisation or industry to achieve unity of purpose by getting everyone to sing off the same hymn sheet. However, the topics that they cover are unlikely to act as a catalyst to bring about ’significant innovation.’

Other roadmaps include components designed specifically to challenge and cross link with the innovative capabilities of individuals, teams or networks of talent to help promote the crystallisation of high quality innovation insights. I have written about innovation quality here.

Innovation Roadmaps must contain, by distinction, components capable of making a significant contribution to the ability to achieve ‘tranformational’ outcomes from innovation. Such as:

• identification of existing or emergent needs that potential customers rate as important and unsatisfied
• characterisation of major shifts that are likely to influence the industry or market and likely impacts on customer demand
• description of new capabilities that will impact now and in the future (eg technologies, processes, forms of organisation, business models)
• the establishment of future performance benchmarks that are not conceivable within the capabilities of presently known solutions

Unless we include components in our roadmapping efforts capable of connecting with strategic insights we will get improved technology management plans, not Innovation Roadmaps.

Do you think this is a fair characterisation of the difference between Technology Roadmaps and Innovation Roadmaps?

What are the key components that you would include in an Innovation Roadmap?

I find that the initial discussions about a new innovation project with people that I do not yet know are both incredibly important and exceptionally challenging. This is the stage where participants do not know one another and have not connected with each other’s perspectives or thought processes.

It is important because it determines whether we will shoot for the stars or a somewhat less compelling alternative. It is challenging because people connect with abstract concepts in very different ways. This requires me to read the audience and adapt in real time what I say - always a challenge!

One technique that I have used to help define objectives at the commencement of an assignment is to discuss the concept of ‘Innovation Quality’. I use the term Innovation Quality to mean the parameters that an informed observer would use to judge whether an innovation project holds the attributes that maximise the probability of success. By discussing the concept of innovation quality, the group quickly identifies how it might be possible to select and move projects by design towards the most successful end of the spectrum.

The Innovation Quality framework has been developed primarily from venture capital though processes used for projects at the very earliest stages of development. More mature projects use a completely different set of factors.

The 6 Factors that I propose determine Innovation Quality are:

• Rarity
• Distinctiveness
• Importance
• Ability to Imitate
• Uncertainty
• Dynamism

Rarity is defined as a measure of how many other organisations can achieve the same result. To clarify, ‘the result’ may be thought of as achieving the same outcome or task using similar or alternative means. It is important that this be assessed from the point of view of the customer. The more rare the capability, the more potentially valuable it is

Distinctiveness is a measure of the degree of difference between the present solution and available alternatives. Again, it is important that this be viewed from the customer perspective. The concept of distinctiveness may also be important with respect to what others say they can deliver. The higher the degree of difference between the solution and alternatives in the customer’s mind the easier it is to have the customer appreciate the difference and use that as a basis for purchase

Importance is a relative measure of the potential market size and rate of market growth. Within this definition it is also important to include an understanding of the degree to which the project will connect to customer desired outcomes that are ranked by the customer as both important and unsatisfied

Ability to Imitate means the extent to which it is possible to copy, reverse engineer, or substitute the present solution with another. The easier a solution is to imitate, the more likely that others will rain on your parade

Uncertainty is a measure of the degree to which the technology, market, or customer for a project is not certain

Dynamism is a measure of the extent to which the proposed solution might be long lasting in the market place. A solution will be less valuable and less certain of success if it is suspected that rapid obsolescence is a possibility

I find that comparing notes over innovation quality type questions helps people (including me) to unlock frames of reference and prepare to deliver truely exceptional outcomes.

What’s your experience in setting clear objectives for innovation? Do you think these six factors might be useful in helping you to get others to focus on what matters in maximising the value of projects?

Innovation Roadmapping is a form of strategic planning for innovation. The Roadmapping process captures information and knowledge about innovation and presents it on a timeline. The information include topics such as: objectives, strategies, market requirements, product or service plans, technology plans, performance metrics and capability plans. The timeline is normally from the present day to 20 to 30 years into the future.

Innovation roadmapping is usually a four step process:

• developing an understanding of the major changes impacting an industry
• looking at the structure of the market and the relative positioning of participants
• creating a technology landscape by looking at how the most important value creating technologies are likely to be developed and used
• once this is achieved, it is possible to analyse how the changes identified in the first step may lead to shifts in the needs or requirements of the marketplace. This helps expose the innovation efforts most likely to lead to valuable results.

An Innovation Roadmap systematises how the impact of potential innovations might be assessed by presenting them in the context of the industry value system. An example of an industry value system for aquaculture is presented here.

An innovation roadmapping process focuses on evaluating marketplace needs as they shift in response to the forces of change. By making a deliberate effort to dissect and understand the ‘market’, ‘technology’ and ‘change’ components of an industry, we maximise the likelihood that investments will be directed towards innovations likely to have the greatest impact on productivity advancement.

Technology mining describes the process of distilling insights from large data sets to develop a clear picture of innovation activities. Technology Mining can be used to inform innovation roadmapping activities by analysing data from academic and industry journals, conference proceedings and patents.

Ordinarily, innovation roadmapping efforts invite a group of knowledgable people to attend one or more workshops. The Workshop draws on their input to help shape a set of decisions about innovation. The use of expert opinion is certainly laudable, particularly when compared to the alternative of uninformed arbitrary choices (guessing). However, with advancements in computing power, sophisticated software and data organisation we can now do much better than this. By using this rich base of information we can gain insights into what is happening world wide in innovation in a particular field and importantly in other fields of innovation that could also be usefully applied.

Technology Mining informs participants in the roadmapping effort where innovation efforts are positioned against what others are doing to identify novel approaches, locate potential collaborators and identify the best option for commercialising the most promising applications. Participants have the opportunity to consider a rich innovation landscape, backed by explicit information.

Use the term roadmap and people often think ’street directory’ - and indeed an innovation roadmap holds many of the characteristics of a street directory, but with some important distinctions!

A street directory is consulted to determine the best route to take. The driver compares the destination with the current location and looks at the major roads to be used for the journey. The driver knows the current location (Point A) and looks at the directory to locate the destination (Point B). Point B can be determined with some precision, usually by identifying the intersection of major roads nearby. The roads between A and B are well known and located on the map clearly. Major and minor roads are often distinguished from one another. The driver is able to identify all roads between A and B and make a judgement about the best and most efficient overall route (amongst many potential alternative routes) by applying suitable decision making criteria.

With an innovation roadmap, the current status of an innovation setting can be described. This is equivalent to Point A. The desired future state can be projected, and what this will look like can be rendered in some detail. This is equivalent to Point B. Then, it is possible to consider the issues that may influence the choice of route from Point A to Point B and make some decisions to define the route. All this makes the directory sound very similar to an innovation roadmap.

Unfortunately, big problems emerge when you attempt to draw parallels between innovation and the process of consulting a street directory. For a start, almost all drivers arrive at the desired destination, even if it is a little frustrated and later than planned. This is completely at odds to the typical innovation experience, where the probability of failure is nine in ten. Inconveniently, the roadmap to the future does not contain each of the roads to the destination. The major and minor pathways to future innovation are often unclear and intersections near the destination correspondingly indistinct. Routinely, there are no clear indicators of the best route and several must be tried until it becomes apparent which is likely to be the most fruitful. Innovation may also fail because the ‘common sense’ criteria you apply can be precisely wrong.

With the ever hastening pace of change, there may be some tracks in the sand into the future, but there is nothing like a set of roads to guide us to our destination. Looking 20 or 30 years forward can seem like standing at an abrupt discontinuation of a major freeway, peering off the edge of the tarmac towards the horizon, unsure about which gap in the bushes represents a viable path. Clearly, at this point, our roadmap analogy has struck a few corrugations (or even potholes). In fact, it is worse than this. How then can we make innovation decisions when operating in such a ‘fact lite’ environment? Indeed, do innovation roadmaps have any utility at all?

First, don’t give up hope. We are not lost explorers in the outback or jungle. We will probably never have the level of certainty implied by a street directory (or a GPS for that matter) but we do have some tools (an old compass or theodolite perhaps?) to help us make our way. We also have some broad learnings about what does and does not work in innovation and the beginnings of an understanding about why this might be the case. Succeeding in innovation requires a new set of rules and special thought processes.

In an innovation roadmap

• we know some things about a start point but none of us possess perfect information about the economy, market or innovation activities
• we are able to describe the desired future state but usually only with fuzzy terminology
• we might be able to pick out some signposts that indicate directions towards creating the future, but the ones that should be taken note of and the probability we should assign to the prospect for success is highly uncertain
• if we ask potential customers for directions they may send us in completely the wrong direction
• the one certainty is that we are facing ever increasing and ever more transformational change in society, the environment and the economy

What we understand about innovation roadmapping is:

• developing an effective roadmap is not about extrapolating what is happening now into the future
• it is more about working backwards from standing in the future making sure that full account is taken of major changes that are happening or predicted
• the changes are important since they are most responsible for shifting customer perceptions about products and the importance and satisfaction with their attributes and benefits
• technological innovation and new capabilities will be one of the major changes that should be considered
• the use of expert opinion adds rigour to interpreting weak signals, particularly when compared to the alternative of uninformed arbitrary choices (guessing)
• advancements in computing power, sophisticated software and data organisation allow us to create information landscapes from large data sets that provide world wide insights into innovation

Innovation Roadmaps have become popular tools because they do make a very worthwhile contribution to success in innovation. We do however need to read them and use thought processes that are more appropriate to innovation than the processes of using a street directory.

Posts in this series will unfold the structure, function and processes of innovation roadmapping and make plain how this important tool can be used to promote successful innovation, create a blueprint for collaboration in innovation and help direct open innovation efforts towards effective outcomes.

The practice of Open Innovation is making a significant impact on the ability to develop new products and services and create competitive advantages.

Naturally enough, open innovation is usually described by comparison with its opposite - closed innovation.

Closed innovation describes the practice of keeping innovation efforts confined within the four walls of an organisation. It is usually described by referring to an industrial company that introduces only those new products developed by employees within its own R&D department.

By contrast, open innovation is about introducing ‘virtual’ or ‘outsourced’ aspects to how innovation is managed. Open innovation practices have been promoted by economic trends such as the increased cost of R&D, escalating technological complexity, the increased tendancy for valuable inventive steps to occur at the interface between fields of knowledge (eg bio-informatics, materials-electronics etc etc) and enhanced communication via telecommunications, travel and internet.

Open innovation refers to the practice of drawing together the components of a new product or service from a number of sources, including sources external to the innovating organisation. One of the most memorable statements used when describing open innovation is “not all the smart guys work for us”. That is, it is possible to take advantage of the opportunity to access ’smart guys’ (not employed by you) to help build your business.

There are many and varied means to access the other smart guys. Alternative transaction types you might consider include: consultancy contract R&D technology licensing alliance joint venture acquisition or merger with a business The result of the transaction is that you have defined rights to make use of some knowledge or intellectual property or capability that you did not have before.

We use the term innovation to mean: the process whereby new ideas are transformed, through economic activity, into a sustainable value-creating outcome.

If we adopt this definition, there are several activities which fit. Innovation can relate to either exploration, explanation or exploitation activities.

• Exploration is what is referred to as the ‘front end’ of the innovation process. During exploration, work is conducted to enhance the quality of opportunities and the amount of knowledge available to assist people to understand more about them
• Explanation is the process of conducting research and development to generate ‘proof of concept’ that a solution can in-fact be developed to realise the opportunity and to understand how the solution works
• Exploitation is the commercialisation of the identified opportunity using the solution.

Innovation is challenging because it is often misconceived as a sequential management process.

Innovation and technology commercialisation can require critical decisions to be taken in circumstances almost devoid of facts. To operate successfully in such ‘fact lite’ environments a specialist approach is necessary.

Refined through trial and error over the past forty or fifty years, it is only over the past five years that the key success factors attending the ‘black art’ of innovation and commercialisation have been defined sufficiently well to enable them to be clearly communicated and understood by non specialists.

To most people, the innovation process presents as a very confronting and unusual experience.

When inexperienced innovators engage with a challenging project their natural response is often to implement their first thoughts. This approach leads to running up blind alleyways, acting on unsound assumptions and an unhealthy reliance on guess work. Under such circumstances the majority of projects simply fail.

Innovation4 is in the business of innovation leadership.

We understand innovation and how to communicate what is required for success.

We supply professional services that assist clients achieve success in commercialising innovative projects. We convert unstructured thinking into disciplined processes that promote creativity and the definition of successful business strategies.

Innovation4 focuses its services at the very front end of innovation. We choose to operate in this space because this is where projects are most uncertain and where most value can be created.

Our objective is to use our innovation insights to design success into projects from their very outset. This approach has led to the definition of our Ventures by Design™ framework.

Developed by Innovation4, Ventures by Design™ is an innovation system that delivers breakthrough performance in productivity and probability for transforming interesting ideas or technologies into sustainable and valuable new businesses.

Based around two integrated ‘lenses’ that focus critical insights from customers and investors, the system iteratively identifies valuable trends, creates entrepreneurial ideas and builds ventures that can attract investment and succeed in the world’s most competitive markets.

Output from the system is an independent company which has received investment and is growing towards its next funding round, delivering exceptional outcomes for both its customers and investors.

Progressing projects at an early stage uses a combination of strategic planning and adaptive execution. That is, it is possible to plan effectively where sound facts exist. In the absence of such facts, the most effective approach is to deploy low cost, ‘fast learn’ trials in the target market.

The experience accumulated by Innovation4 enables it to bring clients an array of insights, frameworks for thinking, visualisations and tools that reduce complexity, provide management decision support and help define a clear path toward project value maximisation.

Innovation4 has developed its insights as a result of engaging with over 60 high technology commercialisation projects over the past five years. We have worked with projects from universities, research groups, public sector research institutions, start-up companies and large corporations.