“Organisations call out for more open innovation to stimulate sustainability” was one of the messages during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week. Well, we couldn’t agree more.
During the forum, 10 leading companies among which Nike, Creative Commons and Best Buy announced the launch of Green XChange, a new collaborative project that can change the rules of the game. It’s a platform allowing companies to share their knowledge (IP), co-create and accelerate the development of innovative solutions for sustainability issues.
As we also believe in accelerating the innovation process through co-creation and believe in the value of co-creation for sustainable innovation, Fronteer Strategy and Green Inc have combined strengths and developed Rooftop Garden. Read the rest of this entry »
Our initiative to set up a ‘leading platform for high-grade and sustainable denim/jeans’ made some ‘giant steps’ yesterday thanks to an Expert Cocreation workshop and a seminar at A’dam Fashion Week.
Fronteer Presents: An introduction to the theory and practice of co-creation in business
Co-creation is currently one of the hottest topics in innovation and management theory, but the benefits, risks, best practices and repercussions are less than clear to many managers.
Each session will include a presentation & discussion of a recent case by one of our clients and end with informal drinks, during which you will have the opportunity to share thoughts & experiences with colleagues from other companies & industries. Register now - a limited number of seats are available per session. Mail us at events@fronteerstrategy.com
When? March 24th & 31st or April 7th
What time? 12.30 - 18.00
Where: Amsterdam centre, The Netherlands
EUR 125,- Download the flyer here
Maemo - at the risk of stating the obvious -is Nokia’s Linux-based operating system, developed by a global community of open source programmers and enthusiasts. The Maemo community is independent from Nokia and is run by its own peer-elected council. All future high-end Nokia devices (Like the new N900 out soon) will run on Maemo, which means that users will be able to program, develop and share applications freely: a great perspective!
This weekend, the Maemo community organised its third annual conference at Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek. Parallel to the ‘regular’ conference program, Fronteer Strategy was asked to develop a co-creative development process on the topic of ‘Creativity on the Move’.
I have seldomly experienced such a rich event as the Copenhagen Co-creation summit a few weeks ago. The level of discussions and participants was fantastic. I needed weeks to digest all the information. I am back now. What was going on? The Danish Design Association had decided to take a bold step. Why not writing a Co-creation manifesto rather than beating around the bush all the time? Let’s nail it! But we didn’t. Of course not. When you have 30 people co-creating, the answer never comes immediately. It will take some time. Some more thinking. But: I was very happy with the definition my group came up with after the sessions:
- Co-creation unlocks collectivy creativity of people to create deeply relevant solutions -
It might sounds a bit dreamy, but so then the event was. We dreamt about a future world where co-creation would tap into the unlimited resource of collective global brainpower. New solutions would create far better worlds and would end the one-way consumption currently going on.
My conclusion after the event was: yes, co-creation is very difficult - and especially because of how organisations are structured right now - but it is a movement that cannot be stopped. There is no way back. We are all opening up and will refuse to close again.
When we would have to choose a ‘perfect’ client, it would be one that has the same ambition that we have: being out there on the frontier, doing stuff others haven’t done before. I’m pleased to announce that we have found one: Nokia, already keen on co-creation, is going to stretch its boundaries when it comes to opening up to the public.
We are currently involved in a co-creation project organised around the Maemo Summit. Maemo - for those of you who are as software-illiterate as I am - is an open source Read the rest of this entry »
We love it when a plan comes together. We also love it when everybody is happy. And we love it when - again - the 5 principles of co-creation prove to be true.
Two weeks ago, I’d say a new standard was set for our Rooftop sessions when we held an expert co-creation session for Douwe Egberts. All the factors were accounted for: a very enthusiastic team from Douwe Egberts (a big thanks to all of you), a beautiful location (a new and very inspiring space in the portfolio of the Playing Circle) and, most importantly, an excellent team of experts (a big thanks to all of you, too) including fashion experts, trend analysts, product designers and marketing experts.
Douwe Egberts lived up to their recently acquired position of being one of the most accessible brands in the Netherlands. In the open atmosphere, everybody was eager to share their ideas, expertise and vision on the challenge at hand. The morning resulted in some very useful concepts, some of which I truly hope will be put into practice by Douwe Egberts. As for continuing development: one of the experts was so inspired that he actually started to work out some of the ideas (I’m very curious for those results) and Douwe Egberts is also in contact with another expert participant. A true feeling of co-creation, because lets face it: 99% of the best people do work outside of your company!
If there is one company that leads the way in Open Innovation and co-creation it is P&G. It’s former CEO calls himself the Chief Innovation Officer, inspires its employees, sits in innovation reviews and even wrote a book about it. P&G tells people that many products have been ‘proudly developed elsewhere’ and sets its target to 50% for innovations coming from outside the P&G business units. Connect & Develop is their program and it has been running since 2002. I find this pretty OK.
Much has been written and said about P&G, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth is powerful. Watch the interview with Lafley here or read my exerpt below. Or do both. Read the rest of this entry »
When researcher Alex Osterwalder was looking for a model for making business models, he could not find it. Or he could not find one he liked. None of them he found he could use across mutiple industries. So he decided to makes his own model together with a few other people. Enter Patrick. When Patrick van der Peijl found out about Alex’s project, he joined in and suggested to set up a community to make the book and model even stronger. The Hub was born.
What was so inspiring? When coming up with the idea to co-create abook on business modeling, they invented a new businss model with it. It was done before, but not with people actually paying for contributing. 400 People paid an average of 50 euros for being part of it, being able to suggest content, get the book first and be mentioned in the book. I thought it was a great examples of our 5 guiding principles of co-creation and presented my toughts on the official launch of the beta version of the book a few weeks ago in Amsterdam. 60 People showed up for a very well organised and inspiring day. The drawing is our model summarised by Paul den Dulk. The book launches later this year.
Anyone else with a new co-creation business model that works?
We are a management consulting firm based in Amsterdam. We specialise in Innovation, Brand Development & Co-creation. We explore the boundaries of companies and organisations. Find us at www.fronteerstrategy.com
“Organisations call out for more open innovation to stimulate sustainability” was one of the messages during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week. Well, we couldn’t agree more.
Making Plans
Fronteer Presents: 
Standing on each-others’ shoulders
I have seldomly experienced such a rich event as the Copenhagen Co-creation summit a few weeks ago. The level of discussions and participants was fantastic. I needed weeks to digest all the information. I am back now. What was going on? The Danish Design Association had decided to take a bold step. Why not writing a Co-creation manifesto rather than beating around the bush all the time? Let’s nail it! But we didn’t. Of course not. When you have 30 people co-creating, the answer never comes immediately. It will take some time. Some more thinking. But: I was very happy with the definition my group came up with after the sessions:
When we would have to choose a ‘perfect’ client, it would be one that has the same ambition that we have: being out there on the frontier, doing stuff others haven’t done before. I’m pleased to announce that we have found one: Nokia, already keen on co-creation, is going to stretch its boundaries when it comes to opening up to the public.
We love it when a plan comes together. We also love it when everybody is happy. And we love it when - again - the 
If there is one company that leads the way in Open Innovation and co-creation it is P&G. It’s former CEO calls himself the Chief Innovation Officer, inspires its employees, sits in innovation reviews and even wrote a book about it. P&G tells people that many products have been ‘proudly developed elsewhere’ and sets its target to 50% for innovations coming from outside the P&G business units. Connect & Develop is their program and it has been running since 2002. I find this pretty OK.
Here comes an inspiring story.
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