A case of Open Innovation : NGEN ISG

NGEN ISG, a stream of knowledge on dynamics between intellectual property (IP) policies, information technology (IT) usage and innovation

The impact of web 2.0, the latest wave of information technology, on enterprise has been widely and deeply studied. The emblematic finding is Enterprise 2.0, which was coined by Pr. Andrew McAfee in 2006.

In 2009, The Archilogy Institute , an open creative knowledge community addressing governance within the enterprises and the ecosystems, inherited a journey towards a next generation information technologies governance stream of practices which would be based on relationships instead of processes.

Through this legacy, The Archilogy Institute acquired the vision that intellectual property (IP) policies were critical to the use of IT.

Subsequently, The Archilogy Institute conducted preliminary assessments that would suggest that

• IP is currently shut in an ivory tower (or a bunker, depending to the viewpoint), the same way as information technologies (IT) were 40 years ago;
• IP management practices are fragmented, with an large gap between industrial IP applications and literature/artistic IP applications (in all sectors but entertainment);
• IP management policies have been oriented towards owning creation and invention (copyright, patent);
• new IP management policies oriented towards sharing creation and invention were emerging. 

As a matter of fact, development of IP should create in the coming years a sea change at least as dramatic as web 2.0 technologies of which impact encompasses not only enterprises, but also entire ecosystems and even society as a whole.

Under this context, The Archilogy Institute initiated a knowledge stream called NGEN ISG.

NGEN ISG should

• foster the emergence of IP management policies that would be oriented towards sharing creation and innovation;
• monitor the impact of these emerging policies on innovation within enterprises and ecosystems.

Tru Dô-Khac's cell contribution to the knowledge stream NGEN ISG

Based in Paris, Tru Dô-Khac's cell has been

• reviewing selected studies such as "The information: the next big challenge for business", a study conducted in 2009 by CIGREF and Capgemini Consulting with IMD;
• supporting since its inception the Information Systems Dynamics ( ISD), an international research programme initiated by CIGREF, in particular by attending and feeding back to the workshops and international conferences organized by ISD in 2009 and 2010; briefing papers under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 France are available on request. 

At the second ISD conference, which took place at Paris on September 23. 2010, of which object was to explore how innovating information systems could transform the enterprise and where China was the guest country, the linkage between IP, IT and governance has indirectly emerged.

A hint for western companies from ISD 2010 conference : Creative Open Innovation The resurgence of China creates an unprecedented challenge to Western economies and especially France. With China benefiting from volumes larger by several orders of magnitude and from an innovation capacity expected to be heads on to U.S. in the next five years, what opportunities, threats, strategies for western businesses ? Unfortunately, for today's CEOs and managers, lessons learnt and management practices from the past 100 years would provide only limited foresight ; so ISD was wise to invite a college of promising students and tomorrow's managers to share their thinking and feeling with the audience. One of them expressed his admiration for the creators of Linux. Aligning this quotation with Pr. Guo Xunhua and Pr. Carl Dahlman's lectures on managerial behaviours within Chinese companies suggests that new forms of Open Innovation based on a balanced intellectual property (IP) (Opensource, Creative Commons,...) might be an answer for western companies. - a balanced IP which reflects a blended sharing and protecting attitude can bring together vast amounts of resources ; - these resources are efficient under a right governance regime, and it will take some time for organisations with a tradition of authoritarian management to learn how to institute a governance regime. This "new" form of Open Innovation could be called "Creative Open Innovation" [1].

Anchoring the creative and open knowledge cell into the ocean of knowledge

Debriefing papers available on request from Tru Dô-Khac 

May 7. 2009 ISD workshop in Paris : the paper compares two scenario exercises of future use respectively to patents (presented by Dr. Berthold Rutz, EPO) and information technologies (presented by Pr. Ian Miles, a FISTERA member) in order to inspire definition of scenarios on future use of information systems.

May 26. 2009 ISD workshop in Paris : the paper reports

• a breakdown structure of the immaterial capital (presented by Pr Bounfour, Chaire Européenne de Management de l’Immatériel et PESOR, Université Paris-Sud 11) to position the organisational capital and a definition of organisational capital (provided by Alexandre Guillard, CNP Assurances, direction de l’Innovation et de l’Organisation, Vice President Afope) to be possibly included into a glossary;
• Web 2.0 technologies (addressed by Thierry Nabeth, CALT, INSEAD) which might question the essence of organisation as it is in most enterprises;
• The “Knowledge Added Value” (created by Pr Tom Housel, Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey ) as a theory to underpin possible measurement of the organisational capital;
• The “value agreement” (“contrat de valeur” formulated by Yves Caseau, Directeur Général Adjoint and former CIO of Bouygues Telecom) as an instrument to formalize between a business unit and the IS department the deliverables of the organisational capital. 

On "Creative Open Innovation" The phrase "creative open innovation" can be found in "Response to the Public Consultation of Reviewing Community Innovation Policy", November, 16. 2009 by the European Interest Group on Creativity and Innovation (EICI). In this paper, the EICI arguments that The Commission of The European Communities fails in its Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, "Reviewing community innovation policy in a changing world" as of September 2. 2009, to recognize the right place of creativity in innovation. However, in its 20 pages paper, aside recommending that an "European online platform" should enable "exchange information on intellectual property", the EICI stayed silent on new practices of intellectual property usage such as Creative Commons... According to Henry Chesbrough (UC Berkeley), "Open Innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology " (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_innovation as of October 4, 2010). To our reading, this simply means joined innovation to gain technological momentum : a distribution licence may merit the label of Open Innovation as well as a crafting a research consortium. In the IT sector, " open " has been used in various contexts : the system Unix was " open ", IP networks were " open ", Firefox is " open "…

Contacting the creative and open knowledge cell nurturer

This page is a The Archilogy Institute cell nurtured by Tru Dô-Khac , an independent consultant in IT and innovation governance.

• Tru Dô-Khac is chairman of X-Propriété-Intellectuelle, "X-PI", (X-Intellectual-Property), a professional group within Ecole Polytechnique ParisTech alumni association and that addresses intellectual property (IP) issues. On X-PI agenda: IP market places, impact of renewed IP commons on businesses, dynamics between IP policies and IT use and governance. 
• Tru Dô-Khac's profile may be found at linkedin.

Tracing the life of this creative and open knowledge cell

• Published by Tru Dô-Khac, Paris, on May 14. 2010 on www.ngen-isg.com
• Revised on June 19. to follow The Archilogy Institute guidelines to nurture a cell (cell contact, cell usage, cell life trace)
• Revised on October 2. 2010 as a result of ISD 2010 conference. 
• Republished on this site on September 11, 2011

« Sharing, reusing, remixing, - legally- », the content of this creative and open knowledge cell

" NGEN ISG, a knowledge stream on dynamics between IP policies, IT usage and innovation " by Tru Dô-Khac, Paris, France est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Paternité-Partage des Conditions Initiales à l'Identique 2.0 France.

Les autorisations au-delà du champ de cette licence peuvent être obtenues à Tru Dô-Khac