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We have written elsewhere about the objectives of the finfish.org effort.

Clearly, however, if we are going to be successful in overcoming the fish production gap, then we will need to connect with companies, organisations and individuals globally and have them recognise the value of participating in this. Connecting means actually mobilising then realising valuable outcomes as a result of independent entities world-wide pursuing distributed, collaborative and cumulative aquaculture innovation.

What might motivate such independent entities to contribute their permission, their attention and actually commit resources to this effort?

Part of the answer to this lies in the fact that we are using the approach of open innovation to conduct this effort. The concept of open innovation is logical, presents compelling prospects and its core concepts are widely accepted. However, beyond the few often quoted stories of US mega companies such as Procter & Gamble and Eli Lilly there does not appear to be great deal of publicly available, practical information about successful practice.

Perhaps this might help explain some of the doubts anxieties and confusion over what to do and how to do it? One can imagine the array of fears that might arise would include the usual concerns where collaboration is concerned:

• who else is involved?
• who owns what intellectual property?
• how can we avoid losing control?

However, the benefits that companies, organisations and individuals can gain by participating in this project are absolutely compelling. They include:

• access to free market, industry and technology information and research
• knowledge of benchmarks for the measurement of what constitutes ‘world class’ performance now and in the future for aquaculture products and services
• the opportunity to create new aquaculture knowledge with other highly capable individuals and entities that you would not normally meet
• the ability to engage in dialogues with important organisations concerning market, industry and technology issues
• practical learning by doing mastery of open innovation skills and capabilities
• defining and participating in valuable projects
• acquiring practical experience in open innovation that allows the gap to be closed between potential and actual value
• the opportunity to participate in a best of breed process that will inform the conduct of industry and corporate innovation practice into the future

This suite of benefits should be compelling to those individuals and organisations intent on being part of the aquaculture market in the future.

What’s your take on this? We’d welcome your thoughts as well as your involvement.

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.

Our stated focus is on aquaculture but there is a wide variety of disciplines that can be involved in the delivery of aquaculture product from a glint in the eye of a couple of milt and egg contributors on some romantic sandy stream bottom through to the presentation of sashimi or gormand bait in a six star restaurant. Given this we are pleased to include in our list all forms of innovation component collections not just this from sources of aquaculture IP.

Here is the beginnings of 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.

Please make your contributions by leaving a reply below.

To find out more about open innovation, you might care to check out some of Henry Chesbrough’s work. Henry is credited with having originated the term open innovation and has authored a couple of books which describe the development of open innovation practices.

His books are as follows:

Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting From Technology

Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape

Click the above links and you will be taken through to brief discussions of these books.

Other writings by Henry Chesbrough include:

Henry W. Chesbrough, The Era of Open Innovation, MIT Sloan management review, Vol. 44, Nº 3, 2003 , pags. 35-41

The Logic of Open Innovation: Managing Intellectual Property, California Management Review, ISSN 0008-1256, Vol. 45, Nº 3, 2003, pags. 33-58

A Better Way to Innovate, Harvard Business Review, ISSN 0017-8012, Vol. 81, Nº 7, 2003, pags. 12-13

Organizing for Innovation: When Is Virtual Virtuous? David J. Teece, Henry W. Chesbrough, Harvard Business Review, ISSN 0017-8012, Vol. 80, Nº 8, 2002, pags. 127-135

We would certainly appreciate any additional Chesbrough links that you think are worthwhile drawing to our attention. Please comment to add relevant resources.

The concept of ‘open innovation’ is making a significant impact on the ability of organisations and individuals 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 R&D department. In 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.