Innovation at the edge of an organization can be an exciting place for those who like to challenge the norm to be; there can be opportunities to explore new technologies, develop radical concepts and potentially shape new markets. It can also be a risky place, often having only tacit support from the corporate hierarchy who will be quick to seize upon any success and bring it into the mainstream fold, or to hold accountable those who have dared to stretch accountability and budgets as optimism turns to finger pointing when a concept fails or a market opportunity evaporates.

However, recent adoption of initiatives in the field of ‘open innovation’ by some major corporations such as Nokia’s Research Center, Shell’s GameChanger initiative and BMW’s Virtual Innovation Agency shows that the concept of going beyond corporate boundaries to unlock disruptive innovations is keeping the edge game alive and well.

Open innovation can therefore offer the edge player the opportunity to exist outside the corporate politics while benefiting from the backing available from the enterprise level players. A number of companies like Shell and BMW have their own open approach that welcomes ideas and participation from companies or individuals and there are a number of open innovation ‘intermediaries’ who bring together the needy corporation with individual, SME and academic innovators. Some of these intermediaries offer employment and others supply projects with generalized requirements against which ideas can be submitted or even developed as open teams.

However, there still remain some drawbacks and pitfalls including exposure of intellectual property and the surrendering of idea ownership to a large corporation. Also, for the extreme innovator who really likes to push the boundaries, some of the requirements and problems may not be enough of a challenge. Perhaps then, the advent of Open Innovation has caused the ‘cutting edge’ to move a little further out.