OpenIDEO Case Notes

IDEO Company Background

Founded in 1991
Offered design consulting services in areas such as branding,
business design, education, energy etc.
Unique, informal and innovative culture
Flat hierarchy
Believed in small working teams
In brief, it is a global design and consulting company that has a
human-centered, design-based approach.

Origins of OpenIDEO

Conceptualized by Hulme during his 2nd year at Harvard

Idea was to create an open innovation model where thousands of
external individuals could participate either collaboratively or
competitively to solve pressing social problems
Facebook page was created followed by a prototype. OpenIDEO site
was finally launched in August 2010
The user experience was such that anyone could participate and the
community members involved in a lot of conversation and
collaboration
There was dependency on the clients to participate and promote the
challenge
No prize money was offered, instead OpenIDEO offered recognition

The OpenIDEO Process

1) Challenge question and Brief development
Set challenge question and brief
Should be specific yet broad enough to engage community
2) Inspiration
Invite community to post solutions and related content
Community manager highlights best examples of effective
inspirations
Develop missions to give the community some direction and
focus
3) Synthesis
Synthesize inspirations into themes
4) Concepting
Community members asked to post specific solutions based
on the themes outlined in the previous phase
5) Concept Selection and Final criteria development
Review and shortlist concepts

Development of criteria for evaluation of shortlisted concepts

based on what the sponsor would consider a successful
concept, any constraints the sponsor might face in
implementing concepts, the overall impact of the concept, and
the ease of implementation of the concept
6) Evaluation
Shortlisted concepts and the voting criteria posted on the site
Community members rated and commented on the concepts
7) Winning Concepts
Based on the likeability of the concepts from the previous
phase, final concepts would be chosen
8) Realisation
Follow concepts into action
Report progress
Situation with IDEO and OpenIDEO

OpenIDEO started to influence some of IDEOs client projects, other

than those sponsoring social challenges
Private corporations started using OpenIDEOs platform for internal
business initiatives
In some cases the OpenIDEO community was not asked to
contribute to these challenges, but in cases like the one with
Unilever, the OpenIDEO community was invited to participate

Nature of the Industry

Not your average consultancy firm

Expert in innovation
Creates products and services in a design oriented environment
Considered firm in Ideation industry
Crowdsourcing and social impact
Open platform approach to create greater good

Industry competitors

The Gates Foundation

Continuum
Frog Design

Organizational Evaluation
OpenIDEOs strengths are its platform design, intrinsic value and most
importantly its open, positive community. However, lack of implementation is a
pressing issue for OpenIDEO.

Current Situation and Possible Courses of Actions

1) Integrate OpenIDEO with IDEO

2) Remain two separate entities and coexist
3) Grow OpenIDEOs technological capabilities
4) Mobile Applications (Skype, Video Podcast