We can’t ignore the fact that Open Innovation has become a critical component within the innovation framework of top companies. The challenge you now face is fueling your innovation engine in this less-than-optimal climate!

Join Cheryl Perkins as she teams up once again with Management Roundtable and PDMA for the upcoming 11th annual CoDev2012: Achieving Higher OI Returns while Managing Risk, Cost and Uncertainty.

This premiere open innovation forum takes place February 13 – 15, 2012 in La Jolla, Calif. For a limited time, we are offering a special flexible team discount so that you can bring your internal teams and partners to the table.

Call 1.800.338.2223, or reserve your place online!

This year’s program will include even more inspiring keynote presentations, how-to case studies, facilitated Q&A and group learning sessions as well as multiple venues to network and assemble your own open innovation network for future learning and collaboration.

Check out these open innovation ambassadors presenting at CoDev2012.

In addition, we’ll be offering 4 brand new half-day workshops on the topics of Evolving New OI Business Models, Innovation Talent Management, Open Innovation Metrics and Implementing Complex Deal Structures for OI Success.

Don’t forget you’ll also network with several hundred top leaders of open innovation, continuous improvement, R&D and product development from a cross section of industries including aerospace, medical devices, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, biotech, oil & gas, electronics, hi-tech, defense and more.

If you are looking for the most up-to-date practitioner based content on open innovation, CoDev2012 promises to once again deliver on all fronts. I am looking forward to meeting you personally as we discuss current and future trends in open innovation and how you can capitalize on them to gain more value from your open innovation investments.

Join Cheryl Perkins and Pat Clusman in China for the Innovation Best Practices For Consumer Industry. The event will take place March 1-2, 2012 at the CII Innovation Center, Shanghai.

China Institute for Innovation is a consulting and academic organization established specifically to help Chinese companies, multinational organizations and government
agencies to meet the needs for world-class expertise in innovation.
CII is a leading innovation education, training, research, and networking institute in China. CII offers a wide variety of programs to help people at all levels and in all roles to understand and master the principles and practices of innovation, to help their organizations succeed in the innovation- driven economy.

Click on this image for more information:

Join InnovationEdge in China for the Making Innovation Work: Success from Within and Outside.  The event will take place February 27 and 28, 2012 at the CII Innovation Center, Shanghai.

Cheryl Perkins and Pat Clusman lead participants through wiring together your business, marketing and innovation strategies,  by identifying and applying the key focal areas of Innovation, from business strategy to customer experience.

China Institute for Innovation is a consulting and academic organization established specifically to help Chinese companies, multinational organizations and government
agencies to meet the needs for world-class expertise in innovation.
CII is a leading innovation education, training, research, and networking institute in China. CII offers a wide variety of programs to help people at all levels and in all roles to understand and master the principles and practices of innovation, to help their organizations succeed in the innovation- driven economy.

Click on this image for more information:

Cheryl Perkins, one of Consumer Goods Technology’s board members, joins the rest of the board to examine big changes to come in consumer goods.

Click here to read the full article.

May 2011, Insight Magazine

If your office employs a diverse array of age groups, chances are you experience a clash of temperaments now and then. To shed a little light on the issue, Insight invited Innovationedge President Cheryl Perkins to lead a discussion with a group of regional thought leaders. To hear Cheryl’s insight on making the most of generational differences, watch her video interview here.

Cheryl Perkins will present at the “Progress Report on Health Systems Transformation’ Conference on April 14, 2011 – a 1-day conference at Morehead State University, featuring Innovationedge and Dr.Marc Overhage, chief strategic officer and national policy adviser of the Indiana Health Information Exchange.

The conference, scheduled from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m at the Morehead Conference Center, is hosted by Morehead State University’s College of Business and Public Affairs, St. Claire Regional Medical Center, Northeast Kentucky Regional Health Information Organization and Northeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center.

REGISTER

Innovationedge president, Cheryl Perkins, will moderate a panel session at the Conference on Social Product Development & Co-Creation, a 2-day conference on June 27-28, 2011 at Local Motors Micro-Factory in Phoenix, AZ.

The Conference on Social Product Development and Co-Creation is a groundbreaking event developed by the PDMA in partnership with co-creation pioneer, Local Motors, to bring together an unprecedented group of thinkers, makers and doers – quite literally,the “best of the best” – to help attendees understand and apply co-creative approaches that drive breakthrough results in product development and innovation. The Keynote cast will include presenters from Wired Magazine, Harvard Business School, American Express, Intuit Labs, American Express, Microsoft Corporation and more.

The conference can be followed on Twitter at #CoCreatePDMA

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Cheryl Perkins will present a “Innovation for the Enterprise” session at the TiE-VISTA Venture & Innovation Summit on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 in Atlanta, GA.

TiE-VISTA is the the Largest Entrepreneurial Summit in the SouthEast. VISTA 2011 will focus on two key component tracks of Entrepreneurship – Innovation and Venture. The conference aims to bring ten high powered panels with industry expert speakers to provide you with the most powerful Entrepreneurial Summit experience in Atlanta. Regardless of the business you are in, the key to winning and transforming industries always remains the same – people with an Entrepreneurial Spirit. Come and listen to the experts and engage in panel discussions with your questions.

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Biomimicry is a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems, also known as “innovation inspired by nature”, according to the Biomimicry Institute based in Missoula, Mont.

“Innovative ideas have long been inspired by what we observe in nature, and I believe that what we can observe from animals in particular can give us insight into brand new inventions and technology,” says Perkins in her post.

To read the full blog posting, click here.

To see Perkins featured on the San Diego Zoo Biomimicry website, click here.

Perkins also wrote a column for the Appleton Post-Crescent regarding biomimicry. To view the article, click here.

By: Cheryl Perkins and Jeff Lindsay

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With the expectations of sustainable products a growing concern for consumers, bioplastics are becoming an increasingly important part of the plastics industry. Just like auto companies are searching for alternative sources of energy for transportation vehicles, chemical companies are searching for alternatives in the manufacturing of plastic materials. Fossil fuels won’t be available forever, and currently billions of pounds of plastics are being produced and consumed annually, just in the flexible packaging industry alone.

Bioplastics currently represent only a small fraction of this emerging area of development, but usage is growing. Not only are the resources used for production renewable, but some companies are also claiming that the production process has a smaller carbon footprint. There is great potential for collaboration with startups and universities to help overcome challenges and realize the commercial and environmental potential of bioplastics as replacements for the less-sustainable oil-based plastics.

However, although startups, young companies and universities are progressive in their approach to bioplastic technology, protecting innovations through intellectual property is not always a priority. These companies are anxious about bringing their products to market and are often overlooking important intellectual-property opportunities. Intellectual property matters to the success of bioplastic products, and may determine the future landscape of the industry. In fact, the number of current patents for bioplastic products has increased sharply since 2006, when the amount of pending patents also skyrocketed.

Patents are necessary and important, but often are not enough for exuberant startups. Take Vonage, for example, which was sued by Verizon in June 2006 for allegedly using Verizon’s patented technology that allowed voice calls to be transferred from the Internet onto the traditional telephone network. Although Vonage claimed its services were developed with its own proprietary technology along with technology licensed from third parties, its lack of intellectual property rights led to it losing the case. In November 2007, Vonage was ordered to pay Verizon $120 million due to patent infringements.

My speculation is that Vonage, along with many other companies, didn’t realize all of the opportunities to protect its intellectual property, intellectual assets and intellectual capital. Companies and inventors must always assume that nothing is protected, especially before the patent process is complete.

First, it’s important to understand that the terms “intellectual property,” “intellectual capital” and “intellectual assets” are often used interchangeably, but they are really not the same.

Intellectual capital generally refers to knowledge-based assets of an organization and related resources that create value and competitiveness. Intellectual property refers to items that can be legally owned, such as patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights. When intellectual capital becomes codified in some way — preserving it for the future — it becomes an intellectual asset.

Intellectual assets are broader in scope and, in addition to intellectual property, also include publications and other documents and agreements. Intellectual assets may pertain to many aspects of a company’s know-how, including unpatented products, designs, formulations, processes and the collective skills, creativity and experience of staff or inventors. Some intellectual assets can be low-cost complements or even alternatives to patents that still help in protecting a company’s designs, slogans, names or new products.

The most successful companies are utilizing defensive publications, digital intellectual assets and trademarks in their intellectual asset strategy. Digital intellectual assets and defensive publications are often the two most understated and widely neglected of the three strategies. Here’s an overview of all:

c Trademarks are a type of intellectual property that may be a word, name, symbol or device that is used by its owner to identify or distinguish goods or services from those of other entities. Rights in trademarks and service marks, unlike patents and copyrights, arise as a result of use of the mark in commerce to identify the source or origin of goods and service. Trademarks are often the go-to sources for protecting intellectual assets. There are also many non-traditional trademark opportunities as well.

c Digital intellectual assets aren’t new to companies or individuals that have been using e-mail accounts and Web domains as proof of ownership of company or product names. Today, branding YouTube channels, Twitter avatars and Facebook pages with the name of a company or product is an easy, legitimate and incredibly traceable way to begin an intellectual asset estate.

c A defensive publication is used to prevent another party from obtaining a patent on a product by distributing a description or drawing of the product to the public so that it becomes prior domain or prior art. Strong publications start with thoroughly documented invention disclosures. The publication also discloses details related to how to make or use the product, discloses embodiments and variations, cites technical references and includes drawings. The most successful are also crafted with specific objectives in mind and are reviewed by technical and legal experts prior to distribution. A defensive publication could also include publicity generation, such as news articles, about your product. For a relatively small fee, your document can be published on a site like IP.com. Your document is almost instantly published and time stamped, archived, and made searchable by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other patent offices, providing a lasting and secure record that the information disclosed was part of the public domain at that time.

Now is the time to increase your awareness and expertise in intellectual property rights for bioplastics products that could shape your business in the next five years. When you’re developing your proactive intellectual property strategy, use intellectual property to build bridges to partners, making it a driver of, not a barrier to, innovation. It may be the key to overcoming some of your challenges with disruptive innovation.

Cheryl Perkins is president and Jeff Lindsay is solution development director at Neenah, Wis.-based management consulting firm Innovationedge LLC.

Sponsored jointly by Innovationedge and The Management Roundtable, the Sustainable Innovation Summit was developed to address the unique issues facing the food & beverage industry. The excusive event will serve as an executive forum to challenge current thinking and approaches, set the stage for new trends in sustainable innovation and create a senior level networking community for ongoing support and dialogue.

Join the Innovationedge team in partnership with The Management Roundtable in Chicago, IL from August 9-10 for the “Fostering and Leading a Culture of Innovation in the Food & Beverage Industry”.

Who Should Attend: Chief’s, VP’s, Directors, Heads, Senior Directors and Managers of Innovation, R&D, Product Development, Open Innovation, Customer Management, and Manufacturing

Why Attend?: The food and beverage industry is changing rapidly. The pressure to innovate and grow is as strong as ever, but competition is stronger than ever. Consumers are more demanding than ever, and regulatory pressures continue to increase on everything from food safety, packaging, sustainability, to long-term nutrition. The challenge for companies in the Food and Beverage is to innovate and grow in the face of ever increasing constraints.

REGISTER

If innovation is the go-to strategy of the decade, Cheryl Perkins wants to be the go-to consultant on the topic. She’s founder and president of Innovationedge, a consulting firm based in Neenah, Wisconsin, that helps companies and individuals develop innovations and business solutions.

Perkins was no stranger to innovation before she launched her own firm in 2007. She has held a variety of positions at consumer products company Kimberly-Clark, most recently as senior vice president and chief innovation officer. In that role, she was responsible for innovation and enterprise growth in areas such as R&D, engineering, design, safety, and environmental sustainability.

Full Article

Braden’s experience in innovation shows, for example, when he discusses the different innovation needs companies have depending on their innovation maturity level. Trying to run an open innovation program for a company just getting started on innovation could be a mistake–especially if internal systems for gathering and evaluating innovation concepts aren’t yet in place.

He also recognizes the need for long-term innovation strategy, not just short-term reactive strategy, to help a company survive in a world of disruptive innovation threats. Yet a focus only on long-term innovation bets could leave a company crippled by missing the short-term gains that are needed to still be thriving when the long-term bets pay off (if ever). His thoughts remind me of the Ascent of Collaboration™ model that Innovationedge uses in helping corporations decide where they are in terms of innovation maturity relative to open innovation and external collaboration. Guidance to the corporation must always be tailored to their level of development in innovation.

A strength of Kelley’s book is his use of numerous examples, mostly from large, well-known companies like Apple or Amazon. One of my favorite case studies occurs early in the book (pp. 14-16) and deals with the rise of General Motors and how they overtook Ford through the vision of Alfred Sloan, who saw the need for market segmentation, good design, and innovation in the business model by offering financial assistance to dealers and customers through GMAC.

Kelley provides practical guidance on some of the basic of innovation within a corporation. He offers, for example, an idea evaluation checklist (pp. 69-70) to assist in screening ideas from a brainstorming session. He also gives the very important lesson that innovation often must proceed slowly, and that a company must be prepared to pursue “slow innovation.” Companies must evaluate where they are on the innovation curve and determine when they must be prepared for many years of slow progress before a technology will be ready for commercial success. Such discipline in thinking and planning is essential to avoid rapid disappointment and premature abandonment of potentially successful concepts. Apple’s iPod is one of several case studies of slow innovation considered.

Kelley also addresses the major issues of organization, culture, and processes that are crucial for innovation success. Breaking down internal information and innovation barriers can be essential for improving innovation in a modern company. Creating a system that can manage innovation and maintain the flexibility needed for innovation success is a demanding challenge, but one that leaders need to face and embrace. Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire can help with that challenge. For both leaders and champions of innovation at all levels, Braden Kelley’s book is definitely worth the read.

The TENTH annual conference on Co-Development and Open Innovation: Accessing Networks & Knowledge to Create Business Value will take place in Scottsdale, Arizona from January 24-26, 2011 at the brand new Talking Stick Resort.

You can expect to hear from and network with top open innovation thought leaders and advanced practitioners across multiple industries on questions that are challenging early open innovation adopters.

Join conference chair and Innovationedge president Cheryl Perkins and team at the event this year. Register

Cheryl Perkins, founder and president and Jeff Lindsay, director of solution development, will present at the Sustainable Plastics Packaging conference on December 8 at the Westin Atlanta Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Sustainable Plastics Packaging conference, organized by Plastics News Global Group, is coming to North America for the first time this year. The conference, previously held in Europe, explores the environmental challenges facing users and producers of plastics packaging and identify innovative solutions that meet demanding sustainability and economic criteria.

Perkins and Lindsay will present at 3:45 p.m. on the first day of the conference. Their session, Sustainable plastics: Challenges in protecting innovation & design, will explore the key intellectual property trends for sustainable plastics and proactive steps companies can do to protect advances.

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Candy & Snack TODAY, September/October 2010

Cheryl Perkins, founder and president of Innovationedge, LLC, a brand consultancy, expands on this notion: “Private label continues to be a focus for innovation. We’re seeing retailers figuring out how to deliver quality products while still maintaining lower prices for consumers. This is, of course, the value proposition that many consumers demand.”

Perkins also notes a key point of differentiation for many products is not cost alone. “New product performance and differentiated ingredients are driving both private label market share and margins,” she explains. “The growth of less expensive private label consumer goods that exhibit performance equal to national brands is an ongoing trend that began when the first signs of the recessionemerged.”

Full Candy & Snack TODAY article

pdma Visions Magazine, October 2010

Cheryl Perkins will present the following session at Georgia Institute of Technology’s FutureMedia Fest 2010 at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 5, 2010:

Collaborative Experiences Creating Business Value
Opening up organizations to outside ideas has led to commercial success for many organizations.  Innovation in the social and mobile media space has relied heavily on innovation outside the traditional walls of the company. FutureMedia related technologies for communication, collaboration and project management are making coordinating large projects across distributed, virtual teams much easier and giving rise to new business value opportunities and cross platform collaboration.

FutureMedia provides new opportunities to expand networks and forge new collaborative relationships. This session will discuss key concepts, aspects of open innovation, and FutureMedia related technologies that will impact your ecosystems and create a new innovation paradigms.

View the FutureMedia Fest live webcast

Innovationedge President, Cheryl Perkins, will present at the Consumer Goods Growth & Innovation Forum at 10:55 a.m. on September 23, 2010 in Miami Beach, FL.

Cheryl will moderate the General Session “Developing Leadership & Talent”

Moderator: Cheryl Perkins, President, InnovationEdge
Panelists:
1. Bennett L. Brenton, Chief Innovation Officer, Snap-on Incorporated
2. Barry Calpino, Vice President, Breakthrough Innovation, Kraft Foods Inc.
3. Elyse Kane, Worldwide Director, Colgate-Palmolive

What sorts of skills do the newest generation of innovation managers need? What can educational institutions do to better prepare their graduates for innovation jobs? We are in danger of not having the talent required to move into the future, and companies are starting to feel the impact. This panel discussion will examine the required critical skill sets, where the skills can be found today, and how to address existing gaps.

More and more companies are facing talent management challenges. Downsizing, the aging of the workforce and the ongoing retirement of resources with years of institutional knowledge are making it even harder for them to have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place to deliver growth and innovation.

There is an urgent need today to improve workforce productivity, retain high performers and weed out remaining low performers. However at the same time, many organizations are also faced with a younger workforce as experienced baby boomers retire and the number of middle-aged workers decline (See Figure 1). These generational trends are making an impact on how companies recruit and retain the staff they need to remain competitive and innovative.

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