I’m just back from Scottsdale, Ariz., where we held our CoDev conference! Thanks to new friends and old for your participation.
This was our tenth year at CoDev and each year seems more exciting and engaging than the last. More than 300 attendees from all over the world came to take in the newest ideas for partnering to bring innovation to a higher level in their companies and universities. Many of the companies attending are partnering with other companies, universities, laboratories, consultants and manufacturers that have unique capabilities that they themselves don’t.
We compared notes among the many companies experimenting with social networking and cloud computing to get instant feedback from experts and consumers on their innovation efforts. Over these past ten years I am seeing more corporations advancing their level of maturity in the social media arena, and embracing the conversations that are happening about their industries and about their own brands. Even thought the event has come and gone, we’re still sharing in our social media area of the CoDev website, and you are welcome to check out our Tweets!
It was fascinating to hear how so many have leveraged their own experiences along their journey and learnings form past conferences to achieve success with open innovation. They shared similar but unique stories about what helped them succeed: Engaging global stakeholders; restructuring processes and capabilities; and developing partnerships with suppliers and research centers to access advanced technology solutions.
Partnering to deliver innovation isn’t just a fad, but is a sustainable way of doing business and developing new products.