Table of contents
- Introduction
- Concept of open innovation -Wikipedia
- Application of the concept: Resources and time required
- Implications of open innovations and co created products on an organization
- Strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of business models
- Conclusion
- References
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Course-Individual Final Report
The concept of open innovation and co-creation has been necessitated by the advancement of new technologies. In open innovation and co-creation, the value is co-created by the users to benefit the users. The process of creation of services and products is open and the outcomes are also open and aimed to benefit the users or the participants (Ravasi & Rindova, 2007). Example of open innovations and co creation products includes software such as Linux operating system. This paper is ea reflection report on experiences, real participation and challenges on my contribution on Wikipedia content. It also will review other people content on the same platform.
The concept of open innovation has of late received a lot of attention for many individuals demonstrating that indeed innovations process span organizational boundaries. Firms are using external ideas as well as internal ideas in their quest to advance their technologies and resources. Relying on ideas from external environment has been the way forward for many companies as they have enabled them to remain abreast to competition (Dahlander, Lars & Francesco, 2008). This openness of firms’ results to interactive and distributed innovation process as ideas and resources as individuals are able to flow in and out of the organizations (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Furthermore, firms are able to incorporate ideas from the community into their own internal process to ensure that they all benefit for such ideas (Dahlander & Wallin, 2006). Wikipedia is one of the platforms that has relied on open innovations and is co –created as users or different people are able to contribute their ideas, which later benefits other people. I have been an active user of this platform for 5 years now. I have contributed and also used the same platform to learn new information or ideas from the content, provided by other users (Austin, Howard & Jane, 2006).
I have participated in content generation on Wikipedia for the five last five years. I have contributed on the aspects of management and human resource management because this is my area of specialty. I have shared my ideas and knowledge in the same areas. Most of my postings have relied on concrete evidence from many research studies conducted in this area. My interest, desire, and motivation to contribute to this platform is because of the quest to see that organizations are improving and providing quality services to their customers. This cannot be attained without understanding the role of human resources. Various aspects that are involved in an organization, which includes, culture, discipline, planning and ensuring that there is fairness in the provision of incentives to the employees, recruitment and dismissal among many others. This is the information which I have contributed to this platform and I am happy that many people have been able to access the content for free and learned new skills and knowledge in the same area. The postings are well researched; the quality is above par enabling the users to gain a lot from the same. This has been evidenced by frequent postings. The management of this platform has always published my postings and made positive comments on my postings. This is a clear evident that indeed the articles or the positing are quality. Furthermore, users’ comments have also indicated that the postings are a result of in-depth research. On the ratings scale, the positing has been rated amongst the quality and which is highly reliable.
I have been able to enhance and develop my skills and knowledge using this platform for the five years. Apart from my postings, I have also learned new things from this platform that has enabled me to expand my scope of thinking and reasoning. Other users have also posted their information or content on different aspects that has not only benefited me but rather I have learned different knowledge in many areas through this platform. I also pride myself for participating in other people’s reviews. This opportunity has enabled me to evaluate other people’s ideas and information on different aspects enabling me to criticize and in the process helping me to enrich my scope of knowledge.
Open innovation and co-created products and services have different implications on the running and operations of an organization. The first implication of such innovations have on the organization is that they help the organization to acquire more ideas and skills that are instrumental in enhancing and promoting the objectives of the organization. These ideas and contributions help in the creation of more knowledge and skills that enable the organization to meet its goals and objectives (Jeppesen, & Frederiksen, 2006) For instance in this case, Wikipedia has developed a lot of content in different fields. This content has helped users and the generators to develop and to acquire more skills. The organization has also managed to accrue some revenues through the same. The users have helped through their donations in ensuring that the platform is able to continue to provide its services to the users (Rindova & Petkova, 2007).
The performance of a company is hinged on various aspects such as the business models used, strategies the company uses and many other aspects relating to the quality of service provided. Any firm that desires to achieve must be able to apply appropriate models, should always see challenges as opportunities and address such issues. Wikipedia has remained one of the most widely used sources of information because of its wide topics that it covers. It involves its users in content development, which has played a key role in ensuring that it remains a preferred source of information for the users (Hamel, 2006).
When it comes to the aspects of intellectual property, the firm has no such rights, as its key agenda is to disseminate information to the users without any restriction. It has therefore, enabled and promoted information sharing across all areas helping the users to be informative and abreast on knowledge in respective areas of study.
Business models have strengths and weakness that should be considered in ensuring that the model is effective in promoting achievement of the organization goals. The SWOT analysis is usually used in assessing business (Osterwalder & Yves, 2010). This acronym is usually used to assess the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an entity. It is an attractive instrument as it is simple and easy to use, but can be a source of confusion if not well understood (Osterwalder & Yves, 2010). It enabled a focused assessment and evaluation of a business model and its building blocks. Strengths and weakness assess internal systems of an organization while opportunity and threats assess the position of an organization within its environment. In the context of Wikipedia, its business models have strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats that need to be evaluated to ensure it meets its objectives.
The company strength is that its values are aligned with the customer needs. It therefore, ensures that all the users are able to get quality services by providing enough content on what they want (Henkel, J 2006). The strength is that it provides content to users at no cost. This therefore has contributed to its dissemination of information to the users. The weaknesses in the firm are lack of a strategy to generate revenue from the services it provides. It has failed in this area and this has posed risk of jeopardizing its services. This problem or weakness can be addressed by adapting to appropriate strategy that would allow the firm to get some revenue from the people or users that access to their contents.
There are opportunities for the firm. It can use these platforms to provide other related services that would enable it to accrue revenue from its services. It can establish a parallel program that will ensure that the company is able to meet its goals. The demand for content is increasing and this presents a potential for the company to tap into this areas.
The threats the company faces includes, issues to do with authenticity and credibility of its information, competition from other content providing companies among others. The company has been involved in legal tussles based on the quality or credibility of its information source. This is a threat as it may affect the public perception. However, the company defended itself from these claims stating that it was reliable information. I also do concur with that since Wikipedia’s content is largely credible. The only issue that needs to be addressed concerns the issue of copyright.
Consequently, I can authoritatively state that open innovation and co creation has advanced as new technologies have seen many strides made in terms of innovations. As a content writer for Wikipedia, I have an opportunity to post my content and to learn new skills and knowledge from the platform. In spite of some challenges and threats here and there, there is still optimism about opportunities to be explored.
Screenshot
Below is a screenshot of the Wikipedia webpage that allows the users to interact and make some revisions and editing on the various information that is hosted by Wikipedia.
The screen shot above indicates or provides direction on using Wikipedia either to retrieve or to edit various contents that an individual is interested in. Users have a choice of crating their won accounts and have the choice to use the language that they are well versed with. Therefore, it does not limit any individual form accessing and using it.
References
Austin, J, Howard, S, & Jane, W, 2006, ‘Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same,Different, or Both?’, Entrepreneurship theory and practice, pp. 1-22.
Dahlander, L, Lars, A, & Francesco, R 2008, ‘Online Communities and Open Innovation: Governance and Symbolic Value Creation, Industry and Innovation, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp.115–123.
Dahlander, L, & Wallin, M 2006, ‘A man on the inside: unlocking communities as complementary assets,’ Research Policy, vol. 35 no. 8, pp. 1243–1259.
Hamel, G 2006, ‘The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation’, Harvard Business Review February, Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 72-84
Henkel, J 2006, ‘Selective revealing in open innovation processes: the case of embedded Linux’, Research Policy, vol. 35 no. 7, pp. 953–969.
Jeppesen, L, & Frederiksen,A 2006,‘Why do users contribute to firm-hosted user communities? The case of computer-controlled music instruments’,Organization Science, vol.17 no.1,pp.45–63.
Laursen, K. and Salter, A 2006, ‘Open for innovation: the role of openness in explaining innovation performance among UK manufacturing firms’, Strategic ManagementJournal,27, pp. 131–150.
Osterwalder, A, & Yves, P 2010, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley.
Ravasi, D, & Rindova, V 2007, ‘Symbolic value creation. Technology, Innovation and Institutions Working Paper Series’, TII-16, pp.1–32.
Rindova, V, & Petkova, A 2007, ‘When is a new thing a good thing? Technological change, product form design, and perceptions of value for product innovations,’ Organization Science, 18, pp. 217–232.
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