Innovation Happens Elsewhere

Like any engine, an open-source innovation engine requires design, engineering, tuning, and maintenance. But to do those things requires understanding the science behind the machine. This is called “innovation happens elsewhere.” Innovation happens everywhere, but there is simply more elsewhere than here. Silly as it sounds, this is the brutal truth: Regardless of how smart, creative, and innovative an organization is, there are more smart, creative, and innovative people outside the organization than inside. In addition, the majority of elsewhere does not particularly care to make products in the space. But customers already using a product for real work are in a good position to offer suggestions about the directions in which that product should evolve. To succeed, companies need to find ways to use outside innovations and to become part of a distributed fabric of innovation through a combination of licensing and well-chosen gifts. Although the concept of a gift may not at first seem to fit well with free-market capitalism, it might be so when it is thought of in the context of collaborating with others to build common commodity-like infrastructure. If it makes business sense in that context, then perhaps it makes business sense in others. This is what open source is all about: harnessing engines of innovation in software.