Key Open Innovation Lessons
Lucy Watt from FutureGov has just posted a series of lessons learned from running an open innovation challenge. FutureGov is a UK-based organisation that works with local governments to design better and cheaper public services.
Over a nine-month period it worked with Camden Council in London to develop the Camden Challenge, an open innovation project to help local people turn their radical ideas into workable projects.
More than 150 residents, students and people who work in the borough got involved. The challenge was built on experiences and lessons learned from previous open innovation events.
Among the frustrations of earlier projects was a lack of follow-through. People worked on their ideas for an intensive period during one or two day-long events, but then went back to their normal routines. In addition, the quality of ideas submitted to pre-event open calls were variable.
Learning from this the Camden Challenge organisers held an introductory event to explain the sorts of ideas they were looking for. There was also post event support.
Lucy has outlined seven lessons learned from the Camden Challenge and some of them are listed below:
Plug into the right local networks – namely, find advocates who will help to spread the word.
Make it accessible – the initiatives are designed so the average citizen can take part. They need to know this.
Enlist the help of people who can make it happen – key people in Camden council attended events to work directly with the people who were coming up with the ideas.
To read Lucy’s post in full, click here.
Reader Comments
Always good to learn lessons from OI initiatives!
Posted by IdeaConnection on October 8, 2013
Thanks for featuring Lucy's post!
There's more open innovation challenges over on our Simpl Challenges platform, so take a look and submit any ideas you have that fit the challenges: http://simpl.co/
Posted by Ben Matthews on October 8, 2013
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