Many successful companies have open innovation to thank for their success. Open innovation reveals itself in many different ways but most of the times it involves overcoming the not invented here syndrome that many companies face when they try to introduce new products or new services resulting from open innovation to their employees.  Accepting external input can be difficult for many employees. However, open innovation is not only external and does not only involve a company accepting external input but also includes a company opening its doors to other companies and sometimes even competitors – allowing other companies or your competitors to use your ideas and technologies.
Lego Mindstorms is an example of one of the many companies that have become successful by accepting external input. It has given its customers the opportunity to help it create new designs and new products.  In the 1990s, Lego was faced with bankruptcy especially with the arrival of video games. The plastic bricks of Lego were no longer able to capture the attention of children. When the company accepted this, they realized that they need to make drastic changes so they started to pay more attention to their relationship with customers. This lead to the introduction of Lego Mindstorms which is Lego bricks that can be programmed with sensor to allow consumers to create moveable Lego robots as well as designs.

With constant interaction and feedback from customers, Lego worked hard with software engineers and developers from MIT to develop this amazing product. The funny thing about this all was that once Lego launched its Mindstorms, within three weeks, more than one thousand advanced web users, found a way to hack the software that accompanied the construction toy and made many unauthorized changes thus introducing new functions. This was obviously something that Lego did not foresee.  But the impact was great. With new ideas, the hackers were able to improve the original product which resulted in the sale of more units. Lego originally did not target customers over the age of 18 however with the new and improved product; they sold a lot of units to customer over the age of 18.
Initially, the owners of Lego did not support the actions of hackers but eventually when they realized how beneficial the actions of the hackers were, they stop fighting with them. This resulted in them fully opening their software to give customers the chance to be creative.

Lego did not rely only on its own research and development department. It decided to tap into the innovative ideas of others. The fact is that the brain power of several people from a research and development department is nothing compared to the brain power of thousands of users who specializes in knowing the program well enough to improve it.

Lego was able to turn around its bankruptcy by using the creativity, imagination and intelligence of others. This not only resulted in the success of the Mindstorm but it also opened the doors to more innovative experiments using the experts of consumers which resulted in the Lego Design By Me which makes it possible for user to design their own models, to upload them to Lego’s website and order them to be delivered. With crowdsourcing and open innovation Lego became more relevant and hip than it was ever before. The company has now built its success on open and collaborative relationships with its customers.  Please let us know what your view is on open innovation and the influences it has on a company’s success. Leave a comment.