Open Innovation

Open Innovation is a model developed by Henry Chesbrough (2006) which reflects new models of innovation and development by companies in current times. Seth Godin (2010) describes the role of the individual employee in that economy.

In Chesbrough’s concept, the closed company relied on an innovation monopoly. Given the structure and openness of innovation and information today, that model is no longer viable. In defining the new practice of open innovation, four factors stand out for organizing internal Research and Development:

1. To identify, understand, select from, and connect to the wealth of available external knowledge

2. To fill in the missing pieces of knowledge not being externally developed

3. To integrate internal and external knowledge to form more complex combinations of knowledge, to create new systems and architectures

4. To generate additional revenues and profits from selling research outputs to other firms for use in their own systems (p. 53)

In a world of freely available information and learning resources, the role of the educational institution also changes and its patterns follow those outlined by Chesbrough. No longer is the institution the singular place of the creation of content. It now identifies understands, selects form, and connects available learning resources—as part of this, it must develop the same skills in its students. With the available resources of the internet, a contemporary student does not need to be given information, rather they need to learn how to evaluate, integrate and validate resources they find. They must also understand how these pieces fit into larger and more complex ideas and theories. This leads to Chesbrough’s second bullet as the institution’s role is to determine and create the pieces of knowledge which are not readily available and which bridge the gap between those pieces which do. In short, the professor moves to the role of rhapsode—a song stitcher—in bringing together multiple pieces into a singular narrative (were not the first identified as teachers in western culture rhapsodes who recited and performed exegeses on the works of Homer). This is accentuated though by the third bullet which in education is the creation of synergy. The learning experience within the institution leads to the creation of complex architectures of ideas wherein the sum is greater than the total of the parts—this is where the value is added for the experience of the institution. The institution's role within society and its public face and value are reflected in its publicly available work. [see OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES below] The synergy created here returns to the structure of metaphor above.

In the model of metaphor, new anti-linear structures must be formulated to allow a movement away from fixed traditional structures, These traditional structures tend to focus on the absolute entity of the three hour course which is the self-containment of all knowledge which functions in a limited definition and supply of external resources controlled by a singular individual will eventually fade away. The second law of thermodynamics applies as much here as it does anywhere. The more closed the system, the more it tends toward entropy—I do not need to list off the countless examples which clearly illustrate this. The very nature of an Open University turns this around and the multiple knowledge feeds from multiple points enrich the environment and supports it through its diversity. [see DIVERSITY below]

In short, in Open Innovation, one moves into the idea of lateral thinking posed by Edward de Bono (1973). As he notes, “Richness is what matters in lateral thinking.” In an Openly innovative education, the richness is what is sought. A closed innovation model aims for rightness; however, when one considers examples of Open Innovation, for example, Linux as an open source model, richness is what drives the innovation. By allowing a democracy of participation, the best possible ideas are allowed to rise to the top. [See OPENNESS above].

What role then does a graduate school play in a world of open innovation? Quite simply, the application of open innovation requires a unique and novel thought process and thinking about education. It is the role of graduate schools in general to be able to develop and deploy such systems. In particular, as the demand for graduate education becomes increasingly professional and a student is expected to bring a higher level of experience and academic experience with them, with a higher expectation of applying the learning to a current situation in an openly innovative world stands at a higher level.

Seth Godin (2010) argues that the essence of the individual and their value in our information economy is no longer based on the factory metaphor where students are neatly lined up in rows and taught to be replaceable like the cog in a factory machine—at one point the definition of success. Even as few as five to ten years ago (and I am sure that in some quarters it is still practiced as true), leadership candidates were taught to not make a unique but a replaceable impact on their organizations. Today's definition of success is in being what Godin calls “the linchpin”--the individual whose uniqueness and acts of brilliance makes them irreplaceable—but replaceable by another individual with an equally unique, but different, stamp. Graduate students today need to be trained as linchpins. They need to be trained and supported to make this transformation through their learning. They must learn the skills of developing creativity, evaluating and combining learning—rather than being taught the content, they need to be taught the process. As graduate schools are currently in that area and have fewer content responsibilities (versus the general education requirements usually placed on undergraduate education). To put it bluntly, graduate students need to learn to define their own positions in the academy and learning experience (beyond simply in research specialization) as opposed to pursing the ever elusive research position.

Higher education needs to fit within the world it lives in, and as Cathy Davidson (2011) writes in The Chronicle Review: “current practices in our educational institutions—and workplaces—are a mismatch between the age we live in and the institutions we have built over the last 100-plus years.” SUNY Empire State College, as the brain child of Ernest Boyer, was created in 1971 as an institution to meet the needs of a new world. In its evolution, this need and this direction remain paramount. As the School for Graduate Studies works with professionals who seek to move forward in their careers, we are realizing the need for new forms of learning and the shifting nature of higher education.