INNO1003 Crowd, Cloud and Open Innovation: Leveraging your Ecosystem for Innovation

2017

4.5

1 x 3-hour workshop weekly

None

Assignments, Project, Tests

Unbridled advances in technology and connectedness have transformed the relationship between companies, customers, and competitors. With this transformation, the lines between business relationships, social connections, and competitive advantage are increasingly connected to one another. Thus companies across all industries and size classes-from established industry giants to high-growth companies in new technology areas-require the skills and knowledge to strategically harness the power of “the crowd and the cloud”. This course addresses the distinct challenges and opportunities posed by the confluence of digital community, powerful and expanding data gathering and analytics, and the intertwining of technological change and business models. This course is relevant for students seeking to expand their skills in harnessing insights from real-time change for the development of powerful and adaptable decision-making and innovation. This class will draw upon current topics including: the crowdsourcing of innovation in established firms and new entrants; the use of technological connectedness and social media strategies in developing innovative user communities; the challenges and opportunities of co-creation; and the emergence of crowd-based funding as a financial tool for launching new projects. The course relies on case analysis and class discussions focused on applying analytical skills to challenges and opportunities in current contexts.

This course will be highly experiential in nature and expose students to valuable insights into the evolving and intertwined nature of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and related topics from multiple vantage points of practitioners and drawing on cutting edge scholarship in the field. Students will be required to follow online business and technology blogs in the space and to analyse industry and company events in real time. Students will be asked to develop relevant ideas in this space and be given opportunity to interact with prominent practitioners.

Prominent practitioner guests from “crowd and cloud” related enterprises in the entrepreneurial, financial, and corporate community are integrated throughout the course. This will provide exceptional value-added opportunities for the students by interacting with and getting introduced to key individuals in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Adelaide and beyond.

On successful completion of this topic students should be able to:

• directly apply concepts from the course in project and team based exercises. Students thus build an analytic and conceptual toolset to approach valuable career-enhancing opportunities.
• leverage dynamic opportunities and changes in startups and existing companies that come from evolving changes in digital technology and related areas.