(Cognistreamer blog) There are several reasons why companies might decide to open up their innovation front end, and some of them are sales or marketing oriented. Obviously, an open policy towards innovation and co-creation will help to build trust and maintain a good relationship with your customers, as well as enforce a positive image of openness and social responsibility for your company. But the most important reason for opening up the fuzzy front end of innovation is related to the very nature of it: fuzziness. Managing the risks caused by technical and market uncertainties in the front end innovation process is a major challenge for every innovation manager.

Willem-Jan Vos posted on his website an interesting infograhic of Dave Gray about the connected company. It's another angle on 'teal organizations' as set out by Frédéric Laloux (who wrote "Reinventing organizations).