Open Innovation

Introduction

What were you doing in November 2013? For my part, it was in November 2013 that I discovered a vocation of which I had not been fully aware until then.

A combination of circumstances put me in the shoes of someone who had to implement something that was unknown to many in my company: a corporate start-up accelerator. You will understand that I do not wish to go into more detail than that on the basis of circumstances, assuming that I owe myself a certain level of reserve as to what happens within the company of which I am still an employee. I pay tribute to this company, by the way. In any case, the story began like this and, as it turns out, would take me on many journeys….

Let’s get back to the point at hand. So here I am, called to launch quite quickly (in three months), a corporate start-up accelerator. Do you know what this is? Without extending myself at this stage, I will just tell you that this is a type of open-innovation mechanism tasked with making internal teams within a company interact with external ones, for example, start-ups. I had previously worked a lot on marketing, sales, innovation from R&D (internal innovation) and with the world of developers (those who code). In hindsight, I guarantee you that this did not predestine me to hold a position as head of a corporate start-up accelerator and did not presuppose my ability to do it well. Indeed, I had never created a start-up and this ecosystem was quite unknown to me in fact.

I.1. No obvious ...