The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World

Introduction

Innovation is critical for profitable growth. In their search for innovative ideas and technologies, companies are realizing the importance of reaching out to customers, partners, suppliers, amateur inventors, academic researchers, scientists, innovation brokers, and a host of other external entities that together constitute the Global Brain—the vast creative potential that lies beyond the boundaries of the firm. Terms such as communities of creation, innovation networks, open market innovation, and crowdsourcing are being used to refer to the future of innovation in a connected world. The promise of such network-centric innovation approaches is resonating in the executive suites of large corporations. A recent survey of CEOs found ...