What medical innovation leaders can learn from Deep Seek’s AI breakthrough.
The open innovation imperative
Many of the LLM AI providers were caught flat-footed when Deep Seek announced a more energy-efficient but effective LLM.
How could they have avoided that surprise?
The answer is simple - be more open to working with the Chinese so that they would have been aware of what was coming.
Whether the Chinese would have shared is another question.
Nonetheless, this event highlights why in current times open innovation is more relevant than it has ever been.
So, I have put down some actionable insights you can use to avoid the pitfalls of a closed innovation mindset.
In this article, you'll learn about:
The definition of open innovation
Why open innovation is more important than ever now
7 actionable insights for avoiding the closed innovation trap
Open innovation vs closed innovation.
Open innovation is simply seeking to innovate in collaboration outside of one's own organization.
What is often forgotten is that in the original description of open innovation, the biggest value was not that you can work better together to deliver one innovation, rather it was that open innovation makes it feasible to test many different ideas with a reduced amount of risk.
From: Chesbrough 2003 (1)
There is also an important distinction to make in regards to the types of open innovation.
Innovation challenges are by definition open innovation. However, innovation challenges are a relatively feeble form of open innovation when it comes to openness. Innovation challenges usually consist of organizations responding to an innovation challenge in a competitive call for solution. This however limits any type of network effect or space in between that can be leveraged to solve unforeseen challenges quickly.
An open innovation network, like a consortium project, on the other hand, builds connections between organizations. This space between or network interstitium makes it easier to access a network effect.
Open innovation more relevant than ever before
The faster the pace of innovation moves, the more sense open innovation makes.
Closed innovation is a scarcity mindset.
It is a mindset that assumes the amount of innovation is limited, so innovation needs to be hoarded. This mindset falters when the pace of innovation is so fast that we cannot predict or even begin to fathom what is next.
If you are closed off, innovating in a bubble, you are likely to fall behind when those outside your bubble move forward. Just like the AI companies that did not see what Deep Seek was about to do coming.
Open innovation is not just about sharing resources. It is also about awareness.
It is also about collaboration, and collaboration is best when there is the time and space to build relationships and trust.
We cannot be closed and anticipate being able to collaborate when the need arises. It takes time to build up the social capital and the trust needed to make collaboration effective.
In an era of fast-paced innovation, this will fail as those with existing bonds will be more capable of reacting to developments and they are likely to be aware of what is coming much sooner.
This is also true of research. Researchers with a closed innovation mindset act as if there are only few major breakthroughs left and it is just a matter of being the first to find them.
Let’s take medical innovation for example.
Medical innovation requires open innovation.
The reality is that the complexity of biology is such that even for therapies that are patented and well established, there remains a lot to learn about their mechanisms.
Instead of hoarding results, a much better strategy is to be open, to build collaborations and to go deeper.
Such a strategy also makes it much easier to combine techniques to meaningfully approach a scientific question.
The resulting papers are the ones that include multiple cutting-edge techniques and adequately sized cohorts or datasets. In other words, the types of papers you see in Nature and Science.
To be a medical innovation leader, you must embrace open science and nurture an open innovation mindset.
Leading medical innovation is about driving change. The best medical science publications are not sufficient to make a change.
“Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.” (2)
The essence of driving change is connecting efforts together, not leadership, not vision, not communication. These are all important to drive connection, but connection should be the goal.
Connection is the substance of open innovation.
What can you do to avoid the closed innovation trap?
1. Get curious
Systematic curiosity is a deep and deliberate form of curiosity that follows a pattern similar to scientific inquiry with observations, hypotheses and testing (3).
“Curiosity is transferable – get obsessed with one thing and suddenly you’re seeing connections everywhere.” Anne Laure LeCunff
Systematic curiosity is also a way to motivate a group to do more.
Within a group, curiosity can be stimulated by:
Questions: probing, clarifying, and stupid
Painting a picture of the future
Iterative delivery - everyone loves to see data
2. Make connecting your default
Seek connections. Don't worry that you will not have time to develop them. Innovation happens best with weak ties.
Engage in some type of forum that exposes you to lots of weak ties.
New opportunities come from the edge of your network, your weak ties. Strong ties give us redundant knowledge. They know what we know.
“Changes and new opportunities happen on the edge of your network (your weak ties), not with the people you are around each and every day (your strong ties).” (4)
3. Present results early and wide
The default is often to hold onto results until everything is polished and ready to go.
By exposing your results early, you begin to stimulate the thoughts of others who will be reminded of something else they have heard about that is relevant to what you are doing.
When you lead with them, questions function like an API that allows you to access the thinking of those around you.
Think of research results as questions.
Thinking of results as questions happens all the time in the context of consortium projects. They spawn new ideas that can be acted on quickly.
4. Discuss the challenges you face openly and widely
People love to help solve problems.
Working together to solve problems is open innovation in its purest form.
5. Make prototyping your communication skill
Working across disciplines is one of the main benefits of open innovation. Prototypes, even if they are just a first draft of a paper, are a powerful way to communicate.
6. Collaborate for the sake of collaboration
Build the trust by helping others, so that when the disruptive new approach comes along you can easily work together to respond.
"Beyond the immediate reasons they have for entering into a relationship, the connection offers the parties an option on the future, opening new doors and unforeseen opportunities." (5)
7. Build out your portfolio of techniques - they are the currency of collaboration.
Techniques are your moat, not a rare finding.
Latch onto opportunities, if anything, with seed projects or pilot projects.
Opportunities rise up all the time. The difficulty is that recognizing an opportunity as a good idea is often all that happens.
We need to take true advantage of open innovation and increase the number of ideas that are being developed and then take the ones that prove to be the best forward.
8. Initiate minimal effort or seed projects.
In a lot of the different projects I have helped guide, one of the best strategies has been to just start an initial effort with the minimal next steps. These either die out or they blossom.
Often, progress on a seed project illuminates what is possible and everyone wants to jump in.
The future belongs to open innovators.
In today's rapidly evolving medical innovation landscape, the Deep Seek breakthrough serves as a powerful reminder that closed innovation is no longer viable.
By embracing open innovation through systematic curiosity, active networking, early sharing of results, and strategic collaboration, medical innovation leaders can stay ahead of disruption rather than being blindsided by it.
The key is not just to implement these strategies when needed, but to make them fundamental to how we operate. In doing so, we create the collaborative infrastructure and trusted relationships that will enable us to respond swiftly and effectively to whatever breakthrough comes next.
The future of medical innovation belongs not to those who guard their discoveries most closely, but to those who build the strongest networks and foster the most dynamic collaborative environments.
Build your open innovation strategy
One of the best ways to build your open innovation strategy is through a consortium project.
The EU funds many consortium projects and for health topics US partners are eligible.
One of the first steps is to securing EU funding is to position your research in emerging frontiers.
Start with my Fundable Frontiers in Medical Research Report - get it for free.
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Referneces
Chesbrough, H. W., & Innovation, O. (2003). The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Cambridge.-2003.
Wheatley, M. & Frieze, D. (2006). Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale. The Berkana Institute. Retrieved from https://berkana.org
Le Cunff, A. L. (2024). Systematic curiosity as an integrative tool for human flourishing: A conceptual review and framework. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1-19.
Reach Out by Molly Beck
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. "Collaborative advantage." Harvard business review 72.4 (1994): 96-108.