Listening to Johanna Blakley talk about the fashion industry as a center for innovation even though there is no copyright protection got us thinking about other fields where companies are innovating while having to forgo some traditional intellectual property concerns.  And then we saw this brief discussion of open source innovation with Eric Von Hippel, professor of technological innovation at MIT.

Lego had seven engineers work for seven years to develop Lego Mindstorms--the legendary plastic block company's line of Lego-block robots.  Mindstorms have become the company's top selling item.  But along the way to becoming so popular, the Mindstorms were hacked by some very eager consumers, and changed considerably within a few weeks of hitting the market.  Eric Von Hippel says that Lego's decision to not fight the hackers, but to encourage them, helped the product and the company.  It is a prime example of a company recognizing how consumers have changed, and that the trick to real innovation is working with them.  Here is Von Hippel speaking at the 2008 World Innovation Forum: