Stefan Lindegaard is a writer, speaker and strategic advisor in open innovation, social media and entrepreneurship. The privilege of traveling the world to meet with business innovation teams and work with them on their issues. This gives me a pretty good understanding of what's happening globally with open innovation, so here's a list of countries that in my opinion are doing well.1. United States. There are no surprises here. This is where it happens. We have the companies, intermediaries/service providers, top academics and the best conferences. There are simply too many to mention here.2. The Netherlands. I have had the opportunity to participate with several Dutch companies such as Philips, which I think can become a great case of open innovation in the near future. I can't wait to see them start sharing their experiences in the innovation community: -) Other exciting companies include AkzoNobel, DSM and Unilever. The Netherlands also has several workshops and events on open innovation.3. Germany. Many Germany-based companies such as BASF, Beiersdorf, Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, Bombardier, Lufthansa and SAP have adopted open innovation or have strong initiatives for the type of knowledge/innovation communities that I think will be very important in the near future. Germany is very well represented in this list: 40 Examples of Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing Germany also seems to be the place in Europe (along with the Netherlands) with the most relevant conferences and events, although several of them are in German. Germany also has several service providers, including hype innovation, which does a good job of educating its customers and the community. I didn't have much trouble naming the US, the Netherlands and Germany for the first three places. Now, it gets more complicated, since I don't think that countries can match these three, although several countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, Sweden, Singapore and South Korea have the potential to develop in active areas, even globally, regionally or perhaps .4. France. I had the United Kingdom in my top 5 list, but I think the fourth place now belongs to France. One of the reasons are service providers, such as Hypios and bluenove (check out the report on open innovation in France). I am also getting in touch with an increasing number of business innovation teams in France, although I must admit that I have not worked with any of them.5. Not decided yet. I'm going to leave this space open and it has to help decide which country to add here. Please leave a comment in the country you choose and why. A big disappointment is the Nordic region and, in particular, Denmark (with the exception of LEGO). Many Nordic companies do well at innovation in general, but they only seem to miss the opportunity for open innovation. They need to achieve their performance or risk being left behind.
