Minting COINs

Since the Industrial Revolution and the transition to the Information Age, innovation models have evolved in 3 distinct phases.

First Wave: Clusters

The first wave of modern innovation theory was heralded by those who advocated the development of regional clusters. A business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated

institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally . However,given the

demise and stagnation of several clusters, other researchers have questioned whether cluster theory is still relevant

Second Wave: Open Innovation

The second major wave of innovation theory introduced the notion of open innovation, capturing input from the other members of the innovation supply chain, or “the wisdom of the masses”. Popularized by Henry Chesbrough, open innovation is a construct that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market.

One technique used to engage external networks, suppliers and customers is to create and use collaborative online innovation networks (COINs). A Collaborative Innovation Network, or COIN, is a social construct used to describe innovative teams. It has been defined by the originator of the term, Peter Gloor (a Research Scientist at MIT Sloan's Center for Collective Intelligence) as "a cyberteam of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by the Web to collaborate in achieving a common goal by sharing ideas, information, and work".

COINs feature internal transparency and direct communication. Members of a COIN collaborate and share knowledge directly with each other, rather than through hierarchies. They come together with a shared vision because they are intrinsically motivated to do so and seek to collaborate in some way to advance an idea.

The five essential elements of collaborative innovation networks (what Gloor calls their "genetic code") are as follows:

1. Evolve from learning networks

2. Feature sound ethical principles

3. Based on trust and self-organization

4. Make knowledge accessible to everyone

5. Operate in internal honesty and transparency

Third Wave: Participatory Innovation

The third wave, our present situation, facilitates and supports community based, non-academic or non-firm centric, innovation and entrepreneurship. Bioscience and health communities are a group of people linked by a common interest in biomedicine and health and can be defined by geography, subject interest, or some other common thread, such as users of a particular device or product, those that have a common disease, or groups bound by a particular social mission or desire to create social change in healthcare delivery.

This model has several characteristics:

1. Its users create online collaborative innovation networks (COINs) to collaborate, exchange ideas and innovate that evolve from the bottom up, not the top down.

2. They reside on global Internet-based, mobile information and communications networks.

3. The communities of interest include multiple stakeholders in the innovation chain, including, in the case of healthcare, physicians and patients.

4. The business entity can be for-profit or not-for-profit.

5. Sustainability models vary.

Community based innovation and biomedical and health online innovation networks have the potential to speed new product development, offer alternative financing platforms for early-stage ventures, provide education, information, and support to those with diseases and help to lower the costs and speed of clinical trials. However, questions remain about their effectiveness in creating value, security, commercial and clinical validity, legal status, and sustainability.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship