Based in Camden, N.J., Campbell Soup is the largest soup-maker in the world. It has revenues of more than $7 billion and sells its soups and other food items in 120 countries around the world.  With a 136-year history, Campbell Soups had never before opened its doors for outside innovation.

Until now.

The company recently launched a new initiative, called Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation at www.campbellideas.com. The website invites suggestions for new products, technology, packaging, marketing and business processes.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Campbell had studied successful programs at Procter & Gamble Co. in Cincinnati and Kraft Foods Inc. in Northfield, Ill., before launching its website.

It’s not exactly a wide-open wiki, but it offers folks a way to share their ideas, with  legal protections for both sides.  It’s a start, a recognition that there are new ideas and new ways of doing business — and they don’t have to be invented within company walls to be worthwhile.

I see it as another crack in the monolithic corporate culture of closemindedness –  a little bit of openness, a willingness to listen to customers.

“Open for business” could have a whole new meaning soon.

I had the good fortune to hear Dr. William Duncan, president and chief executive of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, speaking at a meeting yesterday. He was talking to job seekers, professionals who were interested in learning more about the growing life sciences industry here.

The institute is the focal point in the region’s goal to attract and develop the area as a bioscience and biotechnology center of excellence, developing on the natural strengths of the region, which include the clinical research firms based here, the depth and breadth of animal health firms here (five of the top 10 companies have headquarters here, 31 percent of global revenues come from this region).

My favorite part of the discussion was his recollection of the development of the institute, which was founded in 1999, a result of engagement between the Stowers Institute, the Civic Council and the Kansas City Area Development Council (and others).

Early on, the group noted that despite the available assets, the region lacked a major top-tier biomedical life sciences university. The answer, it turned out, was to fill the gap with a collaborative effort between the existing players: the KU Med Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, UMKC, Midwest Research Institute and others.

Dr. Duncan described how the various leaders were not accustomed to working together.

“In the early days, it was difficult to get them to come to meetings,” he said. “But now, the culture has changed and there is a willingness to collaborate.”

So powerful, this collaboration.

In this case, Duncan attributed the collaboration success to a couple of key factors:

• It developed with an empowered board of leaders who set the tone. It wasn’t driven by a single institute, but by many who saw the power in building something greater than could be developed independently.
• It engaged the entire community — both sides of the state line, regional agencies and groups, government, civic groups, business leaders, academia and interested members of the community.  People were able to set aside differences (yes, border wars and deep university allegiances) and focus on building something together.

It was inclusive and that crowning philosophy was a key to the collaboration and to the early success of the region’s development — now home to more than 300 life sciences companies.

But Dr. Duncan had a caution — an additional culture change is needed here.  He described an attitude common on the East and West coasts, where a failed entrepreneur is hailed as a hero. In places like San Francisco and Boston, these types are respected and encouraged, he noted, but here, there’s a tendency to just look at the label: failure.

“We need a culture change in KC,” he said. “We need to accept failure and embrace risk.”

He is not talking about admitting defeat or taking wild risks — he’s talking about driving a change in the prevailing business attitudes here, one that would make us more open to learning from mis-steps and supporting measured risk.  Collectively. Inclusively.

Although Dr. Duncan also spoke with passion about challenges of  technical bioresearch, complex investment/profitability strategies and difficult political scenarios — this was my favorite part of the discussion.   He was just talking about how people deal with each other.

So much of our success with any initiative comes down to how folks can best work together: collaborate, look beyond a label, work toward something bigger than yourself.

I can’t help but wonder if these culture changes might be the most difficult part of Dr. Duncan’s job.

I can’t help but believe that embracing these culture changes might be more even valuable to our region than the life sciences initiative that launched them.

Wednesday afternoon while on a run, I saw my first crocus of the season — a tiny cluster of purple petals with golden faces,  just next to a small snow patch.  At home, I Twittered my delight — well, almost — I stopped.

What does this have to do with business? Why would anybody care? I thought of  the current Doonesbury strip and all the now-trendy criticism of Twitter.

But I kept thinking about it. Then in a moment of serendipity,  Science Friday on NPR discussed the phenologists who are enlisting observers to help document nature’s events — things like the date of the first crocus, first jonquils, first dogwood blossoms. Suddenly, my Twitter-that-almost-was had a meaning — a hyperlocal contribution to the scientific record. As a citizen scientist, my observations can support the development of a predictive model to help us understand the climate. (Plus, I get to share my delight at the same time.)

It seems easier than ever for the individual to contribute to a larger goal in small but meaningful ways. The contributions can be widespread, from hyperlocal to global, gathered and measured and applied.  It’s not just a nice philosophy — mass collaboration,  crowdsourcing and open source models are real and can be applied to drive business results.  See Wikipedia as a real-world success story and Wikinomics for dozens of business applications.  Think of the open source model of software development, where anyone can contribute an improvement — apps,  widgets, ideas. A population of citizen scientists, citizen journalists, developers; a population of contributors.

Oh, count me in!

It’s an open source world and that bodes well for businesses that are willing to participate — that is, to listen to customers who will share ideas and feedback.  It can drive business results — marketshare, customer loyalty, innovation, employee engagement can all be measured in the bottom line.

Let me know if you want to explore more. I’m open.

PS:  There’s more to come on this theme. In upcoming posts, I’ll address:

• the idea of tapping into hyperlocal expertise for news reporting (citizen journalism — I’ve been intrigued by this for a long time).
  
• the naysayers who challenge open source models, not believing in the accuracy of the amateur contributors (perhaps my crocus had actually bloomed on Tuesday and I just didn’t see it then).
  
• the wisdom of crowds and the use of predictive markets as a business tool.
  
• the potential army of spies,  the omnipowerful database and privacy challenges — and how businesses can manage privacy risks.