Open Innovation typically refers to a process where businesses include external users in ideating with their internal teams.
Using your account for Open Innovation is easy to do through Groups. You can create an Open Group that includes external users, where these users will only see posts that they have been invited to participate in.
How to Invite External People And Who Can Do It:
Setting Up Account to Allow External Groups
Open Innovation is defaulted to off - and must be enabled before it can be used. To authorise Open Innovation on your account please access your company setup in: Console > System > Company Setup.
Select Allow Open Innovation.
This will authorise the use of Open Innovation in your account.
Giving Internal Users Permission to Invite External People
Only user who have been assigned the permission to Create Open Group can invite external users.
To authorise Open Group permissions for users on your account please access user permissions in: Console > Selected User Permissions.
Important: Only give internal users this permission who you have authorised to be able to invite external users. External users may be a privacy risk if they are given access to sensitive challenges or sprints. Only invite external users to posts that you want them to participate in.
Creating Open Groups
To learn how to create open groups, check out this ARTICLE.