InnoCentive Solvers Help Change the World
Dear Solver Community:
As the year draws to a close, I am writing to you today to say that in 2008, we accomplished great things together.
As “crowdsourcing” and Open Innovation become increasingly important engines of innovation globally, the world has taken notice. In the past year, InnoCentive and InnoCentive Solvers have been chronicled in Science, Time, Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Newsweek, and the New York Times as well as on ABC, NBC, BBC and NPR.
With a record 200+ new Challenges from commercial and Not-for-Profit Seekers, your amazing problem solving abilities have shown through as brightly as ever. In the past few months alone, you have improved the design and efficiency of air conditioners, devised new production approaches for TB drugs, created new materials, and offered actionable ideas to improve the US healthcare system. You have driven innovation into organizations and impacted people’s lives. We at InnoCentive are extremely proud of each and every member of this community and the difference you are making.
And with your guidance, we improved InnoCentive itself. Substantial investments were made this past year in the website. This year we have increased the number of disciplines and pavilions, dramatically improved the look and feel of the websites, added Solver communications and blogging capabilities, and worked hard to foster a sense of community with the use of newsletters, blogs, etc. We have also been testing Challenge-level discussion boards, a feature we will use much more broadly in 2009. Your feedback and involvement has been an integral element of this work and is greatly appreciated.
In the coming year, you will see even more investment to make your experience with us on the InnoCentive website more productive and rewarding. As a result of the Solver Community survey earlier in the year, we have prioritized a number of initiatives for 2009, including: creation of user groups to facilitate discussion and collaboration; better matching of Challenges to your interests; and significant improvements to the My InnoCentive and Project Room areas of the website. These suggestions and many more have become the core of the website work underway at InnoCentive – some of which will go live within the first quarter 2009.
Working together, we will make InnoCentive truly the place the world Innovates.
We wish you the best this holiday season and hope you have a happy, prosperous, and innovative 2009!
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me or any member of the InnoCentive team.
Warm regards,
Dwayne
Tags: Dwayne Spradlin, Innovation, Open Innovation
December 4th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
WE have never seen the winners posted each month
as new seekers, are listed.
If you posted the winners first and then the new requests,
it would make everyone believe,you were an honest company.
Because many of the members of The Institute of Natural Science,
at http://www.naturalscienceinstitute.org have told me
that the seeker companys take ideas and never pay for them.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I agree with huo manly. Winners posted first is a grand idea. It would keep me interested and reading on. I would expect to see his name first for the idea.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hi Hugo and Johnny – thanks for your post.
We do actually publish the winning Solvers on our site – you can find them here –
http://www.innocentive.com/servlets/project/ProjectInfo.po?s=AW
Of course, Solvers must agree to allow us to post their information. Some prefer to remain anonymous, which is why most, but not all of the Challenge winners are represented.
Your post did make me take another look at our site and the page above is a bit buried in the Solver section. Perhaps it would help if we moved it somewhere a bit more prominent, so that it’s easier to find. I’ll check with our IT folks to see if we can make that happen!
Let me know if this addresses your concern – and if you have any other suggestions for us, please keep them coming!
Connie
December 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.
December 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
While posting the solution for the challange i always feel little
hesitation whether the idea/concept is viable or not .
( perticularly for ideation / product design challanges )
i think
in submission form initially the solver should explain the brief
about his idea which will be evaluated by innocentive scientist team
for its approch/feasibility & whether it has potential to explore further
or not. if it is then solver will further develop the concept for the
technical requiremnt to complete solution. if not then it will not be developed
further . this will save a lot of time for the solver to think and develop
the solution. simply abandoning the concept at initial stage will help the
rapid elimination of ideas which are not fully satisfying the solution requirements.
since the solver community is incresing the no of ideas will be more and
it will help the solver to see the other projects than taking more efforts on
the solution which will not be accepted by seeker.
this is my personal opinion. please publish if appropriate.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Hi Sameer,
I appreciated reading your comment to this blog post. You’re absolutely right that encouraging greater interactivity between Seekers and Solvers would improve the experience for both parties. We are planning on developing some new features like the one you mentioned above in order to achieve that more fluid, valuable interaction. In the mean time, I hope that you’re aware that you can informally suggest hypothetical solution ideas via the message center of each Challenge. That’s the best way to ask questions of the Seeker (via our Client Services team) and gain clarification on the Challenge to determine whether you’re thinking through the problem correctly.
Good luck,
Gabriel
InnoCentive Client Services
December 26th, 2008 at 8:25 am
What I find most frustrating is to have a challenge terminated without the provision of any feedback or information on the successful solution at all. It would be easy enough for the seeker and innocentive to provide a summary of the solution or approach taken or key features without giving away proprietary information. The solver may also have to agree to this, but that is unlikelt to be a problem in many cases.
In one case only the seeker provided brief but useful input on my unsuccesful solution. I was very happy to receive this and it felt far far better than the usual slap in the face and ‘your project room has been closed’ message which carries the feeling of ‘you are no longer wanted here, move along’.
I have won two challenges. In one case the seeker apparently wanted to maintain reasonably strong confidentiality, but in the other it would not have been detrimental to the seeker to release a general outline of the solution.
Russell McMahon
January 5th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Can you point me to current challenges that have this “Challenge-level discussion boards” feature? I would like to see it in action.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
i think there are number of fields which need innovative efforts to solve
the challanges & to enhance its effects by human efforts to make this world a better place.
like education, environment,psychology,children,travelling,knowledge
management.Innocentive is good platform for connecting multidisiplinary
people at one place to try something differnt they had never before.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Hi Sjors,
Regarding your request about our new site capability of Challenge-level discussion boards, we currently do not have any active Challenge-level discussion boards. Prize4Life was the first Seeker to incorporate this funcationality as part of their ALS Biomarker Challenge (#4470259). Unfortunately, the challenge recently expired and is currently “Under evaluation” so the discussion board is only available to those Solvers who opened a project room prior to the Challenge deadline.
Challenge-level discussion boards is an optional feature available to all Seekers. Based on our current Seeker conversations, we expect another Challenge-level discussion board to go live within the next 2-4 weeks. As soon as the next discussion board is live, I’ll be sure to blog about it so you will have a chance to participate and see it in action.
As always, we love your feedback. Keep it coming!
January 12th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Sir,
I m a student and I would like to know wheteher the seeker need any qualification or should be a member of a research organization.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Hi Aruna -
I think you might be referring to Solvers in your question. Solvers do not need any special qualification at all – our Solvers include individuals and research organizations, students, professionals, retirees, and people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Research has shown that many of our Challenges are won by people outside their own field of expertise – a chemist solving an engineering Challenge, for example.
Let me know if this answers your question – and thanks for taking the time to read and comment on our blog.
Connie