Perspectives on Innovation

In this segment of his Big Think interview, Dwayne talks about how smart companies are taking advantage of the economic crisis.  Smart CEOs are using the crisis to fundamentally rethink their businesses, capture more market share when the economy returns, and change the way their businesses operate to make them more competitive in the future.

We recently announced the renewal of our partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation.  The partnership, first established in 2006, has been overwhelmingly successful in using the InnoCentive “open innovation model” to help non-profit organizations develop solutions on behalf of the world’s most poor and vulnerable populations.  We asked Amanda Severeid from Rockefeller to talk with us a bit about the partnership and the use of prize-based open innovation in the non-profit world.

Hi Amanda – thanks for talking with us.  Why did you choose to extend your partnership with InnoCentive?
Due the success of the Rockefeller Foundation’s previous partnership with InnoCentive, resulting in 10 Challenges with an 80 percent success rate, the Foundation decided to extend the partnership to continue helping non-profit organizations gain access to cutting edge innovation and some of the world’s greatest scientific thinkers and problem solvers.

Why do you think open innovation is a good fit for non-profit organizations? (more…)

My usual answer to the question “What has happened to make Crowdsourcing the ‘it’ trend?” is not at all surprising: the Internet, Globalization, and Broad Acceptance of Social Networking Principles.  But I increasingly believe that there is another that is perhaps equally important and more profound in its impact on our lives.  With credit due someone else for the term I’m sure, I call it “The Changing Nature of Work”.

Now before you dismiss my premise, saying “What work?  Unemployment is out of control!”, hear me out.

I am not talking about the current difficult economy.  Nor am I going to fixate on the positive macroeconomic ramifications of increasing innovation efficiencies through crowdsourcing for organizations.  Those topics get plenty of coverage.

I am talking about the positive and empowering impact on real people and their work made possible by the increasing trend toward project based work on a global scale.  Today, too few have the opportunity to do the work for which they are exceptionally capable and passionate, but that is changing.

Why is this so important?  Because the current system of matching people to work is weathered and insufficient.  As in all things human, there are a multitude of reasons why, but the reality is that billions of people are not doing what they could or should be doing.  They are punching the clocks and doing good work to be sure, but are they doing the kind of work that comes from applying their talents and energy toward the work products for which they have a passion?  In fact some would argue that MOST people are in the WRONG jobs.  The opportunity costs are incalculable. (more…)

Mark Hudson, a Solver from the U.K., recently won the SAP Polestar Innovation Challenge.

I’m the co-founder and Vice President of Product Management at Antivia. After graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University (far too many years ago!) with a BSc (Hons) in Computing and being fascinated  by databases during that time (blimey – I must have been really boring!), I found the application of business intelligence and data warehousing came relatively naturally and inevitably found myself falling quickly into a career focused on business intelligence.

I was lucky enough to start my career right at the beginning of the BI explosion when there were a plethora of BI vendors to choose from. Vendors which are now unfortunately only fondly remembered by employees and ex-customers such as Holistic Systems and Crystal Decisions. My firm favourite has always been BusinessObjects and I have had the enviable opportunity during my career of having worked as a customer, a business partner and an employee of theirs.

My true passion has always been developing software, from very early days of developing basic games on my Commodore 64 to writing my own compiler at university. However, my problem was that I was always a better software designer than developer, hence my career in Product Management rather than Product Development.

In 1999 I realised two of my life goals, firstly to start my own business, secondly to design, develop and sell my own software. Blue Edge Software’s vision was to democratise the delivery of business intelligence information to all areas of an organisation. We grew the business to 15 employees, 15 blue chip customers with annual revenues in excess of $1m and in 2002 we were acquired by BusinessObjects.

Today at Antivia, I still get a huge kick out of designing software with my amazing team, solving real problems faced by organisations deploying business intelligence throughout their organisation. The InnoCentive Challenge that we won gave us yet another opportunity to show how we can solve these problems and has been a great platform for Antivia to showcase our innovative solutions for SAP BusinessObjects customers.

You can find me on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/markhudsonantivia

A few weeks ago, InnoCentive Solver Ed Herrmann Tweeted the following: “Just deposited my Innocentive check for the Polestar Challenge. Now I just need to decide what to buy; suggestions?” He received a few responses, including an enthusiastic suggestion to sponsor a happy hour in Phoenix.  In the end, he used the money to purchase a new server and an SDN Subscription. He’s planning to use the server to run the SAP Web Application Server which comes with the subscription, which will provide him with his own licensed SAP system to use for future SAP related InnoCentive Challenges.

Over the years, we’ve heard about Solvers using their winnings for all manner of things – from philanthropy to upgrading lab equipment to upgrading home entertainment equipment.  John Davis, winner of the OSRI oil spill Challenge is planning to use his winnings to fund a trip to Alaska, to help the Seeker, the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, develop and implement his solution.  In addition, he donated some of his winnings to OSRI to be used toward finding more environmentally friendly methods of cleaning up oil spills.

What about you?  What have you done with your winnings?  If you haven’t yet won an award, what do you think you would do?  Tell us!