Comments on: Why Challenges are Vital to Problem Solving in the 21st Century http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/ Highlighting Global Open Innovation Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:31:20 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Three Innovation Distinctions (part 1) | Business Innovation Speaker and Consultant Stephen Shapiro http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-20954 Three Innovation Distinctions (part 1) | Business Innovation Speaker and Consultant Stephen Shapiro Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:52:41 +0000 http://blog.innocentive.com/?p=582#comment-20954 [...] Good challenges must adhere to the Goldilocks Principle. That is they can’t be too big (broad, novel, abstract – e.g., asking for new ideas) or too small (overly specific). They must be “just right.” As Dwayne Spradlin said in his InnoCentive blog entry on the topic: [...] [...] Good challenges must adhere to the Goldilocks Principle. That is they can’t be too big (broad, novel, abstract – e.g., asking for new ideas) or too small (overly specific). They must be “just right.” As Dwayne Spradlin said in his InnoCentive blog entry on the topic: [...]

]]> By: dave davison http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-20213 dave davison Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:44:16 +0000 http://blog.innocentive.com/?p=582#comment-20213 Dwayne: Defining the Challenge is truly at the heart of the InnoCentive process and, in my experience, can greatly benefit from the inclusion of a master graphic facilitator in the design team. Because the diverse talent necessary to evolve an excellent challenge may be distributed geographically, the ability to convene the challenge design team virtually via the web and to include a master graphic facilitator ( a super whiteboarder) to support the Challenge design team offers an innovative way to address the Challenge Design process..The visualization of the Challenge Design process offers not only a real-time method for recording the thoughts of the design team, but also a post-facto archive for analyzing the Challenge design process and consistently improving it. I applaud your creation of TPRs to accelerate and enhance collaborative solution development. Here, too, integrating the support of a master visualizer could be as valuable to the solver teams as it is to Challenge designers. The other comments to this post reinforce the value of the Team concept for both Seekers and Solvers which, I believe, profoundly differentiates the InnoCentive process from "crowd sourcing" and the dependence on individual Solvers scattered across the web. Properly supported, teams composed of diverse talents will often do a better job than isolated individuals, however innovative they may be. I like your long form blogging method - and your active response to commentary I can see the benefit to InnoCentive and its clients that this continuing conversation provides. Dwayne: Defining the Challenge is truly at the heart of the InnoCentive process and, in my experience, can greatly benefit from the inclusion of a master graphic facilitator in the design team.

Because the diverse talent necessary to evolve an excellent challenge may be distributed geographically, the ability to convene the challenge design team virtually via the web and to include a master graphic facilitator ( a super whiteboarder) to support the Challenge design team offers an innovative way to address the Challenge Design process..The visualization of the Challenge Design process offers not only a real-time method for recording the thoughts of the design team, but also a post-facto archive for analyzing the Challenge design process and consistently improving it.

I applaud your creation of TPRs to accelerate and enhance collaborative solution development. Here, too, integrating the support of a master visualizer could be as valuable to the solver teams as it is to Challenge designers.

The other comments to this post reinforce the value of the Team concept for both Seekers and Solvers which, I believe, profoundly differentiates the InnoCentive process from “crowd sourcing” and the dependence on individual Solvers scattered across the web. Properly supported, teams composed of diverse talents will often do a better job than isolated individuals, however innovative they may be.

I like your long form blogging method – and your active response to commentary I can see the benefit to InnoCentive and its clients that this continuing conversation provides.

]]> By: Leon Benjamin http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-19934 Leon Benjamin Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:09:44 +0000 http://blog.innocentive.com/?p=582#comment-19934 Dwyane - I think Innocentive is to be congratulated for this work because; "A company’s future depends less on the nature of its issues, and more about its capacity to invent social structures able to solve them" Jean Francois Noubel Enjoyed the GE story which reminds me of another quote; “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.” Albert Szent-Györgyi Nobel Laureate (1893-1986) On a slightly tangential note, years ago an executive coach told me he worked with a CEO of a Scandinavian biotech company who's mission statement went something like this; "We will discover a cure for diabetes and then go out of business". Winning by sharing? Dwyane – I think Innocentive is to be congratulated for this work because;

“A company’s future depends less on the nature of its issues, and more about its capacity to invent social structures able to solve them” Jean Francois Noubel

Enjoyed the GE story which reminds me of another quote;

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.” Albert Szent-Györgyi Nobel Laureate (1893-1986)

On a slightly tangential note, years ago an executive coach told me he worked with a CEO of a Scandinavian biotech company who’s mission statement went something like this;

“We will discover a cure for diabetes and then go out of business”. Winning by sharing?

]]> By: Dwayne Spradlin http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-19485 Dwayne Spradlin Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:33:57 +0000 http://blog.innocentive.com/?p=582#comment-19485 Just saw this quote: "The New Frontier is not a set of promises. It is a set of challenges." - John F. Kennedy Wish I had included that in the blog post! Just saw this quote:

“The New Frontier is not a set of promises. It is a set of challenges.” – John F. Kennedy

Wish I had included that in the blog post!

]]> By: TL Clayton http://blog.innocentive.com/2009/11/18/why-challenges-are-vital-to-problem-solving-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-19033 TL Clayton Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:18:43 +0000 http://blog.innocentive.com/?p=582#comment-19033 A friend of mine suggested that I join Innocentive.com and even provided an ISP address. He knew me as an inventive kind of person, who knew a smattering about a lot, and who thought outside the box. I suspect that he thought of it as something I could do as I have had a stroke and confined to a wheelchair and this house. But, that is something we do not talk about. Ever since I saw a TV quiz program which allowed you three external sources, the studio crowd being one of them, I was convinced that the crowd knows a lot. Concerning crowd-sourcing or individuals: I lean more to the separated individual as a part of a small local support group drawing on individual memory. The lone person is likely to be thought of as "weird" by those around him. I find that most of your challenges are very specific. The answers are likely to be inherent in the question. The answer is likely to be specific. Somewhere in this world a person may exist who has the specific answer. Your job is to find that person--be a seive that filters though a vast number of people. Your method of using e-mails and the WWW is just such a seive because the techno person you seek is quite like to use a computer as a tool at home and work and has e-mail. The more is known about the question, the more specific is the answer. The answer is an "unknown" hole in a "sea" of knowns. Think of it as a "background vs foreground" question. The greater the difference between the two, the easier it is to "see" either one. The goal we seek is an unknown hole in that background. What fills up that hole? The goal is too find that person who knows what fits in that hole. Shift your perspective to the 1890's and Thomas Alva Edison and the electric light bulb. The idea is simple. Carrying it out is another thing. What will work as a filament? Would the crowd know that? For your information, the incandescent light bulb didn't hit it big until a neophyte engineer at GE suceeded in extruding tungston and then winding it into a tight spiral. All the old heads "knew" it couldn't be done. Tungston was too brittle, couldn't be extruded, and this was a problem all the old heads had tried to do. That was the standard problem for every neophyte engineer. (The new hire catches all the "shit" jobs, you know.) Would the crowd solve this problem? Some things cannot be put into words. Some times one has see, hear, touch, taste, and smell the problem. Words trivialize things. Words lack the experience of being there. TLC A friend of mine suggested that I join Innocentive.com and even provided an ISP address. He knew me as an inventive kind of person, who knew a smattering about a lot, and who thought outside the box. I suspect that he thought of it as something I could do as I have had a stroke and confined to a wheelchair and this house. But, that is something we do not talk about.

Ever since I saw a TV quiz program which allowed you three external sources, the studio crowd being one of them, I was convinced that the crowd knows a lot.

Concerning crowd-sourcing or individuals: I lean more to the separated individual as a part of a small local support group drawing on individual memory. The lone person is likely to be thought of as “weird” by those around him.

I find that most of your challenges are very specific. The answers are likely to be inherent in the question. The answer is likely to be specific. Somewhere in this world a person may exist who has the specific answer. Your job is to find that person–be a seive that filters though a vast number of people.

Your method of using e-mails and the WWW is just such a seive because the techno person you seek is quite like to use a computer as a tool at home and work and has e-mail.

The more is known about the question, the more specific is the answer. The answer is an “unknown” hole in a “sea” of knowns. Think of it as a “background vs foreground” question. The greater the difference between the two, the easier it is to “see” either one. The goal we seek is an unknown hole in that background. What fills up that hole?

The goal is too find that person who knows what fits in that hole.

Shift your perspective to the 1890’s and Thomas Alva Edison and the electric light bulb. The idea is simple. Carrying it out is another thing. What will work as a filament? Would the crowd know that?

For your information, the incandescent light bulb didn’t hit it big until a neophyte engineer at GE suceeded in extruding tungston and then winding it into a tight spiral. All the old heads “knew” it couldn’t be done. Tungston was too brittle, couldn’t be extruded, and this was a problem all the old heads had tried to do. That was the standard problem for every neophyte engineer. (The new hire catches all the “shit” jobs, you know.) Would the crowd solve this problem?

Some things cannot be put into words. Some times one has see, hear, touch, taste, and smell the problem. Words trivialize things. Words lack the experience of being there.

TLC

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