Perspectives on Innovation

…excerpted from Complexity Digest 2010.13

Putting organizational complexity in its place, McKinsey Quaterly

Summary: Not all complexity is bad for business “but executives don’t always know what kind their company has. They should understand what creates complexity for most employees, remove what doesn’t add value, and channel the rest to employees who can handle it effectively.

• Source: Putting organizational complexity in its place, Julian Birkinshaw and Suzanne Heywood, McKinsey Quaterly, 2010/05

First replicating creature spawned in life simulator, New Scientist

Excerpts: F YOU found a self-replicating organism living inside your computer, your first instinct might be to reach for the antivirus software. If, however, you are Andrew Wade, an avid player in the two-dimensional, mathematical universe known as the Game of Life, such a discovery is nothing short of an epiphany. (…)

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Ahmet Karabulut is one of the 2009 Top Solvers. His two winning Challenges were Phenylephirine Stabilization Method and Pd recovery and reuse from aqueous.

I am a scientist with backgrounds in molecular biology and molecular genetics. I have been a member of the InnoCentive community for two years. Last year, I solved two theoretical-IP transfer Challenges and I was recently announced as one of the Top Solvers of 2009, along with twelve other people in five countries.

I first encountered InnoCentive through an article in the March 2008 issue of The Science Magazine during a coffee break in the lab, titled “Science and Commerce: Science by the Masses.” The “Science by the Masses” part of the title got my interest immediately. The topic was about open innovation and InnoCentive, Inc. The overall concept seemed like a very unique platform. After reading the article, I was skeptical at first even though it was published in one of the top journals in the world. Nevertheless, I went home that day and registered as a Solver to try and understand the article. I browsed through the open Challenges for a while and, out of curiosity, I submitted a couple of proposals to test myself. Several weeks later, I received serious feedback from the InnoCentive moderators and sincere responses from the Seekers. At the end, the proposal that I submitted for the Phenylephirine Stabilization Method Challenge was awarded.

Later on last year, I won another Challenge award with my submission for the Pd recovery and reuse from aqueous. After I got my second award for this submission, a follow-up Challenge emerged based on my solution. Thus, I have also seen firsthand that my idea is extended to the next level and a new Challenge emerged based on the previous one. With this Challenge, it appeared to me that open innovation had emerged, evolved and became feasible enough for company R&D teams to consider the InnoCentive platform as a standalone part of the troubleshooting and development process for continuous innovation.

I believe innovation emerges from a combination of individual/team creativity and well established problem solving skills. I also believe an incubation phase is required for the process.

The solutions for the Challenges that I was awarded came out spontaneously, similar to a  “Eureka” fashion as described by other Solvers. However I believe this did not happen all of a sudden. Basically, I had reviewed the Challenges in detail, understood the problem in depth and then re-imagined the experimental conditions for my solution. After an incubation phase, I had a solution that I believe would fulfill the solution requirements.

The most enjoyable part of the process was to know that the Seekers were carefully evaluating proposals from anonymous submitters with as much care as the Solvers who were participating. It was obvious that the proposals were reviewed in detail according to the quality of the ideas proposed and the suitability of the solution based on the Seeker’s demands. The whole process was also a very convincing experience for me to realize that this double blind process was indeed a wonderful opportunity for young scientists such as myself.

The InnoCentive team manages the process quite effectively so that the best results are achieved without the Seeker revealing any critical know-how secrets that would otherwise be a serious issue. Since the Seekers already have the background and knowledge to identify effective solutions for their problems, the open innovation approach helps to greatly speed up their R&D process and stimulates their innovation.

InnoCentive has already demonstrated the effectiveness of this concept numerous times, especially when R&D teams have exhausted their internal resources and/or when then they have time constraints to find the best solution for a specific problem. InnoCentive is a great platform both for the innovation Seekers and for the Solver scientists that are interested in providing their knowledge and creativity without any interference.

The success of the InnoCentive community for leading the open innovation concept is based on the emergence of what I believe is known as the “virtual lab tourism,” facilitated by the InnoCentive team. Basically, InnoCentive brings together the world’s most talented people, and lets the scientific experts from different research backgrounds virtually visit the R&D department of the innovation Seekers. These participating Solvers are allowed to provide solutions and recommend new ideas with absolute freedom. For a given Challenge, I am convinced that the best solution can easily come out of such interactions between the innovation Seekers and the Solvers with InnoCentive’s excellent management.

I have always been interested in the Challenges in scientific research and experimentation and I try to learn as much as I can from different scientific disciplines. I should say that I have an intrinsic hunger for information. I also get a lot of satisfaction when I have an opportunity to use such information in research and I have found this opportunity when I joined the InnoCentive community in 2008.

Thanks to InnoCentive for providing me such opportunity to have this fulfilling experience that I enjoyed greatly. I am now very happy to be a member of InnoCentive community and I will continue participating future Challenges.

The days and weeks pass, and oil continues to blast upwards from the bottom of the Gulf. And as time marches on, we continue to receive submissions from you about how to stop the gushing oil and protect the coastline. Because of the importance and magnitude of this disaster, and because we want to keep you apprised of various InnoCentive activity around this Challenge, we are glad to share during the coming weeks the details of several key solutions and ideas we’ve received from you. Today’s post is a summary of a submission by Ed Melcarek, who is a seven-time winning InnoCentive Solver.

This is a stopgap “band-aid” containment solution at the deep water well head. The oil is directed to the surface with a flexible structure resembling an inverted funnel.  This flexible structure is made of “Hypalon” fabric used in making inflatable watercraft, like Zodiacs. It is highly resilient to abrasion, tensile forces, and is inert to volatile hydrocarbons. The inverted funnel structure has ballast weight inside the outer rim pipe perimeter, and is lowered over the leaking wellhead on the ocean floor via a nylon rope tether.

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The days and weeks pass, and oil continues to blast upwards from the bottom of the Gulf. And as time marches on, we continue to receive submissions from you about how to stop the gushing oil.

To date we’ve received over 800 formal submissions and, starting this week, we want to showcase several solutions that exemplify of the breadth and depth of this community’s work on this Challenge. Patterns of solutions have emerged, as well as some very novel approaches to both the gushing well and the clean-up.

It’s been tough getting BP’s attention—tough for the Feds, tough for local seaside communities, and tough for us to get your solutions to the right hands.

But we’re still pushing, still communicating with the right channels.

We will have an update soon from our CEO, Dwayne Spradlin, about our progress and what he knows from the front lines.

Meanwhile, watch for the first in a series of Gulf Oil Spill solution profiles in the next day or two. Who knows—it might be yours.

Excerpted from Complexity Digest 2010-12 by Bruce Hannon

Life after the synthetic cell, Nature

Summary: Nature asked eight synthetic-biology experts about the implications for science and society of the “synthetic cell” made by the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). The institute’s team assembled, modified and implanted a synthesized genome into a DNA-free bacterial shell to make a self-replicating Mycoplasma mycoides.

• Source: Life after the synthetic cell, DOI: 10.1038/465422a, Nature 465, 422″424, 2010/05/26

Inductive Game Theory and the Dynamics of Animal Conflict, PLoS Comput Biol

Excerpt: Persistent conflict is one of the most important contemporary challenges to the integrity of society and to individual quality of life. Yet surprisingly little is understood about conflict. (…) (more…)