Perspectives on Innovation

Bob Fucci is InnoCentive’s SAP relationship manager. He has been at TechEd in Berlin this week, getting to know the European SAP community.

Greetings from Berlin!  As I write this, TechEd Berlin is wrapping up. The conference was attended by more than 10,000 SAP customers, partners, and prospects.  It’s a great testimony to SAP customer loyalty and the “trusted advisor” status SAP has earned.

It is a very interesting and fluid community. People seem to be trying to foster and develop an atmosphere of creativity and independence while at the same time finding a meaningful contribution to corporate performance. It’s quite interesting to see.

To my surprise, InnoCentive was the only SAP Partner highlighted by both Zia Yusuf and Leo Apothker during their keynote presentations. Both of them talked about the strategic nature of the partnership and urged attendees to visit our booth. SAP also announced that SDN members who register as Solvers will receive SDN points - a significant number of new registrations happened as a result.

At past SAP events, sales and customers drove the direction and the purpose of the discussion. The sales “white space” was filled with partners and the single focus is to sell more to clients. That’s less true at TechEd. The premium is about education - the “white space” is new and different ways to collaborate. It is much more about “individual brands”, personal stories, shared experiences and for InnoCentive the challenge to tap into that and build the story will be critical.

Our partner manager Martin Raepple, from SAP, won a “Top Achiever” award and was recognized in the keynote session. Congratulations Martin. Martin and I also posted a video that helps describe our partnership and our goals going forward.

Overall this event really opened my eyes to the opportunities presented by the partnership, and the enthusiasm of our global SAP audience.  Thanks to my SAP hosts for a terrific week!

Bob

WNPR will interview Jeff Howe, and Dwayne Spradlin at 9am EST on their live show “Where We Live” tomorrow, Tuesday August 26th. The topic is Crowdsourcing, what it means, and how people are currently taking advantage of the opportunities it brings. I thought it would be great to hear from you, as most of you represent “the crowd” in this metaphor, and have unique perspectives on what it means to you. When does it work, when does it fail? Please share your thoughts - before, during, and after the show airs by adding comments below. I will be monitoring and contributing to the discussion as well.

What:
WNPR: Where We Live: Crowdsourcing - 8.26.08

Listen In Online:
You can hear the show, streaming live online on WNPR.org
If you live in the WNPR area (CT, RI, NY) you can listen to it live on your local WNPR station

When:
Tuesday, August 26th, 9am EST

For those of you not familiar with Jeff Howe’s upcoming book, Crowdsourcing - here is his recently released video trailer. Jeff coined the term “crowdsourcing” with his article The Rise of Crowdsourcing in Wired magazine back in June, 2006, and has written about InnoCentive various times. In fact, Solver Ed Melcarek was profiled in his Wired piece. Needless to say we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of this book!

Many of you have told us that you got involved with InnoCentive because you wanted to work on problems that matter. We just posted a video on our YouTube Channel about an inspiring new Challenge from the Barr Foundation and Cambridge Energy Alliance. Their goal is to improve energy efficiency in room air-conditioners, and in turn reduce peak electricity demand in the city of Cambridge, MA (USA). This solution could have a global impact in the reduction of fuel usage if it is replicated in other cities and countries, and we are very proud to team up with the Cambridge Energy Alliance to help address this problem. Check out the Challenge here. The video is below:

Someone recently said to me, “Dwayne, why do you do what you do?” I suppose I’d been asked that question before, but this was the first time I ever stopped to think about its essence so deeply. Perhaps the best questions come with youth and the best answers with age. I spent some time putting my thoughts into words and decided I would share with you, my InnoCentive family, ‘Why I do what I do.’

When I replayed my own personal journey, I began to realize that there were two experiences, both culminating in moments of self realization, that have shaped me indelibly:

(more…)