Perspectives on Innovation

In March of this year, we started sending a “Certificate of Performance” for winning Solvers to put on display in recognition of their accomplishment. This month, due to feedback from Solvers in the Winning Solvers LinkedIn group, we decided to send out certificates for every single Challenge awarded to any Solver who had logged in to InnoCentive within the past two years. This translated to over 800 certificates to be printed, stuffed in to addressed envelopes, and then mailed all around the world. I documented the whole process so that you guys can get a peek inside InnoCentive!

A stack of Challenge certificates, all for top Solver Yury Bodrov

The massive pile of certificates. We're going to need some help...

First, we lured everyone in to the conference room.

Then we put them to work

Fueled by pizza, we made short work of addressing and stuffing the envelopes. Here's Mike Bittarelli sorting the enveloped by country.

If you’ve won a Challenge, you should receive a certificate in the mail any day.

Keep on Solving!

by Christian Stevenson, Ph.D.
Innovation Program Manager, InnoCentive

As an organic chemist and Innovation Program Manager at InnoCentive, one of my favorite things to do is to work with our dynamic Solver community to help them solve our Seekers’ pressing problems. I recently had an opportunity to do that in a very direct way when we carried out two surveys of our Solvers. InnoCentive was seeking ways to make Solvers happier with our Novel Molecule Challenges (NMCs, Challenges in which Seekers desire delivery of small amounts of novel molecules for testing in their assays). We did this even though InnoCentive was already giving Solvers an opportunity to find potential uses for the compounds they already had (something we know you’re interested in, but that’s often difficult to do) and get rewarded for it in the process – for a total of over $350,000 in awards to date for NMCs alone.

In response to the survey results, here are the concerns that you, our Solvers, voiced, and what we at InnoCentive are now doing as a result:

1. Clarify the Intellectual Property (IP) implications of participating in NMCs. (more…)

BonnieJean Butler is the newest member of our Client Services team, and is managing the Water Problems Affecting People in Developing Countries Challenge.  BonnieJean spent time in India and offers a unique perspective on the impact of this Challenge.

You and I can help save a life. Yes, you and I. And it’s easier than you think.

During my world-wide travels, I saw hard-working moms walk for miles in the hottest, most humid weather you can imagine. The destination? The closest stream. Why? To fill a bowl of water and walk back those very same miles to bring the water to their babies.

Her goal seems like a simple one, but these moms know the water has something in it that may make their children sick and possibly die. They’ve seen before; so many other babies have already died. Maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this stream is cleaner. Maybe my baby is stronger than the others. Maybe not.  So why do it? Simply, their babies will die quicker without water. What a horrible choice.

In some countries, more than 20% of children die before they reach 5 years old and high bacteria content in water is a major contributor. It’s hard to believe or even imagine if you haven’t seen it. People world-wide are dying because of bacteria-filled water.

We wonder, “can’t they just fix it”? Great question! Here’s your chance to help, and it’s easy! Not like “lose 50 lbs in 3 weeks” easy, but really and truly easy. We are seeking to identify these water related issues and you can help identify and solve them. Submit your own ideas or forward this Challenge to your family, friends, or strangers; whatever it takes.

You don’t have to irrigate the Sahara. Smaller incremental changes or improvements are usually more actionable. Get creative with solutions that use limited funding, but create a big benefit for a population. Think about cost efficient solutions can be deployed quickly and have a wide ranging impact.

Please get involved with this Challenge. You really can make a difference and maybe even save the life of a child. So think about it… And pass it on.

BonnieJean

In today’s InnoCentive Insider, Peter Lohse talks about the curious fact that many Challenges are awarded to Solvers with expertise outside of the Challenge field.

It has been more than six years since I joined InnoCentive and I continue to be fascinated by the business model and the success we have with delivering solutions to our Clients. Our success rate overall was around 30% at the end of 2005 and is now quickly approaching the 50% mark (on average, for Theoretical and RTP Challenges). We do not have an empirical basis yet for comparing this outcome with the effectiveness of internally focused solution efforts. However, considering that many of the Seekers had been unsuccessful in finding a solution to these problems on their own, I would say the solution rate is quite spectacular.

Much of the praise for this success goes to our Solvers. They are the brains, experimenters and composers behind the winning proposals. The Client Services Team at InnoCentive is in the privileged position to be a first hand witness to our Solvers’ tremendous creativity.  Each of us has seen hundreds of successful submissions, hence we have a pretty good understanding of how a proposal should be formulated to have the potential for winning an award. These learnings are available to all of our Solvers through the InnoCentive newsletter or through this Blog. For example recent postings from my colleagues Lisa Reinhold, Eugene Ivanov and Michael Albarelli provide valuable insights in this regard.  While we believe that Solvers who follow these guidelines will submit proposals which are more likely to be successful, we recognize that factors other than the form of a Solver submission will have an influence on winning an award. It’s some these other factors that I would like to discuss. (more…)

Imagine that you invited a contractor to your house and asked him to paint a wall in your dining room blue.  The contractor arrives, looks at the wall and says: “No way, you should paint it pink.”  He thinks for a moment and adds: “Actually, you don’t need this wall at all.  Tear it down!”  He then looks around and suggests: “Better yet, sell this house and buy a new one.”

Sounds strange, doesn’t it?  Well…a couple of months ago, I posted a Challenge for a Seeker who was making a product from Material A.  In order to improve the quality of this product, the Seeker wanted to replace Material A with another material.  A good number of proposals had been submitted in response.  Some Solvers argued that Material B could do the job; some Solvers pointed to Material C; some Solvers suggested taking a careful look at Material D.

But there was one Solver who claimed that there was no need to replace Material A in the first place, because the Seeker would be better off with throwing away his product and replacing it with the product that the Solver had proposed.  When I tried to argue that the Challenge was about a new material and not a new product, the Solver insisted that his solution was of “out-of-the-box” type.  The Solver has also politely intimated that, perhaps, the Seeker simply didn’t know “what he needs.”

I have to admit that this wasn’t the first time in my practice that Solvers implied that a Seeker didn’t know “what he needs.”  So, let me speak a few words in defense of our Seekers.    (more…)