The good thing about innovation is that everyone is always trying to reach it or work with it. You will never see someone saying something like “My job is very boring – all we do is innovate and innovate”. As a manager, I know how important is to stimulate people to think “outside-of-the-box”, to innovate, and to find new ways to do things (sometimes, new ways to do the same task). Innovation not only results in ideas that can solve problems in an easier way, but it encourages people to keep learning and stay self-motivated in their day-to-day activities.

The first time I ever heard about InnoCentive was when I read Tribo do Mouse blog and in the Wikinomics book. I was thrilled with the idea of companies having a place to post Challenges for the world to solve. Even if you think of huge companies, like GE (that has more than 300K employees) and Siemens (with more than 400K employees), they cannot afford to retain the best people in the world to think about a specific problem, and that is the beauty of InnoCentive’s idea.

When I first accessed the site, I found one Challenge whose objective was to increase collaboration within InnoCentive. Since it was one the topics that I liked the most, I was glad to join as a Solver and send a solution. My solution was chosen as one of the winning Solutions. Although IT was not a common topic at that time, with new partners like SAP start using the site, I am seeing more and more IT-related Challenges, and I’m ready to post new solutions.

These days, you must reinvent your self every 4 or 6 years. I am 35 years old, but when I started work, the culture and the way our performance was evaluated was totally different. For example, work from home and ROWE (Results Only Work Environment – from Best Buy) didn’t exist. To me, solving a Challenge is not just about money, it is about being able to use my creativity, keep myself motivated and open minded. To know that I am able to win a Challenge proves that I am still a valuable resource to the market, and all that I need to do is keep reading and learning. What better way to do that, than find a Challenge, learn more about the subject and post a solution?

Sou um gerente de TI com mais ou menos 18 anos de experiência na área de TI. Durante esse período, eu trabalhei como engenheiro de software no serviço federal de processamento de dados, como consultor para as Nações Unidas e, nos últimos anos, como gerente de TI em uma grande companhia de computadores. Sou casado e vivo Porto Alegre, sul do Brasil.

O interessante sobre inovação é que todo mundo tenta usá-la de alguma forma ou outra. Tenho certeza que você nunca vai ouvir ninguém falando algo do tipo “Meu trabalho é muito chato – a gente fica inovando e inovando o dia inteiro”. Como gerente de pessoas, sei o quão importante é estimular pessoas a pensar “fora-da-caixa”, inovar e descobrir novas maneiras de fazer as coisas (nem que sejam novas maneiras de fazer as mesmas coisas). Não estou falando apenas em criar idéias que solucionem problemas mais facilmente, mas encorajar as pessoas a aprenderem continuamente e se motivarem com suas tarefas diárias.

A primeira vez que eu ouvi falar sobre a Innocentive foi lendo o blog da Tribo do Mouse e no livro Wikinomics. Eu fiquei emocionado com a idéia de colocar em um único local os desafios e dar oportunidade para o mundo inteiro solucioná-los. Mesmo se você pensar em companhias gigantescas, como a GE (com mais de 300 mil empregados) e a Siemens (com mais de 400 mil empregados), eles não podem se dar ao luxo de ter as melhores pessoas do mundo em todas as áreas – e é esse o “pulo do gato” da Innocentive.

Quando eu acessei o site pela primeira vez, encontrei um desafio para melhorar a colaboração dentro do próprio site da Innocentive. Como era uma das áreas que eu mais gosto, fiquei feliz em me cadastrar como um solver e enviar uma solução – que mais tarde foi uma das soluções ganhadoras do desafio. Embora os desafio relacionados com TI não eram muito comuns na época, novos parceiros, como a SAP, estão aumentando bastante o número de desafios relacionados com a minha área. Já estou ansioso para enviar uma nova solução.

Hoje em dia, se reinventar a cada 4 ou 6 anos não é uma opção. E tenho apenas 35 anos, mas desde comecei a trabalhar, profundas mudanças já ocorreram no mercado de trabalho. Por exemplo, trabalhar de casa e ROWE (Result Only Work Environment – Ambiente de Trabalho Orientado Apenas a Resultado, usado na Best Buy) não existiam. Para mim, quando resolvo um  desafio, não estou pensando apenas em dinheiro. Estou pensando em usar minha criatividade, me manter motivado e com a cabeça aberta a novas idéias. Saber que sou capaz de ganhar um desafio prova que eu ainda sou um recurso valioso no mercado de trabalho, e que o que preciso fazer é apenas continuar lendo e aprendendo. E que outra maneira melhor de fazer isso a não ser se cadastrar em um desafio, aprender mais sobre o assunto em questão e criar uma solução?

Read this post in English.

1. Launch of the SAP Innovation and Technology Pavilion – SAP is sponsoring the new SAP Innovation and Technology Pavilion which went live on InnoCentive today.  Here, members of SAP’s Global Ecosystem may post and solve innovation challenges in SAP related areas like Information Technology, Software Design, Computing, and Business Process Improvement.  All members of InnoCentive’s Global Solver Network are eligible to work on these challenges.  In order to inaugurate the new Pavilion, SAP has already posted 4 exciting new challenges of its own.  Have a look!
2. Invitation to SAP’s Worldwide Communities to join InnoCentive Global Solver Network – Open Invitation for members of the SAP Developer’s Network (SDN) and Business Process eXperts (BPX) communities to become InnoCentive Solvers.  SDN and BPX community members total more than 1.4MM worldwide and represent a wonderful opportunity to enrich our presence in a number areas important to InnoCentive Seekers as they roll out InnoCentive across their businesses.  SDN and BPX members are encouraged work not only on SAP Pavilion challenges, but also challenges in all other areas of InnoCentive where they can apply their impressive capabilities to solving relevant problems (and winning awards!).
3. SAP Investment in InnoCentive – SAP invested in InnoCentive, a sign of a truly strategic partnership.

This means that the rate at which Challenges are posted on the InnoCentive network will grow even faster.  SAP works with blue chip firms and non-profit organizations all over the world to which we will jointly evangelize the huge potential of Open Innovation.  Through this partnership, you will have more opportunities to solve more Challenges from more organizations and in a broader array of industries than ever before.

I hope you will join all of us in welcoming SAP and members of the SAP SDN and BPX communities to the InnoCentive family.  By bringing together InnoCentive’s prize based innovation marketplace and the SAP Global Ecosystem, we’re raising the bar on how enterprise organizations leverage and contribute to open innovation via the Web.

As always, we want you to be as excited about this announcement as we are.  Let me encourage you to ask any questions or to offer any thoughts.

Best regards,
Dwayne, CEO of InnoCentive

If you are an SAP Developer or are reading this blog for the first time today, welcome to the InnoCentive Solver Blog, we’d love to hear from you!

Ray Umashankar:
Liz, all the new found wealth generated by India’s prominence as a global IT power has not trickled down to the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Life at the bottom of the pyramid has become even more difficult with rising food and fuel costs.

Working with nonprofits to help abused women and children get back on their feet, our daughter Nita was stunned to discover the hopelessness of the children of sex workers. She knew she would see dire poverty in India, but these children seemed to be the most disenfranchised of all: even the poorest of the poor ostracized them. The fear of HIV/AIDS made it worse.

We found that the majority of NGOs [non-government organizations] working with these children taught them skills such as bag-making or vegetable-vending or sewing, which provide no more than 500 rupees or $12 a month, not sufficient to prevent girls from entering the higher paying sex trade. And there was a lot of competition for these low-paying jobs. I knew they needed something unique, and we came upon the idea of teaching computer skills.

That’s how the nonprofit ASSET India Foundation (Achieving Sustainable Social Equality through Technology) was born. We began to build partnerships and raise funds, while Nita and her mother Dr. Sue Umashankar worked to develop the training program.

The U.S. State Department estimates that forced labor touches 20 to 65 million Indians, many of them women and children. Unknowing parents may be tricked into selling their children into the sex trade by the promise of a better life as the wife of a wealthy man, a movie role or a job in another country. But the children enter a life of indentured servitude little better than slavery.

Vasanthy, the daughter of a former sex worker, was one of them. At 16 she was told she should be in the movies, and with her mother’s encouragement, agreed to go to Dubai for the shooting. In Dubai, she was drugged and physically abused. She finally made her way home to Chennai and is now turning her life around by taking computer classes at ASSET.

“I believe that with the right opportunities and training,” her teacher says, “Vasanthy can join the workforce like any other woman, regardless of her past.” ASSET offers teens like Vasanthy a way out: six- to nine-month sessions that teach marketable skills like English transcription, data entry and use of office-suite software applications to students in groups of 20. ASSET then helps them find entry-level positions in Indian businesses that have a growing need for well-trained employees.

LM:
How will this solution help?

RU:
We have been receiving ten to twelve requests per month from rural towns in India to establish computer centers. Our concern was that there were no businesses and industry in these small towns to provide employment. InnoCentive came to our rescue when we proposed outsourcing work from large cities to small towns in India. We see on a daily basis the positive effects that our training centers have on children who live in the big cities. We are thrilled that we will now be able to extend our services to other parts of the country, educating children so they will be able to escape the sex trade industry in India

LM:
What impressed you about this solution over the many others you received?

RU:
We looked at a number of solutions and selected this one because it was the most comprehensive. It called for hardware parts that were affordable and even suggested places where the parts could be purchased

LM:
How did you find out about InnoCentive?

RU:

ASSET India won the GlobalGiving Foundation fundraising Olympics in November 2006. GlobalGiving, a non-profit organization that connects donors with community based projects around the world, made the Rockefeller Foundation aware of ASSET India and worked with them to get the Challenge posted on InnoCentive.

LM:
What would you say are the benefits of posting on InnoCentive as a non-profit organization?

RU:
By posting the challenge on InnoCentive, we gained access to thousands of highly qualified experts from all over the world. We did not know how to go about finding someone to help us solve our challenge and address a critical need.

LM:
Is ASSET looking to apply this solution in other countries?

RU:
Yes, once our operations stabilize in India, we want to offer the solution to non-profits working in Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Laos and other countries.

LM:
Are there other Challenges you hope to post in the future?

RU:
Yes, certainly. With a 300-million mobile subscriber base and 100 million additions a year, India is set to see a mobile marketing explosion, experts say. We are looking for ways to use wireless technologies for content delivery and will have Challenges to post I’m sure.