Perspectives on Innovation

You know crowdsourcing has become mainstream when it is leveraged as a primary tool for selecting sessions and panels at an event/conference. Next year’s South by Southwest (SWSX) conference, an immensely popular event taking place in Austin Texas, features a “panel picker” that enables the crowd to cast a vote for the sessions they would like to see.

We’d like to engage our crowd to vote for a panel featuring the CEOs of  TopCoder and InnoCentive, Jack Hughes and Dwayne Spradlin, along with Jake Ward of Popular Science who will be moderating the panel.

The proposed panel, titled “Open Innovation: Millions of Us Solving Problems,” will discuss how open innovation and crowdsourcing can transform organizations, either through a breakthrough ‘eureka‘ idea or continuous and incremental improvement of a product or service. The panel will discuss what companies from Netflix to NASA to Toyota have gained from putting their biggest Challenges out in front of the general public, and how attendees can do the same. It will also uncover the key issues organizations need to address when incorporating open innovation communities into their own business plans, and how professional problem-solving communities will evolve in the coming years.

Please take a moment to register and vote!

By the way, as I was reading some of the comments on the registration page, I ran across this one from someone named John: “Interesting…crowd-sourced panel picking for a session on open innovation and crowdsourcing. Pretty appropriate I must say.”

We couldn’t agree more John.

We recently announced the publication of The Open Innovation Marketplace, written by InnoCentive Founder Alph Bingham and CEO Dwayne Spradlin.  In the post below, Alph Bingham shares his thoughts on Challenge Driven Innovation.

Business processes make companies smart. They are one of the primary means for archiving and retrieving institutional knowledge. They are what allows Boeing to build a plane or Pfizer to launch a drug — when in all likelihood NO one employee of any company knows what it takes to accomplish those tasks. But in spite of enabling this almost magical quality of collective knowledge, business processes also make companies dumb. They can archive and institutionalize modes of behavior no longer relevant. They all have a “discard by” date, but too few get discarded on time.

Many of the current business processes related to innovation were forged before the world became “connected.” They assumed a reality that ceased to exist as we rolled into a new century. New innovation processes need to be hung on an innovation architecture that reflects a world where knowledge is fluid, where connections are fast and where outcome transcends geography. Corporate innovation practices assume a closed system — or at least one that is predominately so. Leaders have read much and talked much about the new era of open innovation but how many have rewritten their business innovation processes, how many have changed their metrics for innovation success and how many have gone back and redefined the gate criteria separating the stages of their innovation cycle?

Innovation is risky business. And to manage those risks, project gating criteria are selected that prevent an overabundance of false positives. That is to say that projects likely to fail are periodically reviewed and terminated before they burn too many resources and too much cash. But if those expenses were shared by a partner or better by a network, such terminations would in most instances be premature. (more…)

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 Renate Wortelboer.

Pipes–horizontal or vertical–from which oil leaks under enormous pressure, could be closed by using the strongest magnets available in several sizes.

A custom made, cone shaped strong magnet with a “collar” at its widest diameter to fit the pipe could withstand the pressure of the flowing oil. If this magnet is not strong enough to withstand the pressure, another magnet could be added on top of the cap, like halter weights.

Small crevices could be covered with a layer of small metal and magnets. The entire structure could then be sealed off with bitumen, cold asphalt, synthetic rubber or any other sealing material. To finish, the bedrock could be restored with stones.

Schematic cross-cut overview:

1. Pipe to be closed
2. Main magnet, first placed
3. Extra weights
4. Magnetic “wings” as long as possible
5. Layer of bits of metal & magnets
6. Layer of sealant
7. Layer of stones

Notes:

It could be investigated whether the wings should be attached later or be on the main magnet already. However, an on/off switch will be required for the wings if already attached.

Around the entire structure, to seal it properly, a thick layer of a mixed iron/steel/magnets could be used. When a layer of synthetic rubber, for example, reinforced with any metal is chosen, it would help if the underlying layer still has magnetic properties.

The main magnet could also be composed of magnetic cubes or balls, glued or attached to steel rods to create a cone shape. This might save time.

Resources for further reading:

Cold asphalt: http://www.coldasphalt.com/

Magnet supplier: http://www.supermagnete.nl/eng/index.php

I wanted to get a quick blog out today to share some big news: we have been working tirelessly for several months on redesigning our website – I’m pleased and excited to let you know our launch date is in sight, planned for later this summer!

The new site features improved flows, better and more content, and a complete new look & feel we think you’re going to love!

Solver Input: A couple weeks ago I sent an email to a large portion of our Solvers asking for help reviewing and testing aspects of the redesigned website and its content. We received more than two hundred responses within the first twenty-four hours.

Thank you to everyone who responded to the call!

With your input, we’re more excited than ever about the launch.

We’ll provide a more detailed summary of the changes as well as the launch date in a couple weeks.

Best,
JD

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.