Veteran Solvers and new Solvers alike have told us that they enjoy looking through the new Challenges each week. So tell us - what is your favorite Challenge? Which one was the toughest, or the hardest to ignore? Was there one that made you laugh, or peaked your interest? Tell us!
In an excellent posting titled “Building a better collective memory”, Michael Nielsen makes the point that science currently lacks the ‘trust infrastructure’ and incentives necessary for free, unrestricted trading of questions and ideas. Imagine two scientists; each has information that could benefit the other more than it benefits themselves. In an ideal world, they’d exchange this information, and both would be better off. This is the concept of ‘comparative advantage’. Unfortunately, in the real world these scientists:
-Will probably never meet in the first place
-If they should happen to meet, they won’t likely talk about the relevant gaps in their work
-Even if they discuss their needs, they don’t have any basis on which to trust each other enough to engage in collaboration
Michael envisions an ideal “collaboration market” that will enable the open (or at least productive) exchange of ideas. This engendered lots of interesting debate, mostly about why none of the existing collaboration sites, publication archives, and the like are NOT fostering this type of exchange. Since we’ve been thinking about this problem for some time at InnoCentive, I thought I’d share some perspective on what characteristics we believe a collaboration platform needs to be effective.
Fellow InnoCentive Solvers:
I recently noticed that there seems to be a common theme in my life…. that of being open. I use open source software on my computer; Linux, Open Office, Gimp, etc. I contribute to that bastion of open knowledge; Wikipedia. I am open to trying new things; I have started a few companies, learned to snowboard, took up rock climbing, and am currently teaching myself guitar (with NO musical talent in my body). And, I am open to what life throws at me and embrace it for what I can learn from the experience.
Therefore, participating in open source innovation, as facilitated by InnoCentive, seemed like a natural fit for me. During the few months since I started offering solutions, I have been amazed at how many other Engineers and Scientists out there are also open to doing things differently. I may have found my clan!
The New York Times today published a great piece on InnoCentive, featuring our own John Davis, among others. If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone. This is a great sign that Open Innovation is really starting to catch on with the mainstream audience. What a great testament to the brilliance of our Solver network.
Do you have your own blog? Do you enjoy writing on various topics in your field? If you do, we’d love to have you share it with the Solver Network. Please add a comment to this post, with your blog title and URL. We look forward to seeing them!