The InnoCentive Insider: “Strange” Challenges
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…)
