The keynote address was given by Congressman Patrick McHenry, the U.S. Representative for North Carolina’s 10th congressional district and author of the Crowdfunding Bill H.R. 2930, otherwise known as The Entrepreneurial Access to Capital Act, HR 2930.

The video below was filmed by Soho Loft and covers Rep. McHenry’s full speech as well as a description of the bill. It also includes a Q&A session with the audience, and an explanation of how the bill will benefit entrepreneurs.

During its passage through the House the bill enjoyed overwhelming bi-partisan support. It passed by 407-17 and is potentially a game-changer for small businesses; it will allow entrepreneurs to raise up to $2million online from non-credited investors in all 50 U.S. states.

However, it still requires Senate action before it can become law, and there’s no clear sign of when that might be.  The bill is currently being held up by lobbying from the NASAA (North American Securities Administrators Association) because of its concerns about the potential for fraud.

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Throughout February the BBC is interviewing key innovation experts as part of its Future of Work series. Recently, the corporation spoke to Google’s Sebastien Marotte about mobile technologies and how they will shape innovation and the workplace.

He is responsible for developing business strategy and identifying new growth opportunities for Google Enterprise in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and believes that practices such as social networking and the use of cloud computing will radically accelerate the speed with which ideas are developed and brought to fruition.

For many people communicating in the online world is almost second nature; we text and tweet to arrange birthday parties, comment on meals we’ve eaten, spread jokes and debate issues of the day. But the adoption of social media in our business lives has not been as immediate or as extensive.

However, according to Marotte, this is about to change, and that over the course of the next decade the sharing and developing of ideas will be dramatically accelerated by social media, mobile and cloud computing. And this will have a major impact on companies; from how they are run and bring products to market, to how talent is hired and rewarded.

A Google commissioned study with the Future Foundation, gathered opinions from 3,500 employees and 12 innovation experts and concluded that there are three principle areas where future working practices will be drastically transformed.

1. Companies that encourage people to collaborate across locations and borders will reap the benefits.
2. In the future, innovation will increasingly emerge from both inside and outside an organisation, specifically from a grass roots level.
3. Mobile working will fuel more collaborative working.

The message is clear: those companies that engage in online collaborative practices and encourage employees to use the same social media tools in their business lives as they do in their private lives, will be the ones who are best placed to succeed.

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Crowdsourcing comes in for its fair share of criticism as not everyone is sold on its numerous benefits.

But a new study by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University refutes three of the biggest criticisms levelled against this form of open innovation.

The study, “Crowdsourcing New Product Ideas Under Consumer Learning,” set out to investigate the following critiques of crowdsourcing:

1. That only niche products are generated because individuals only have a limited known of a company’s products and services.
2. Consumers come up with infeasible ideas because they have a limited view of a company’s cost structure.
3. A lack of response from companies leads to customer dissatisfaction.

Crowdsourcing Needs the Right Conditions

The researchers found that under the right conditions crowdsourcing creates more knowledgeable consumers, and that in time, this leads to the generation of cost-effective higher potential ideas.

What companies have to understand is how to foster those conditions to create the most beneficial crowdsourcing environment.

“Although crowdsourcing initiatives are being widely adopted in many different industries, the number of ideas generated often declines over time, and implementation rates are quite low,” said Kannan Srinivasan, one of the study’s authors.

“Our findings, however, suggest that a better understanding of the dynamics at work in the crowdsourcing process can help us to address the common criticisms and propose policies that draw out the most consistently valuable ideas with the highest potential for implementation from crowdsourcing efforts in virtually any industry.”

For crowdsourcing to be effective the study authors suggest a number of policies should be implemented:

1. A system for peer evaluation.
2. Rapid response from companies those ideas that receive significant community endorsement.
3. Companies to provide more details about costs so that participants can avoid overestimating the feasibility of their ideas, and underestimating their implementation costs.

Poorly implemented crowdsourcing projects often generate a rush of ideas that have no hope of being implemented, and cost companies time and resources to evaluate them. This new study finds that when crowdsourcing is done right, the quality of the ideas improve while the number of contributed ideas decreases. Therefore screening costs go down and only those ideas with the highest potential for implementation get through.

To read more about the paper’s findings click here.

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The Open Innovation Research Forum, part of the University of Cambridge has released a paper detailing the results of a study of almost 1200 German innovation companies.

According to a report at Open Innovation.eu the scientists behind the paper put forward a hypothesis that there are a number of different innovation-enabling factors that generate greater revenue for organisations that adopt open innovation compared to those that don’t.

“Harnessing the Value of Open Innovation: The Moderating Role of Innovation management” drew on longitudinal, cross-sectoral data from German companies across several sectors. These included mining, food and tobacco, textiles, banking and insurance, housing services, wholesale trade and metals.

Search Openness

The authors define open innovation as the use of “search openness”, that is the use of external sources as an influx for internal R&D. Almost 70% of the surveyed companies said they used one or more external sources, and the paper focused on five of these: customers, research institutions, government, suppliers and competitors.

Then it earmarked four ‘moderating factors’ that could distinguish companies that soak up from these five sources, and those that don’t. These four factors are technology leadership, incentive system, research capacity and cross-functional collaboration.

Overall the paper revealed that the factors more present in open innovation organisations are:

Incentive System

Research Capacity

Cross-Functional Collaboration

“Returns from open innovation are greatest when firms employ a dedicated incentive system for innovation, maintain their own research capacity and advocate strong cross-functional collaboration,” the study explained.

The working paper also concluded that there was no real difference in the benefits from technology leadership between companies that use OI and those that don’t.

Click here to download the full paper.

It was commissioned by the Science Business Innovation Board, and was presented at the European Commission’s Innovation Convention in December.

The report was based on research carried out by the two ESADE Business School professors into how EU policies affect the innovation process.

‘Open Innovation and Public Policy in Europe’ makes a number of key recommendations for public policies to boost innovation and competitiveness in the European economy.

Improve knowledge exchange among organisations – for example some countries have policies that prohibit university faculties from consulting with companies.  So there’s a proposal to allow professors to spend 15-20% of their time on outside activities.

Harmonise the IP regime – it is fragmented across Europe with each county having its own way of doing things. So the report recommends one European-wide patent to reduce costs to businesses of acquiring the protection they need.

Change the research system and make award programs more competitive– at the moment the largest slices of finding are given to the research projects with the most nations represented, as opposed to which are the best proposals.

The full report can be read here.

Since those heady days of the late 1970s there have been countless versions, digital updates and special editions of all six Star Wars movies that have kept the franchise alive.

But the Empire has seen nothing like the latest incarnation, a recently released crowdsourced version that has taken the Internet by storm.

Called Star Wars: A New Hope the crowdsourced film spent nearly three years in production. It is a shot-to-shot copy of the first ever Stars Wars film, and has been put together from hundreds of 15 second segments sent in from all over the world.

The mastermind behind the initiative is web developer Casey Pugh who was inspired by a number of crowdsourced video projects that he had seen on the net.  He wondered if he could do something similar, but on a much grander scale than had been seen before.

He had a particular soft spot for Star Wars and so in 2009 he put out the call for filmmakers to recreate scenes in any way they saw fit. To keep on top of the process he devised a few simple rules.

Participants previewed the 473 scenes available and could choose a maximum of three to work on. If a scene was not completed within 30 days it went back into the general pool. When there were multiple versions of scenes visitors to the Star Wars Uncut website voted for their favourite.

In 2010 a shorter preview of the project won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive media.

However, help was at hand as the crowd rushed in to fill the information void. The Washington Post in collaboration with other media organizations including NPR and the UK’s Guardian newspaper provided an imaginative one-day crowdsourcing solution to help those seeking answers to questions.

All users had to do was ask their question on Twitter with the hasthtag #altwiki, and editors, writers, librarians, trivia obsessives, journalists and students pitched in with their answers.

“While we’re not in the Wikipedia business, this is an experimental, one-day Band-Aid to help out readers,” said David Beard, Sitewide Engagement Editor, Washington Post.

In an entertaining post Guardian writer Patrick Kinglsey explained how he tried to provide some answers with the aid of a few dusty old editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (remember them?)

Examples of questions sent in via Twitter included:

“What is the speed of light in a vacuum?”

“Are pancakes Dutch?”

And the rather bizarre, “Shoot, who played that guy in that thing? You know the one.”

Following on from the Great Wikipedia Blackout the Washington Post blogged about the lessons they felt they had learned from this experimental crowdsourcing initiative which you can read here.

Overall it was a fun project that neatly demonstrated how a crowd can be pulled together at short notice to provide solutions.

With conventional funding sources drying up a new scientific method has emerged; persuading members of the general public to donate small amounts of money instead of applying for grants.

The Nature news feature gives an example of engineer Cesar Harada who had an idea for a low-cost cleanup solution for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He was frustrated by what he perceived to be the slow pace of academic funding and so turned to Kickstarter, a website used by authors, film-makers and artists who need funds for their projects.

Harada set a target of US$27,500, and when the appeal closed he had raised almost $34,000 which was enough to build his prototype robotic solution.

His example is by no means an isolated one, as crowdfunding for research is gaining in popularity.  For example, the #SciFund Challenge involved 49 scientists from numerous disciplines who managed to raise $76,230 for their research projects, from 1440 contributors.

Top Tips

The author of the Nature article offers a few suggestions on how to pitch winning scientific proposals to the crowd, and these include:

• Create a compelling story about your research. Who will it benefit? And how?

• Incentivize the crowd by devising rewards for donors. For example, giving away T-shirts decorated with project logos or, for big donors, a chance to visit your lab.

• Use your social media networks to create a buzz about your research.

Trendspotting website Springwise is highlighting an innovative new crowdfunding platform that takes a hyper-local approach by featuring one business a week and asking the neighbourhood and local community to support it.

Called Lucky Ant (because no ant works on their own), it helps local companies to get off the ground and grow.

So how does it work?

Businesses post a project on the site that they need funding for i.e., the purchase of some new equipment or inventory, along with the target amount. These submissions are screened by the Lucky Ant team and only one business is presented at any one time on the site.

If users like what they see they can pledge some money, and once the target has been reached the funds are released to the business. In return for their help companies can thank their supporters with perks such as free goodies and discounts.

The current example on the site is a fitness studio called Bari that wants to trademark its brand.  In return for a $5 donation community members will receive an exercise ball or a pair of Bari socks; $25 gets a workout DVD and there’s a free class on offer for people who donate $50.

If the target amount is not achieved within seven days the money is returned to all those who pledged.

Currently the service operates in New York, but the plan is to spread it to other cities later this year.

If you ever find it difficult to stick to a plan or goal that you have set for yourself (whether it’s a resolution or another objective at any time of year) why not let the crowd act as a motivator?

HealthRally.com is an innovative crowdfunding website that allows a user’s supporters to contribute money towards a tangible reward for achiveing a goal.

Once a person signs up to the website they can set up a personal challenge for themselves with a deadline and invite friends and family members to pledge their financial and moral support.

Success Story

One success story that is currently featured on the website portrays a 66-year old woman who spent years attempting to lose 10 pounds in weight. She had tried everything including Weight Watchers and a personal trainer.  But success was elusive.

So she signed up to Health Rally and set herself the goal of losing 20 pounds within six months. She garnered 27 supporters who pledged $1150 to help pay for a vacation if she met her target. It was all the motivation she needed and although the going was tough she succeeded.

“It’s sort of a miracle,” Gayle said. “The idea that your friends are watching and supporting you changes the way you think about portions and weight control. It’s different than when you’re just accountable to yourself. It’s a very effective way to keep on track — it really makes a difference.”

Not only do users benefit but the website picks up seven percent on pledges. Perhaps an interesting business model for others to emulate?