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Call for Innovation Writers

May-09-11 By Aminda
The European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) is developing a series of books and other print material on innovation that will utilize principles of open access to distribute the material in as free and open a manner as possible.
According to the website, “EAI publications utilize novel collaborative concepts to achieve shorter “time to market” with higher-review-quality publications, while providing a significantly increased impact by utilizing web technologies to obtain massively-connected diffusion systems.”

The State of Open Innovation?

May-03-11 By Aminda
Doug Berger, of Innovate LLC, has published a thought provoking article at Innovation Management on the state of open innovation. In it he addresses areas where open innovation has been valuable, where executives still find it lacking, and presents action steps that can be taken to achieve those desired results.

Innovating Change out of Tragedy

Apr-29-11 By Aminda
2011 may be remembered for its global disasters; from the New Zealand earthquake to the Japan Tsunami’s to the southern U.S. tornadoes this week. If there is any light amidst the tragedy, it could be the developments and improvements that arise from aid efforts.

Transforming Medicine

Apr-28-11 By Aminda
Where does the future of medicine and medical practice lie? There are plenty of opinions and suggestions but the future looks wide open.

In Perfect Partnership

Apr-25-11 By Aminda
Both in business and out, perfect partnerships don’t just happen magically, they take deliberate effort. Innovative companies agree that strong partnerships are important to effectively opening up innovation but how do those partnerships really look in reality? Here are a few practical tips published by Blogging Innovation, provided by the experts at P&G.
Help them help you
First, Kelly McDow, Associate General Counsel for P&G’s Connect+Develop has some tips from a legal perspective.  
She recommends helping your OI partner find a flexible collaborative IP attorney. If they already have one, work with them to engage and educate. This builds the relationship and trust, which only helps make a better deal if one is to be made.

Olympic-sized Innovation

Apr-22-11 By Aminda
The 2012 London summer Olympics are more than a year away but preparations have been underway for some time. Organizers are working with partners, principally Cisco, to develop an IT, telecommunications, audio-visual, timing and scoring network so huge that it's 35 times more capable than that used in Beijing.

Smarter Sourcing Techniques

Apr-18-11 By Aminda
The goal of crowdsourcing usually is to obtain creative ideas or have tasks completed quickly while keeping costs minimal. As the technique gets more attention so do its success stories. And the challenges. Crowdsourcing does not eliminate costs, as illustrated by a project undertaken by the University College London and shared by The Society for Scholarly Publishing.

Facebook’s Open Compute Project

Apr-13-11 By Aminda
Facebook announced last week the formation of their Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative to share specifications and best practices for creating the most energy efficient and economical data centers.




As a first step, they published the specifications and mechanical designs for the hardware used in their new data center, which uses 38 percent less energy to do the same work as Facebook’s existing facilities, while costing 24 percent less. The 147,000 square foot facility is built in Prineville, Oregon, where the naturally cool climate eliminates the need for air-conditioning, instead using filters and fans to pull cool air from outside.

U.S. Considers Changes to Crowdfunded Capital

Apr-12-11 By Aminda
As reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, “Federal securities regulators are moving toward easing decades-old constraints on shares issue by private companies, in a sweeping review that could remake the way American startups raise capital.” Among the proposed changes are relaxed limits on rules related requiring a private company with 500 investors or more to disclose its finances.
The SEC is also considering calls to relax its rules to make it easier for companies to use crowd-funding without having to undergo the full array of disclosure and other legal requirements for share issues. These changes would impact the availability of equity-producing crowdfunded capital, as opposed to crowdfunding efforts currently coordinated by companies such as Kiva.

The Future of Healthcare Innovation

Mar-25-11 By Aminda
What place does open innovation have in the healthcare industry? Here are two examples of how innovators are working to transform the industry on a global scale.
Drug Development
A couple of doctors recently posted a thought-provoking article suggesting that drug development companies could benefit from innovation initiatives such as done by Procter & Gamble’s “Connect and Develop’’ open initiative. “A thoughtfully constructed open innovation platform built around existing medications could offer enormous value in the development of new therapeutics,” they said. Such efforts are blocked by regulators, not entirely to our detriment, according to one commentator, who predicts that “a lot of nonsense would emerge in such online communities, and some of it would actually cause harm.”