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A Front Row Seat on Innovation with IdeaConnection’s Facilitators

Feb-28-14 By IdeaConnection
IdeaConnection’s challenge teams work for short and intense periods to deliver groundbreaking solutions to clients.

Helping them to achieve their creative and problem-solving goals is a team of world-class facilitators.

Periodically, we publish interviews with our most successful facilitators who talk about how they help to drive innovation forward. Here’s a short selection of some of their choicest quotes, with links to the full interviews:

How Companies Can Use Social Media for Innovation

Feb-27-14 By IdeaConnection
With its vast tentacles stretching right across the globe, social media has become a valuable tool for companies to spread the word about their products and services.

Smart consumer-facing organizations also establish their authority and credibility by supplying their social audiences with lots of free, valuable content.

But social media can also play another prominent role in business, and that’s innovation.

Global Conference on Crowdsourcing

Feb-24-14 By IdeaConnection
Wondering how your business can maximize the potential of the crowd? Need to know the right approaches and tools to engage external knowledge sources? This coming April, Singapore will host a Crowdsourcing Week that aims to provide answers to questions such as these and a whole lot more.

This massive global conference is an exploration of the contributions made to business by crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and the collaborative economy.

Crowdsourcing Help for When Words Don’t Come Easy

Feb-22-14 By IdeaConnection
Whether out on a first date, in a business meeting or attending an otherwise important occasion, many of us have been stuck for words at some point. It’s those agonizing moments where the brain is working overtime, but still the sentences don't come. Often you wish the ground would swallow you up or that there was some kind of help at hand.

Fear not, as there is a new crowdsourcing app called Crowdpilot that's designed to get people out of these sticky situations.

Crowdsourced Games to Understand Animal Camouflage

Feb-20-14 By IdeaConnection
Camouflage is the art of not being seen, and in nature it is vital for survival. Predators and prey are able to blend into the background via a number of techniques including coloring and changing body shape to appear similar to another object.

Scientists interested in learning more about camouflage in nature are turning to the crowds for help, and they're using a clutch of research-orientated games.

The Internet of Things: Predictions for Home Automation in 2014

Feb-19-14 By Tom Young
In its short but already prolific history, the Internet has enabled connections between billions of computers (and people) around the world. Thanks to the widespread use of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart thermostats, the much-discussed Internet of Things (IoT) is on the horizon, if not already here.

Built on connections between digital devices and nearly anything that can be monitored or controlled electronically, the IoT holds promise for making homes smarter, improving safety and bolstering digital security. Because these technologies can be used to control everything from garage doors to HVAC systems to small appliances, their consumer implications are immense.

Open Innovation to Shape Vienna’s Future as a Tourist Destination

Feb-18-14 By IdeaConnection
The Vienna Tourist Board wants to put Vienna more firmly on the map by increasing the number of tourists to the beautiful city. So it is turning to the world for ideas through an open innovation competition.

Anyone, anywhere can take part whether or not you've actually been to the Austrian capital. There are prizes for the best ideas including an exclusive trip to the city. Not only are there prizes for the winners, but also for those who vote for them.

Novel Idea Wins Mental Health Open Innovation Contest

Feb-13-14 By IdeaConnection
Congratulations to the two winners of the $10,000 open innovation challenge for ideas to increase awareness and use of mental health services for people in developing countries.

The contest was looking for concepts to help people with depression and anxiety disorders and was hosted by Scientists Without Borders, a program of the New York Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson.

RoboCop Gets the Crowdsourced Treatment

Feb-10-14 By IdeaConnection
Here’s some light-hearted fun. Following on from the success of the crowdsourced "Star Wars" movie another group of film fans have put together a crowdsourced version of a film.  This time, it's a remake of “Robocop”.

The fan version coincides with the big-budget Hollywood reboot of the 1987 science fiction classic.

Open Innovation Hub to Combat Bacteria Threat

Feb-07-14 By IdeaConnection
Microbes will soon have a new enemy, a research and innovation hub to help businesses find novel ways to prevent the spread of bacterial, viral and fungal infections.

The Open Innovation Hub for Antimicrobial Surfaces in the UK will design and develop next generation surfaces and materials to inhibit growth of the germs.