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Call for Nominations Open for Spike Awards

May-05-11 By Aminda
 Join the ranks of Eli Lily and Kimberly Clark as a winner of a Spike Award, recognizing companies using social strategies, processes and supporting technologies to improve innovation, product development and product management.  Nominations are now being accepted for the 2nd annual award presented by innovation consulting firm Kalypso.

New Practices in the News Industry

May-04-11 By Aminda
The newspaper industry knows innovation – it has had to transform itself over the past two decades to adapt to the internet age. Now, in the age of smart phone technology and even faster communication, journalists are again figuring out how to embrace change and use it for good.

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.

Crowdsourcing Better Cities

May-02-11 By Aminda
Several recent news reports have highlighted what organizations around the world are doing to enlist citizens in making their communities and cities better places. Here are some examples.
Cleaning up Grafitti
An innovative New South Wales, Australia website is using crowd sourcing to log incidents of graffiti and forward reports to the appropriate authorities for cleaning up. Currently, when an incident is reported an alert of the damage is sent to local Rotary clubs, which dispatch volunteers to paint over the mess. The website also stores a record of the graffiti or tag, so if an offender is apprehended there is photographic evidence of the damage he or she has done.

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.

American Express Advancing IP Marketplace

Apr-27-11 By Aminda
According to research from financial services provided American Express, U.S. historical data show that only a small fraction of commercially viable IP is being monetized. In response to this pessimistic finding, they have created an Intellectual Property Zone (IP Zone) designed to promote the advancement of the intellectual property (IP) marketplace, including patents, trademarks, software and other IP products.

The Science of Innovation

Apr-26-11 By Aminda
Innovation intermediary Innocentive has announced recent partnerships that should advance the availability and visibility of innovation challenges in the scientific community.
First, in partnership with Popular Science Magazine, an online challenge forum will be co-hosted on PopSci.com and InnoCentive.com. Known as the “Pavilion", it will host an exclusive set of challenges in a variety of scientific disciplines, posted by corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. The magazine will also devise its own Challenges, the first of which will launch in May when the Pavilion goes live.

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.

Crowdsourcing: an ethics dilemma?

Apr-23-11 By Aminda
Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society raised the challenging question as to whether corporate social media is ethical. Is there a “Tom Sawyer syndrome” at work in which people are suckered into doing work thinking that it’s something to be enjoyed, where they are persuaded to complete simple tasks for no pay at all, instead offering recognition within the volunteer community or points in the guise of a game.