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Crowdsourcing Strategies for Nonprofits

Jan-12-11 By Aminda
As indicated in a recent post, causes are cool. Today’s nonprofit organization has abundant opportunities to maximize their impact through creative social media efforts. After all, collective activities are not new to philanthropic organizations, which, for generations have had to rally crowds to aid their efforts. The difference is today, they are able to do so even faster and more efficiently, as long as they stay focused.

The Future of Open Innovation

Jan-11-11 By Aminda
2010 was the year that the call of innovation was sounded loud; a key focus for business leaders looking to emerge from recession. The call was answered as creative and business-savvy entrepreneurs are innovating — innovating in response to tomorrow’s, increasingly confident consumer.

Today, almost every large technology company, and a growing number of small ones, have embraced OI as a key strategy. It is now ubiquitous, said consultants, yet2.com. Now, they say, it’s time for OI to be embraced by business units and not just staff functions.

Will Crowdsourcing Continue to Evolve in 2011?

Jan-10-11 By Aminda
2010 may be considered the year crowdsourcing really came into its own, even meriting a nomination for Word of the Year.
Since crowdsourcing itself is no longer new and exciting, in 2011 brands will have to figure out ways to leverage crowdsourcing in product design, while maintaining a strong brand identity, according to the NextWeb blog. What other changes are in store for the practice of crowdsourcing in 2011?

Innovating Services

Jan-06-11 By Aminda
The MIT Sloan Management Review has recently published an article by innovation pioneer Henry Chesbrough that today’s innovators will not want to miss. Called “Bringing Open Innovation to Services," the article challenges all business leaders — even those who deal with products — to think of their business as a service provider.  With services comprising more than 70% of aggregate gross domestic product and employment in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, it's time for a shift in vision.

Innovating Management

Jan-03-11 By Aminda
A recent post outlined Henry Chesbrough’s call to businesses to refocus from strictly innovating products to seeing themselves as a service provider — including the customer in the process of creation. Chesbrough isn’t the only one calling business leaders towards to look outside of R&D processes when it comes to innovation. Here are examples of organization who are sounding the call for the larger business organization to embrace innovation.

Mapquest endeavors to ‘out-open’ Google

Dec-22-10 By Aminda
This week AOL subsidiary MapQuest is launching U.S. online maps edited by the people, for the people. A separate website allows users to chime in with corrections and additions to MapQuest's U.S. maps and label previously unmarked destinations like specific rides at Disneyland or swing sets at their neighborhood parks. The current version of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) has been created by GPS data uploaded by thousands of users along with government data.

Call to Participate in Open Innovation Mapping Project

Dec-21-10 By Aminda
French consulting firm Bluenove recently launched an open innovation map, a platform designed to visualize key players in the field of Open Innovation as well as new creative ecosystems and multi-industry companies on a global scale.
The project aims to consolidate OI players and highlight their projects and initiatives. The UGC (User-Generated Content) feature enables users to join OIM database by subscribing to the project, and then create a network with other participants. OIM database is presented in two views: the map geolocating key players in open innovation (startups, developers, experts, clusters, public/private research laboratories etc.) and the catalog including detailed information about each mapped player.

New Crowdsourced Engine Aids Site Translation

Dec-20-10 By Aminda
Geni, home to the world's largest family tree, has open-sourced their tr8n crowdsourced translation engine. Tr8n was originally developed by Geni to translate their own site. When Geni gave a few dozen users access to the translation tools, they translated the entire site into seventeen languages in less than two weeks, submitting over 15,000 translations. Geni decided to open source the engine so other sites can take advantage of the technology.

Overcoming Creative Lapses

Dec-19-10 By Aminda
Professional writers always have to be armed with an arsenal of strategies for overcoming creative lapses, known as writer’s block. Many of those strategies are easily applied to other functions like R&D. Here are a few ideas from the writer’s toolkit.
Take notes
Whether you prefer pen and paper or your smart phone, create a method to record ideas as they come — whether in the lab, in a seminar, on the bus or on a jog. They don’t have to be detailed or refined notes, just enough to shake your memory at a later time.
Periodically, take some time to review and reorganize your notes. You might see where more research is needed. And you never know when an old idea might inspire a new one.

Crowdsourcing for Small Businesses

Dec-17-10 By Aminda
The opportunities for small businesses seem endless as technology keeps providing tools allowing individuals and modest enterprises to take on a much large presence. The concept of crowdsourcing can equip one person with the tools and insight of, literally, a crowd of hundreds. Crowdsourcing is most typically though of as a way to work done that is technical or artistic, like logo design. But here are a few more creative ways that the concept can be used.
Customer service
If a company is selling a product such as software or an app that is high-touch and requires technical support, consider involving the customers. Set up a community area on where website where customers can interact, ask answer questions and share tips and tricks. The company will need to consider how carefully the space will need to be monitored and moderated by staff representatives.