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Grading Government Open Technology

Jan-18-11 By Aminda
Innovative companies interested in U.S. government projects will want to check out a report from Open Source for America.  The Federal Open Technology Report Card evaluated key indicators of open government and open technologies developed through online crowd sourcing and refined metrics outlined by the OSFA leadership committee. These included questions regarding public budgets, use of social media, and open source technology practices.

Keeping the Traditional Current

Jan-14-11 By Aminda
Investment education site, The Motley Fool, has posted an insightful profile of house-care products producer, Clorox. The author recommends Clorox as a value stock to purchase following a slump in earnings. What’s interesting, however, is his rational for selecting a company that wouldn’t normally be on the radar of active investors, with its relatively flat stock movement.

He goes on to applaud Clorox for the company’s ability to innovate and keep up with social media, despite being such a large, traditional organization (they have been around nearly 100 years). And despite being a producer of such uninspiring products as toilet bowl cleaner, bleach, trash bags and mops.

The State of Science, Technology and Innovation

Jan-13-11 By Aminda
A recent study published by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reviews key trends in science, technology and innovation (STI) in OECD countries and a number of major emerging economies. Using the latest available data and indicators, the study looks at the role STI will play in recovery from the global economic crisis. While OECD countries show divergent practices, overall, indicators show that investment in R&D has slowed in these countries. For example:

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.