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A Healthy Dose of Inspiration with Quotes about Ingenuity

Oct-21-12 By IdeaConnection
Get the week (and your brain cells) off to a flying start with these pithy, insightful and revealing quotes about ingenuity.

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

Key Ingredients to make Your Crowdsourcing Challenge a Success

Oct-18-12 By IdeaConnection
A crowdsourcing challenge can be a powerful way to harness external expertise to solve internal R&D difficulties, develop existing products, and generate new ideas.

Though simple and elegant in concept a challenge can be counterproductive in practice without organization, planning, and the following key ingredients:

GSK Opens its Doors Wider to Tackle Global Health Issues

Oct-15-12 By IdeaConnection
Pharmaceutical giant GSK is one of open innovation’s biggest cheerleaders with extensive engagement with external expertise. But there’s still more that it wants to do towards greater openness, transparency and collaboration.

According to a press statement GSK is going to expand its open innovation activities to speed up research and create better drugs to help tackle global health issues.

Open Innovation Can Save Britain’s Future

Oct-15-12 By IdeaConnection
Innovation shouldn't be a closed shop. That’s the message that comes out loud and clear from an article in yesterday’s Observer newspaper in the UK.

Writing about his belief that Britain’s future lies in a culture of open and vigorous collaboration, Will Hutton extols the benefits of co-creation and the pooling together of resources.

For the Crowd’s Eyes Only

Oct-12-12 By IdeaConnection
Bond fans all over the globe are readying themselves for the release of Skyfall and the chance to live vicariously the life of a secret agent for oh, about two hours and twenty five minutes.

But if you have espionage ambitions there is a new crowdsourcing outlet for your inner James Bond.

Open Innovation Lessons from a Corporate Giant

Oct-10-12 By IdeaConnection
Forbes magazine carries an illuminating article on the lessons that can be learned from studying the form of Philips, the Dutch multinational electronics company that is the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world.

Philips was founded in 1891 and so it’s hardly a spring chicken. As Forbes points out it had been struggling to prove that ‘its form of conglomerate enterprise’ still has a role to play in today’s markets where consumers are increasingly calling the shots.

But its fortunes are being transformed and it has discovered a renewed zest thanks to open innovation.

Crowdsourcing the Universe…

Oct-07-12 By IdeaConnection
…well, some of it at any rate. Optical physicist and astronomer Olivier Guyon, one of the 2012 MacArthur fellows has announced his intention to crowdsource planet hunting and is planning to devote some of his fellowship funds to that purpose.

Getting the public and amateur astronomers involved in out-of-this world activities has a long and healthy track record. Think, Galaxy Zoo which asks people to identify the shapes of galaxies, and SETIlive.org that lets participants search for possible cosmic neighbors.

But there’s plenty more space out there to be explored.

Air Cargo Company’s Second Open Innovation Contest Takes Flight

Oct-04-12 By IdeaConnection
German cargo airline Lufthansa Cargo was so impressed with the results of its first open innovation contest that it has decided to host another one.

Last year the focus was on innovative concepts for key supply chain processes, now the company is inviting customers and members of the public to submit ideas to improve customer service in the air freight industry.

 

 

Crowdsourcing Happiness to Create Better Living Spaces

Oct-03-12 By IdeaConnection
On the surface, a UK crowdsourcing initiative into happiness may seem a frivolous exercise that raises a wry smile, but actually there could be some real-life enhancing benefits to it.

Urbangems is a website that is asking members of the public to compare photographs of two views from London and to assess which one best represents happiness, beauty and quiet. The data will be used to rate and rank happy places which could feed into urban design and planning.

8 Powerful Ways Innovation Competitions Can Help Your Organisation

Sep-29-12 By IdeaConnection
Innovation competitions are almost as old as the hills; think Harrison’s marine chronometer and Brunnelleschi’s dome atop Florence cathedral.

Although these contests maybe creaking a little around the joints they are still powerful innovation tools that can help organisations come up with game-changing ideas. Here are 8 reasons why: