Perspectives on Innovation

Innovation Program Manager Kevin Mobbs, shares some insights into the RTP Challenges.

Plug and play solutions to long-standing, or technically demanding, problems are few and far between. Almost all novel technologies require considerable development before they are ready for roll out. This is the reality of product & process development – it is very hard work!

As Thomas Edison said “Opportunities are missed by many because they wear overalls and look like work!” Using a Challenge Driven Innovation approach to source solutions, it is key to focus in on the aspects of the problem most amenable to the community of Solvers your channel addresses. There is a great deal we can do to properly position Challenge statements in order to stimulate Solver engagement and perhaps the most influential factor driving this is the deliverable required from the Solver.

Many Reduction to Practice (RTP) Challenges require Solvers to provide solutions, or materials, that have been validated. While there are many advantages to the Seeker organization of having a ‘menu’ of solutions available to be delivered and tested by their in-house experts, the Solver perspective is somewhat different. Typically, fewer Solvers engage in RTP Challenges than in Theoretical Challenges and so some diversity is lost from the ‘menu’ of potential solutions. Higher awards for RTP Challenges are intended to engage Solvers and compensate their investment of time and materials, but this assumes that most Solvers with the insight and intellectual power to innovate a solution also have access to the resources required to produce e.g. a novel nanostructure, or a high-flow particle filter. (more…)

Solver since 2009

Occupation: CEO of Cizzle Biotech
Education: PhD in molecular biology; JD
Residence: United Kingdom
Challenges Awarded: 2

1. Control of Bubble Size in Carbonated Beverages ($15,000 Challenge)
2. Stabilizing an Oil and Food-Seasoning Suspension ($25,000 Challenge)

I stumbled onto InnoCentive while visiting nature.com. I’ve won two InnoCentive Challenges and while the monetary award is nice, equally fulfilling is the satisfaction of solving a significant, real-world problem. You might find it interesting to know that you don’t have to be an ‘expert’ in the field of a particular Challenge to be successful. Take me, for example. I have a PhD in molecular biology but my successful Challenges were in engineering. All you need is a passion for learning and new ideas. Even if you do not win an award, you can’t lose because in any case you will learn something new.

For most of my career, you could say I have been in the business of ideas. During a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, I decided I wanted an alternative career in science and ended up choosing intellectual property. My first job in patents was at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a place I highly recommend for those wanting to move away from the bench but stay on the cutting edge of science. One of the great perks of working in patents, whether at a patent office, a law firm, or in-house, is that you get to see new inventions long before most others.

If you want to move into intellectual property, it is a good idea to have a law degree, so in addition to my day job, I went to law school at night. Going back to college for yet another degree (I already had a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree) and doing so on top of a full time job was not what I would describe as a pleasant, albeit however necessary, experience. Since law school, I have worked exclusively in biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Recently, I had the opportunity to work abroad and jumped at the chance. I now live in the UK and I’m the CEO of Cizzle Biotech, a spin-out of the University of York. Needless to say, I don’t have as much time these days to work on Challenges, so please, take my place and best of luck.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the Collaborative Chronic Care Network (C3N), recently posted a Challenge called “Games for Health: Inspiring Adolescents to take Control of their Health” which is seeking ideas for the design of a video game that would inspire and empower kids with chronic diseases to become more engaged in managing their own illnesses. We asked George Dellal, Project Director for C3N to tell us a bit more about this interesting Challenge.

Hi George – thanks for talking with us today. Can you tell us a bit about the key healthcare issues you are trying to address with this Challenge?

Certainly. Americans currently receive only about 50 percent of recommended care and typically perform only about half of the “self-management” procedures and behaviors necessary to keep them healthy. Traditional approaches to addressing these issues aren’t working quickly enough, that’s why we’re creating the C3N (www.c3nproject.org) - a new system of care to enable patients, clinicians and researchers to collaborate to solve important problems, and use their collective creativity and expertise to act in ways that improve health.

Your Challenge focuses on creating a video game with a social media aspect that will be targeted at adolescent sufferers of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Clearly the solution will need to be something that kids – who are notoriously discriminating in their video game choices – will be motivated to play. What critical issues must the solution address?

We’re looking for the game to do (at least) two main things. Firstly, we need to change patient behavior in the real world – improve adherence to meds and increase patient empowerment and activation. We also want the game to span both patient and clinician community – a bridge to improve clinician / patient interaction.

Do you think the solution to this Challenge could be adapted to adults or to sufferers of other diseases?

Most certainly. IBD is our prototype condition, but much of what we’re designing is applicable to many other chronic diseases. We’re excited about spreading what we learn. (more…)

The following post was written by Tim O’Brien, InnoCentive’s Marketing Manager.

A successful solution contains more than great ideas — the presentation of those ideas is equally vital. Solvers frequently ask us “how should I format my solution?” This is a difficult question, as every Challenge is different and there is no one-size-fits-all solution template (we’ve awarded submissions that range from two paragraphs to over 100 pages). Instead of providing an overly restrictive template or form for submissions, we suggest keeping in mind a few simple guidelines. Below are three past blog posts from our client services teams that highlight some common themes and best practices for developing and presenting a winning solution.

Blog post: 10 Tips for Writing a Winning Solution

Not sure where to begin? Start with these 10 tips based on previous winning solutions. Remember if you have a Challenge-specific question, you can communicate with the Seeker using the “Messages” tab in the Challenge Project Room. (more…)

InnoCentive hosted a webinar featuring our very own Dwayne Spradlin and Alph Bingham, co-authors of the recently published book, The Open Innovation Marketplace: Creating Value in the Challenge Driven Enterprise.

To view a replay of the webinar, please click here. And to download a chapter of the book, click here.

During this live event, which gathered hundreds of participants from Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, Dwayne and Alph discussed what motivated them to write the book, the importance of Challenge Driven Innovation (CDI) and other key open innovation principles, real-world case studies of CDI in action, and how companies can evolve into true Challenge Driven Enterprises.

Audience Polling Results

We asked several polling questions of the audience during the event. Here’s a snapshot of the questions and the participants’ answers:

What are the biggest innovation challenges you face today? (check all)

43% – Measuring the success of your innovation efforts

41% – Time-to-market with new products

33% – Lack of funding and resources

30% – Balancing risk and reward

15% – Increasing cost with diminishing returns

Analysis: Unsurprisingly, time-to-market was a top answer. Yet innovation measurement trumped time-to-market, which is indicative of the difficulty companies face in measuring the success of their various initiatives. Alph dives deeper into this topic in his blog post. (more…)