Perspectives on Innovation

John Michael Zervoulei was the winner of  “InnoCentive’s Choice” for the InnoCentive 2008 Video Challenge.

I have been working in the film and video industry for the better part of 10 years.   A native New Yorker, I was born and raised in the multicultural and artistic surroundings of Lower Manhattan.  With 40 Acres & A Mule Prod. across the street from my Brooklyn high school, I landed my first job as a PA on the set of Spike Lee’s Clockers when I was 16.  It was a great introduction to the NYC film community that laid the foundation for an enduring relationship and the career that followed.

Relying on my skills as a writer, photographer, director, and editor, I try to make each piece an emotionally engaging experience for the viewer.  There is always a beautiful story waiting to be unearthed whether one is selling a product or company, expressing a piece of music in the visual, or documenting a life.  Thriving in collaborative environments, I make it a point to work closely with clients throughout the creative process in order to deliver the best work possible and achieve their goals beyond the utmost level of professionalism.

I discovered the InnoCentive Solver video Challenge while doing corporate video work for Spencer Trask & Co., a venture capital firm in NYC who helped in the raising of its start-up capital.  During one of the investor update videos I produced for them I had the chance to meet with Dwayne Spradlin, Innocentive’s President & CEO.  He mentioned the Solver Video Promo challenge and suggested I check it out.  Thought it might be something right up my alley.   My interests were peaked, but I ended up sitting on it for about a month.  I wrestled with what I would do or whether I would do anything at all.  I can be pretty tough on myself when it comes to creative work and originality is very important for me.  I needed something that would stand out.

Then one day while riding home on the subway inspiration hit.  The words started flowing through my head that would later become the voice over used in the spot.  It was a perfect match for some stock video I’d been licensing and working with at the time to get that global, we-can-change-the-world feel.  I recorded the music with an artist and composer friend, Norville Parchment, and had another, Ron Cole, lay the voice over.  I almost didn’t make the deadline after all my initial hesitation, but, as fate would have it, something caused the boys at InnoCentive to push back the final entry date.  Many late nights later I had it done and now, to my surprise and satisfaction, here we are.

It was a great experience and a fantastic addition to my reel that has impressed many a potential client and employer since.  I’m forever grateful that a place like InnoCentive exists where creative minds can find the opportunity to roam free and make wonderful things happen.

If you’d like to learn more about me, see more samples of my work, or are looking for a talented individual to produce a great video for you, check out my website, www.jmzproductions.com.

The winning video in the 2008 InnoCentive Solver Video Challenge

Earlier this month, InnoCentive launched its third video Challenge, seeking a video that showcases InnoCentive Solvers’ ability to change the world.   This Challenge is one of a growing number of marketing Challenges posted recently to the Marketplace, as Seekers  discover that the InnoCentive Solver Community is a great resource for “voice of the customer” input on products, branding and messaging and new commercial applications for current products.

We learned a few things from our first two video Challenges, and we put those learnings into the writing of this one.  For example:

Solvers know Solvers.  The best videos we received were from people who understood the Solver community and what they would respond to.  The cost to convene a focus group to attain the same results would have been prohibitive.  This is most likely also why we received so many more submissions for the Solver video than for the Seeker video – Solvers were more motivated to create something that they could relate to.

Our Solvers are incredibly creative. We know our Solvers are brilliant, but the creativity we saw in the submissions blew us away.  We realized that if we provided a bit more thought into how we wanted to use these videos, we would probably see submissions that were applicable for a wide variety of uses – some that we hadn’t even considered before.

Our Solvers love to help others. We knew this already too, but hadn’t thought to make “helping others” a core component for this Challenge.  Given that this is a known passion within our Solver community, and that passion drives people to accomplish great things, we’re hoping that adding this element will yield even greater results.

So how will we use these videos?

As we’ve stated in all of our video Challenges, we plan to use the videos in marketing campaigns.  When we said this with our first Challenge, we had no idea whether we’d actually be able to use the winning videos.  However, once we saw the submissions and selected winners, we started seeking out opportunities to show them.  They’ve been seen in sales presentations, at trade shows, on our web site, on our YouTube Channel, in media pitches – anywhere a video is appropriate.   People watching the videos – whether they are Seeker or Solver prospects, instantly understand the value of the InnoCentive crowdsourcing model.

With this Challenge, we’re in the unique position of being our own Seeker client.  It’s a humbling experience to say the least.  Seeing the Client Services team in action is inspiring – the volume of paperwork, questions and requests they receive is massive – yet they keep things running smoothly while managing many Challenges simultaneously.  All with efficiency, courtesy and a much appreciated sense of humor.

This Challenge is important to InnoCentive.   We want to know what our Solvers think about us, and how they would describe us to others.  We hope that these videos inspire more people to become Solvers – and get their chance to help change the world.

Recently InnoCentive posted a Challenge asking Solvers to develop a 30-90 second marketing video to promote InnoCentive and the benefits of being a Seeker. This was a project that grew out of the success of our 2008 video Challenge, where we requested a video highlighting the benefits of being a Solver.

In the Challenge, we asked Solvers to promote, in a persuasive, innovative and fun way, the benefits of being an active InnoCentive Seeker, including the following themes:

Faster time to market for products
Bigger breakthroughs
Lower R&D cost
Access to world class talent
Becoming an Open Innovation Champion
The added value of InnoCentive’s expert support team at every step of the open innovation process.

The response was amazing – we had almost 400 Project Rooms opened for this Challenge. We had many outstanding submissions, and narrowing them down was tough, but we have selected the top five and posted them on the InnoCentive YouTube Channel.  Now we’d like to hear from you.  Go to the InnoCentive YouTube Channel to vote on the video you think is the best, using the YouTube rating system.  We will also hold a vote within InnoCentive to determine which video we think best answers the Challenge criteria.  The two winning Solvers will each receive an award.

Enjoy!

We posted our own crowdsourcing Challenge in November asking our Solver community to develop 30-90 second marketing videos to promote InnoCentive and the benefits of being a Solver. The response was great – we had over 450 Project Rooms on this one Challenge. All the submissions were really good, and narrowing it down to the final seven was tough, but we did that in March and asked the Solver community to vote on their favorite. We here at InnoCentive also voted for our favorite. The two winning Solvers each will receive $5000.

Check them out – both great and with very different approaches. I posted the 2 winners below and in future posts I’ll add more from our finalists, because they are all really good. I was really impressed with the range of creativity and talent – clearly demonstrating that our open innovation community has skills that run deep and wide.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2008 Challenge.

Watch, enjoy and comment below to let us know what you think.

Meg

Voted #1 by the Solver Community:

Voted #1 by InnoCentive Employees: