This week, the cover story of BusinessWeek, "The Power Of Us," reminds us that "mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business." The long article covers all the new Internet technologies we are using today, from free phone calls using Skype to file-sharing, blogs, wikis and social networking services. As says Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, a mix of different technologies such as the Web, mobile devices, and the feedback system on eBay "may make some new economic system possible." In other words, these new Net technologies are creating a new world, where "the economic role of social behavior is increasing." The whole BusinessWeek article is worth reading, but I want to focus here on InnoCentive, a web-based community matching 80,000 independent scientists (the "solvers") to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies (the "seekers") from around the globe. Read more.
First, here is how some traditional companies are adopting these new tools to face this world of changes.
Traditional companies, from Procter & Gamble Co. to Dow Chemical Co., are beginning to flock to the virtual commons, too. The potential benefits are enormous. If companies can open themselves up to contributions from enthusiastic customers and partners, that should help them create products and services faster, with fewer duds -- and at far lower cost, with far less risk. LEGO Group uses the Net to identify and rally its most enthusiastic customers to help it design and market more effectively. Eli Lilly & Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., and others are running "prediction markets" that extract collective wisdom from online crowds, which help gauge whether the government will approve a drug or how well a product will sell.
And here is Rheingold's vision of this phenomenon.
Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, sees a common thread in such disparate innovations as the Internet, mobile devices, and the feedback system on eBay, where buyers and sellers rate each other on each transaction. He thinks they're the underpinnings of a new economic order. "These are like the stock companies and liability insurance that made capitalism possible," suggests Rheingold, who's also helping lead the Cooperation Project, a network of academics and businesses trying to map the new landscape. "They may make some new economic system possible."
Now, let's focus on InnoCentive.
Back in 2001, the management of Eli Lilly decided to see if thousands of researchers around the world, and available via the Web, could help its own scientists to find new ideas. And it decided to invest a few million dollars in a young startup company, InnoCentive, short for "Innovation Incentive." Eli Lilly was soon followed by PG, Dow, DuPont, Boeing and more than 30 other large companies.
Here is how this collaborative technology works. Imagine that you are a company needing to find an answer to a problem that your own teams have not solved. You, as a "seeker," contact InnoCentive which will post your challenge on the Web, with all the guarantees of anonymity of course. And Innocentive will post the challenge on the Net. Its network of 80,000 independent self-selected "solvers" living in more than 170 countries, will then try to solve this problem.
Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
After a solution is evaluated and accepted, the "solver" will receive an award ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
If you're a chemist, here is the list of current chemistry challenges you can solve. For example, if you find "a method to sequester menthol in a flexible sheet" before September 20, 2005, and if your solution is approved, you will earn $50,000.
And if you're a biologist, you can look at the biology challenges. Imagine you have a good idea to find new "approaches for non-surfactant based laundry detergents." Submit your proposal before June 24, 2005, and you might have a chance to get $20,000.
Here is a pointer to a list of recent winning solvers.
BusinessWeek confirms that this system is really successful.
More than a third of the two dozen requests P&G has submitted to InnoCentive's network have yielded solutions, for which the company paid upwards of $5,000 apiece. By using InnoCentive and other ways of reaching independent talent, P&G has boosted the number of new products derived from outside to 35%, from 20% three years ago. As a result, sales per R&D person are ahead some 40%.
So, if you're an expert in biotechnology or petrochemicals, you might want to join the InnoCentive network. And if you win an award, please drop me a note.
Sources: Robert D. Hof, BusinessWeek Magazine, June 20, 2005 Issue; and various websites
Socialite women meet socialite men and mate and breed socialite children so that we can fund small opera companies and ballet troupes because there is no government subsidy.
—Sugar Rautbord, U. S. socialite fund-raiser and self-described “trash” novelist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Biotechnology
Chemistry
Innovation
P2P
Smart Mobs
Social Networks.