Does OPEN INNOVATION equal outsourcing innovation?

Contracting out a business function; be it IT services or Innovation; to an external provider will qualify as outsourcing. So what’s the big fuss about, why is open innovation being mentioned in all innovation forums?

On the face of it – there isn’t much difference.

While the traditional outsourcing based on Cost saving and  on demand resources; allows one to focus on their core business, it is also true for open innovation. However why open innovation is getting popular has more reasons than what meets the eye.

a) Outsourcing focuses on repeatable tasks, open innovation focuses on one- off task. (One would most probably try to open innovate when the answer is not a phone call away; at Bangalore or Beijing)

b) Outsourcing focuses on the getting job done, open innovation focuses on increasing the probability of getting that complex job done. (There are no guarantees in open innovation, but one can surely reduce the risk of not reaching out to a possible great idea)

c) Outsourcing success is based on identifying the right partner for medium to long term, open innovation success is based on having the right processes in place to leverage the long tail phenomenon. (Here the quantity of solutions does not matter, but the relevancy does and this relevancy may not be possible to be bought  from a predefined source) 

d) Outsourcing helps enterprises improve predictability, Open innovation helps enterprises improve novelty in their offerings. (Predictability is hygiene, consumers now want to be delighted)

e) Outsourcing is based on push, open innovation is based on pull. (Push works better for traditional business function outsourcing, Pull works better for creativity and innovation)

Reasons to go for open innovation could be a subset of reasons to go for a typical business function outsourcing, but the former has lot more underneath it.

Seeking a method for attaining extreme cantilever using a coilable material

The Seeker needs to extend horizontally the loose end of a small coil of lightweight stored material without external support -- essentially, achieving a cantilever supported only at one beam end. Material, beam cross-section, and beam structure are on the table -- but your solution must meet strict criteria in terms of size, weight, cost, and coilability.

The seeker envisions that there may be a better engineering or materials solution to our problem than the one we now use. We store a small coil of lightweight material (the coil size can fit in the hand), the loose end of which must extend horizontally from the coil for well over 168 unsupported inches without deflection anywhere along the extended length or at the root of the beam. There is no additional load on the cantilever beam other than the weight of its own material.

All potential solutions must face tight cost constraints. Exotic materials or difficult-to-manufacture options may be non-starters (even if successful solutions) because of costs. Your solution to this cantilever problem will need to be manufactured hundreds of thousands of times, and must cost accordingly.

Some of the constraints applicable

• Tight cost constraints.
• Able to extend horizontally 168+ inches without deflection or support except at one beam end. A greater cantilever extension would be even better.
• Able to store 168+ linear inches of material in a small coil (or in another compact storage form able to be held in one hand) no more than 3-to-5 inches in its largest dimension.
• Gross weight under 1 pound.

Note: Please make sure that only non-confidential information is submitted as part of your solution. You can submit a summary of your solution, however the solution summary should be elaborate enough to convince seeker that you have a solution.

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Seeking to improve thermoplastic (especially polyolefin) performance properties by using additives

Our client is looking to improve the performance properties of polyolefins, polyethylenes, and thermoplastics generally. Additives, ingredients, fillers, modifiers, agents and other methods are all of interest. We are open to new additives that enhance any of a long list of properties, or that can enhance the performance of additives already in use.

Our client's focus is on finding new ingredients, modifiers, or agents that improve the balance of properties of a thermoplastic (in particular, a polyolefin) over what is currently used today. The list of properties of interest includes:

o Lighter weight
o Higher modulus
o Increase tensile strength
o Improve impact resistance
o Improve heat resistance
o Decrease density (while maintaining the same or greater strength)
o Minimize shrinkage
o Improve surface finish, feel, optical appearance, and similar aesthetics
o Improve scratch resistance and surface hardness
o Improve stiffness
o Minimize or eliminate abrasiveness (causes problems during extrusion)

Ideally, your proposed additive would provide new properties in plastics or improvements over anything currently available; or, your additive would maintain current-equivalent properties but at a greatly reduced weight or much lower cost.

Early-stage technologies are acceptable, but it is preferred that you have reduced the technology to practice at least at the lab scale.

CONSTRAINTS

• Safety is important to us. Any new ingredient should not create safety hazards when inhaled during mixing or cause harm during incineration or processing.
• Your additive must work with an extruder (or possibly a compounder). An additive that is too abrasive -- over 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale -- may be harder than the steel in an extruder. We may make an exception for a true nano-scale additive.
• No restriction between organic or inorganic additives.
• We are NOT currently interested in new polymers (unless the polymer is added to polyolefins), new processes, or new machines.

Note: Please make sure that only non-confidential information is submitted as part of your solution. You can submit a summary of your solution, however the solution summary should be elaborate enough to convince seeker that you have a solution.

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This workshop had a single point agenda - define the challenge for open innovation

We recently participated in a 2 day workshop organized by one of our clients. This client is a consortium of agencies funded by United Nations, working towards providing solutions for sanitation and clean water in India. Approximately 50 delegates participated from France, Netherlands and fifteen different states of India.

Here we share some of the best practices followed during the workshop in formulating a challenge for open innovation.

First the no brainer, Schedule a long listening session – Put forward a guideline that only challenges and issues faced are being discussed and not the solution. Make sure to have involvement and participation from all stake holders. The best ingredient to have a right problem is to listen up from a diverse forum with respect to age, geographies, departments, designations or social status, whichever is applicable.

Conquer challenge articulation by dividing it in logical groups – This will help you express the challenge in a way which is much easier to understand by the individual who is likely  to solve it for you. Some of the examples of logical grouping for this workshop were related to culture and mindset, raw material availability and cost. Also this could help you divide the challenge into multiple smaller challenges to be solved independent of each other.

Try not telling the truth! – Telling what you need solved is the best way to get to solutions, but see if you can abstract it from the domain of your challenge. For example if your  sole interest is in reducing the cost of sanitation by reducing the cost of toilet roof then instead of calling it a sanitation challenge call it a “how to reduce the cost of roof” challenge. This way you are keeping it open for the people from construction domain as well, who otherwise, on seeing it as sanitation challenge could end up not considering it.

Simulate the outcome - Know your evaluation criteria well and convert them into specific expectations. Further categorize your expectations as ‘must meet’ and ‘good if met’.

Allocate Reward only after formulating the challenges – Having overall budget for the solution is ok, but put the exact reward only after you have the complete challenge in front of you. The only rule which should be applied while deciding on the reward is making it proportionate to the effort and skill required and the benefit it will deliver to you once obtained. There is no right or wrong answer for this one, but needs a bit of deliberation at the minimum.

Don’t overload the challenge – Don’t add up all the expectation into the challenge such that solvers are confused by too many requirements, perceive it to be too complicated, and don’t take it up for solving. At the same time make sure it has a good enough stretch factor and highlights all your must have expectations.

Do share if there are any additional best practices that worked for you while formulating a challenge for open innovation.

Innovative approach to attract niche talent

The deeper we dig, more ways to leverage collaborative innovation surface.

Companies in search of niche talent all over the world face hurdles in two folds – a) how to reach out to the right forum where the required niche talent frequent and b) how to screen and shortlist.


Here are some of the challenges which are frequently encountered and a possible way out.

Companies like Google have been organizing competitions to lure the right candidates. These competitions provide candidates the flavor of what the company expects and thus attract only the candidates who are genuinely interested. After all one won’t attempt to solve a complex mathematical problem unless she has a personal interest in the subject.

ideaken, offers a SaaS platform for companies to host such recruitment competitions. Companies can define a competition challenge, define an appropriate reward and open it to the entire world. The right reward creates the right pull for the candidates to showcase their skills. Even if you do not end up hiring the winning candidate, you create an impression about your brand and organization culture.

Once the potential candidates put in their solutions, a team of reviewers can screen the solutions, and shortlist the right fitment of candidates. The companies can subsequently take the process forward with these candidates offline.

Usage of ideaken platform for running a competitive requirement campaigns for niche skill provides certain distinct advantages 

a) Smart Short listing - No longer shortlist the candidate just because they have certain keyword in their resume.  

b) Keep the branding - You can hire the platform and brand with your logo and content.  

c) Web Based - everything being web based allows companies to post challenges and recruit people from all over.  

d) Central but not co-located Review Team – as the platform is web based, all the solutions can be reviewed by one review team which effectively brings uniformity to the entire process  

e) Schedule based – since the challenge will follow a certain schedule, the whole process becomes much more streamlined and predictable  

f) Real time dashboard – at any time, you know how many candidates are solving your challenge. Meaning you have a fair idea of the response and may want to promote the challenge in other places  

g) Rewarding the top solution – allows to build brand equity within the community by sending the right message about the innovative culture in the enterprise  

h) Ability to run multiple challenges - platform allows companies to run multiple challenges at the same time.

If you want to move away from the clutter of job portals and resume sourcing consultants and want to directly be in touch with your future employees. If you want to explore a new and innovative way to hiring then, you need to engage and start collaborating with your future employees. ideaken, collaborative innovation platform can help you take your first step towards this innovative hiring.

If you would like to evaluate how this concept could be utilized for your enterprise, please send us a mail at contact@ideaken.com for your competition hosting by ideaken.

Enterprise FAQs on collaborative innovation

Enterprises long ago realized that unless ‘Quality’ is part of every employee at work, on the ground and not in the books, just having a focus group for ‘Quality’ is a waste.

The pageant has reached focus group for ‘Innovation’. If you want to be an innovative company, you better have everybody who can innovate innovating for you, and there better be an established way for doing so. Though there are no arguments on why the leaders or the employees want collaborative innovation, there are few frequently asked questions? We present three of them here.

Would members of innovation focus group of an enterprise be ok with losing some control?
No and then Yes! No because it’s but natural to resist change. However the same team will find themselves benefiting from this change. When they have access to more raw ideas, more diverse solutions, access to more talent, the focus group will realise that they have more time to supervise and align the innovation to the business objectives. The change will allow the focus group to work on implementing the innovation in a manner that benefits the organization, in turn improving the productivity of innovation group.

How can I pick the right solution from all the noise?
Collaborative innovation is all about getting lots of solutions, good ones, bad ones, sometimes even pure trash, but this is part of the deal and needs to be dealt with. Here is how. a) Select the right solver base, even if you have selected all employees or whole world, promote your challenge in a right forum. b) Describe the challenge and be clear on what you want, explicitly state must meet and good if met expectations c) Distribute the task of solution reviews, let there be crowd sourcing even in the evaluation phase.

How can I, as a solver, be sure that my ideas will not be used without paying for it?
There is some possibility of one misusing the spirit of collaborative innovation and not paying for what they use. However there are ways to avoid it, here is how ideaken makes sure this misuse does not happen. a) ideaken makes serious effort to know who is posting the challenge b) innovation seeker accepts terms and conditions where they agree to allow audit on request. c) ideaken encourages enterprise usage of the platform, that means the challenge submission is always from a credible source. d) The entire transaction happens online, so there is an audit trail of everything which is said and shared.

Overall the benefits of collaborative innovation surpasses the challenges it throws at us. And that is one of the reasons why collaborative innovation, open innovation, co-creation is topping the list of innovation agenda of every leader in the enterprise.

Can a bit of insanity nail down the solution?

We all are good at trying the acknowledged path to get to a solution. My question is - will it help if we add a bit of insanity to it?

What if we imagine that the constraints for solving the problem do not exist? If a solution requires air to be passing through the glass, assume it can. If your solution needs a vacuum to operate in the open sky, assume it is available.

Get hold of such multiple imaginary solutions, then start working backwards. Ask what are the alternatives to get those unachievable constraint(s) replaced by something which is practical, while moving your insane solution towards a more practical one.

Reduce one constraint at a time and note down the ideas you get during this elimination. Don’t eliminate your constraint from being there, to not being there in one step, reduce it gradually (if vacuum was the assumption, then assume vacuum available only for one minute in twenty four hours, if it can’t work out, then say it is only available in the closed environment, then, only if there is no way to create the vacuum where your solution will play; then say vacuum is not available).

Reduce the insanity in your solution only when you and your team give up on that particular insanity! Check out if the ideas, the arguments you had during this time are useful to you, if it is, then put it back in your acknowledged path of getting to a solution.

Let’s try an example. A new axe design is required, an axe should be heavy so it can create impact, and light so it is easy to handle. In other words we have contradicting requirements - Axe should be both heavy and light!

What could be insane to think while designing the new axe?

1) Keep on increasing the length of the handle, till the swing provides the desired impact.

2) Make the iron weigh nothing during the swing, but make it heavy when near to the impact.

3) Have an axe filled with heavy liquid, which moved towards the head at the time of impact.

4) One impact creates a ripple of impacts automatically.

5) Grow pre-cut trees, so the axe itself is not needed.

6) The handle does not cut the wood, get rid of the handle.

We do not know what went in the minds of innovator for this new design. But after a few iterations of working backwards, a new axe was designed which sort of achieved both the results of being heavy and light simultaneously.

The center of gravity was moved towards the head by reducing the weight of the handle. Now the axe has more impact and due to hollow handle overall weight of the axe is reduced.

Insane thinking by sane people can lead to a long tail within, and to a desired solution. Give it a try.

Seeking solution for the TRAFFIC JAM (how to avoid and ways to clear it off faster)

Most of the urban cities in India today have a traffic jam problem which results in loss of person hours, causes environmental damage, and increases fuel wastage.

There are thousands of suggestions received to resolve traffic issues by the planning authorities and traffic management agencies across India, however most of them lack either the impact (return on investment), solve too little of a problem or underplay the dependencies which exists to implement those solutions.

Seeker is expecting a comprehensive solution for the “Traffic Jam” problem in the urban cities.

Seeker is expecting solutions for one or both of the following categories.

Category 1 - High impact, low cost, practical, implementable
Category 2 - High impact but DOES NOT NEED TO be low on cost, practical or implementable

Category 2 needs a theoretical solution. Can the solution of traffic Jam come from the problem itself? How do we make the traffic jam problem self heal? Feel free to go WILD with your imagination without thinking about how it can be implemented (Applicable only for category 2)

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Concept overview – collaborative innovation

This concept overview in approximately one minute, tries to convey the When, Why and How of collaborative innovation.

We are compiling the top questions  that enterprises frequently ask when embracing collaborative innovation, open innovation or co-creation. If you have a question on the same then please submit as a comment to this post or send it to us at contact@ideaken.com

We will respond individually to each question, and publish our take on some of the questions in subsequent posts here in this blog.

Why won’t Joe solve my problem?

You might assign the problem to someone, but chances of you asking Joe is real slim.

You may have estimated the effort this solution might require, some of that already used up, but you may not know when you will get a solution or if you will get a solution.  You have a bad problem in hand, but worse is Joe who has a solution for your problem won’t solve it for you.

Here is why - Joe works for a different division!  Joe won’t solve it for you because you won’t ask him, and sure enough Joe won’t get to know that you have such a problem.

Is it possible to find how much an elastic band will stretch without actually stretching it?  Probably yes, a good guess could get you close enough.

Is it possible to find out by how much harder an employee can work for you? May be yes, at least you would know the limitations & boundaries.

But is it possible to find out what your people can solve for you in addition to the work you pay them for? Bit tough, may be you can’t.

In an attempt to leverage this untapped potential - enterprises are now creating a two way specialized pipe within the enterprise, for example a pipe for collaborative innovation. You broadcast your problem to all including Joe via this pipe. All, including Joe tune into this pipe for the challenges the enterprise is seeking solutions for.

Joe is happy to share the solution, provided someone asks for it, a reward of fully paid two nights vacation only makes him happier! 

So is this the end of all innovation challenges enterprise face? maybe not. But if Joe exists somewhere out there, then you will surely not miss out on Joe’s solution.

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ideaken enables enterprises when they need to collaborate to innovate, with employees, customers, research vendors, academia or with global pool of talent.