Innovation competition
Encyclopedia
An innovation competition is a method or process of the industrial process
, product or business development
. It is a form of social engineering
, which focuses to the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas, coming from the best innovator
s.
is seen as a largely creative endeavor, it can also be rigorously managed by viewing and structuring the innovation process as a collection of “opportunities”. Profitable innovation comes not from increasing investment
s in R&D, but from systematically identifying more exceptional opportunities. Terwiesch and Ulrich show how to design and run innovation tournaments: pitting competing opportunities against one another, and then consistently filtering out the weakest ones until only those with the highest profit potential remain.
The aims and the design principles of the innovation competitions are noted in the literature as follows:
- Encourage Adidas
users to participate in an open innovation
process, to inspire their creativity
, and to increase the quality of the submissions.
- Constraints are an invaluable tool for fostering creativity. Idea Crossing’s contestants bound by rules strive to strategize optimal solutions to meet a competition's goal.
- Generate innovations, process and product ideas for SAP Research
and Development through an IT-supported ideas competition among the SAP UCC Community. The concept aims at providing an interface to SAP Human Resources processes in order to identify the most promising students for VCs.
- Siemens
Corporate Technology held an idea competition to help bridge the innovation gap that exists between the different R&D departments and the operational units. The company learnt that idea competitions can be a first step toward more comprehensive innovation processes.
- Innovation competitions are useful in generating radical ideas for the development of new products for the service industry.
- Innovation competitions are sometimes organized by a third party
(an intermediator), instead of the focal company or innovator community. Unfortunately, innovation intermediator studies happen also to be a scarce resource. Chesbrough calls innovation brokers 'innovation intermediaries'.
- Innovation Tournaments
- Idea Crossing
- InnoCentive
Challenges
- Innovation Plant
- OmniCompete
- Research Garden
awarded 1 million US dollars to the winner of Netflix prize
-- the team who by 10% improved the accuracy of predictions about the extent that people enjoy a movie based on their past movie preferences.
On Nov. 16, 2010, General Electric
will announce the winners of its multi-million dollar challenge to find new, breakthrough ideas to create cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid technologies, and to accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies.
Industrial process
Industrial processes are procedures involving chemical or mechanical steps to aid in the manufacture of an item or items, usually carried out on a very large scale. Industrial processes are the key components of heavy industry....
, product or business development
Business development
A subset of the field of commerce, business development comprises a number of techniques and responsibilities which aim at:1. Researching new types of business/products/services with an emphasis on identifying gaps in the mitigation of needs of potential clients .2. Attracting new customers3...
. It is a form of social engineering
Social engineering (political science)
Social engineering is a discipline in political science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.For various reasons,...
, which focuses to the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas, coming from the best innovator
Innovator
An innovator in a general sense, is a person or an organization who is one of the first to introduce into reality something better than before. That often opens up a new area for others and achieves an innovation.-History:...
s.
Innovation competition research
There are few major works, like Terwiesch and Ulrich, who exclusively focus on innovation competitions. They argue, that while innovationInnovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
is seen as a largely creative endeavor, it can also be rigorously managed by viewing and structuring the innovation process as a collection of “opportunities”. Profitable innovation comes not from increasing investment
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...
s in R&D, but from systematically identifying more exceptional opportunities. Terwiesch and Ulrich show how to design and run innovation tournaments: pitting competing opportunities against one another, and then consistently filtering out the weakest ones until only those with the highest profit potential remain.
The aims and the design principles of the innovation competitions are noted in the literature as follows:
- Encourage Adidas
Adidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...
users to participate in an open innovation
Open Innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
process, to inspire their creativity
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
, and to increase the quality of the submissions.
- Constraints are an invaluable tool for fostering creativity. Idea Crossing’s contestants bound by rules strive to strategize optimal solutions to meet a competition's goal.
- Generate innovations, process and product ideas for SAP Research
SAP Research
SAP Research is the global technology research unit of SAP AG with a network of 13 research centers worldwide. Each center is located in close proximity to an SAP development center or on a university campus...
and Development through an IT-supported ideas competition among the SAP UCC Community. The concept aims at providing an interface to SAP Human Resources processes in order to identify the most promising students for VCs.
- Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
Corporate Technology held an idea competition to help bridge the innovation gap that exists between the different R&D departments and the operational units. The company learnt that idea competitions can be a first step toward more comprehensive innovation processes.
- Innovation competitions are useful in generating radical ideas for the development of new products for the service industry.
- Innovation competitions are sometimes organized by a third party
Party (law)
A party is a person or group of persons that compose a single entity which can be identified as one for the purposes of the law. Parties include: plaintiff , defendant , petitioner , respondent , cross-complainant A party is a person or group of persons that compose a single entity which can be...
(an intermediator), instead of the focal company or innovator community. Unfortunately, innovation intermediator studies happen also to be a scarce resource. Chesbrough calls innovation brokers 'innovation intermediaries'.
Innovation competition methodology
- "InnoCoop -method"- Innovation Tournaments
Innovation competitions as business
- Ideedock- Idea Crossing
- InnoCentive
InnoCentive
InnoCentive is an "open innovation" company that takes research and development problems in a broad range of domains such as engineering, computer science, math, chemistry, life sciences, physical sciences and business and frames them as "challenge problems" for anyone to solve them...
Challenges
- Innovation Plant
- OmniCompete
- Research Garden
Examples
In September 2009, NetflixNetflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
awarded 1 million US dollars to the winner of Netflix prize
Netflix Prize
The Netflix Prize was an open competition for the best collaborative filtering algorithm to predict user ratings for films, based on previous ratings....
-- the team who by 10% improved the accuracy of predictions about the extent that people enjoy a movie based on their past movie preferences.
On Nov. 16, 2010, General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
will announce the winners of its multi-million dollar challenge to find new, breakthrough ideas to create cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid technologies, and to accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies.