Archive for April, 2008
can prizes and contests spur innovation?
This recent piece in Fast Company entitled The Power of the Prize suggests that contests actually work to spur innovation. “They are innovation prizes — think, X Prize — and from their origins in the Age of Discovery in the 1500s, they’ve come roaring back to life in recent years, with foundations, governments, and businesses alike rewarding fantastic achievements. This spring alone, Cisco Systems, eBay, and MIT are expected to announce the winners of major business-idea competitions. Some economists — and some CEOs — believe that public contests have the ability to usher in a new era of progress by leveraging R&D resources to capture diverse imaginations and tackle everything from Web widgets to massive global challenges.”
an innovative gathering…
I look forward to reporting out about a gathering i’m co-hosting this july with friends mac of massive creativity and odin of dig in.
Here’s a teaser: think of it as one part professional development, one part community building, and one part possibility creation. Think of it as a co-creative process that brings together a virtual “all-star” team of change agents.
Why are we interested in this project? We want a space to be re-energized and inspired to think of new projects and possibilities. We also hope that this event will not be a “one-off” type of event, that it will be the touchstone for the development of my own “community of colleagues” across a diversity of geography, issue/interests, and skills.
How do the transformers get space for their own transformation? Our hope is that this event is the first of a series of many events (spontaneous/planned; local/regional/national) that will address that question.
doggie day care in a box
I couldn’t be happier to have discovered this innovation called kong time. My chocolate lab Cole is home all day and this will make him a little happier.
