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We weren't the only ones who loved Bill Taylor's story about BIF Member Rite-Solutions from the New York Times.
Check out what these bloggers had to say [Brand Autopsy insight is really good]:
Brand Autopsy
Schmitt Blog
Casual Fridays
Web X.0
Posted February 28, 2006 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's not often that a small Rhode Island company finds itself on the pages of the New York Times. But several months after BIF-1 storyteller Jim Lavoie shared his Mutual Fun employee ideation game with a room full of inquisitive innovators, that's exactly what happened.
"We believe that the collision of talent and resources at this event will enable opportunities for everyone who participates." This sentence from the pages of the BIF-1 program guide held much promise last year.
Jim Lavoie, who told me after the summit, that he had never given a speech like the one he was asked to do at the summit, inspired many people that day to create their own employee marketplace to "harvest collective genius."
Bill Taylor, co-founder and editor of Fast Company, was so intrigued by Jim's story, he took the time to travel to Rite-Solutions to see it in action. A New York Times article ensued.
"Quiet genius" is what Jim Lavoie calls the creativity that goes untapped inside most organizations. As we move into planning for BIF-2, our vision remains the same: to catalyze thinking about collaboration and innovation across the public and private sectors. Because quiet genius exists everywhere, and it's our job to enable those connections, capture those experiences and help our member organizations explore and test new business models.
So get ready for BIF-2. Already, our line-up includes a 2nd act by Bill Taylor as well as newcomers like Alpheus Bingham, President and CEO of Innocentive and Bob Ballard, legendary marine explorer and BIF research advisor.
Posted February 27, 2006 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)
There's got to be a way to devise a new solution for managing the "lifecycle" of newspapers on the MBTA. I would like to pilot an intervention that enables the efficient recycling or sharing of newspapers among commuters.
Organizer:
Josh Silverman, President, Schwadesign, josh@schwadesign.com
Problem:
Metro International daily newspapers are popular among Boston commuters for their convenience. Free copies are dispensed from boxes or hawked by staff at myriad MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) train and bus stations. Readers discard their papers on empty seats at the terminus of their ride, or add to a typically overflowing trash bin at the station. Stations do not support recycling. With a daily paper circulation of 620,000 in Boston and a daily T ridership of 792,600, a lot of energy is wasted, and available resources not renewed.
Proposed intervention:
We wish to close the loop, bringing awareness to the opportunity of re-using, re-reading, and recycling all commuter newspapers (not just Metros). We seek to develop incentives to do so, making clear the need to respond by every Metro reader (or non-reading T rider) to the recycling or sharing of their newspapers. We seek to involve local art school students to create noticeable recycling bins. We seek to employ additional Metro-identifiable volunteers to take back the papers as commuters exit.
Dream team:
• Local art school student task force to solve a real-world problem
• Metro executive buy-in (saves on printing fees, cuts down on resources)
• Realistic education from printing world on what resource use actually means
• Aware commuters
What will it take:
3-6 months for pilot in one station
9-12 months for boston-wide adaptation
24-36 months for metro-wide implementation
sharp pencils
sharp minds
budget will come from existing expenditures on printing.
What's driving Josh?
i hate senseless waste
i hate senseless litter
simple changes and good thinking can make major impact.
Posted February 22, 2006 by Melissa Withers | Permalink | Comments (0)
A recent profile from Fast Company about XPrize founder Peter Diamandis has spurred some interesting conversations here at BIF. [Diamandis is the guy who conceived the $10 million contest for anyone who could make a suborbital flight twice in two months.]
Of course spurring innovation with a big pile of money is nothing new. Cash has always been a big motivator. But can it consistently be used to spur breakthrough, transformational innovation from education to nanotechnology? Diamandis thinks so.
Just last month, his XPrize Foundation announced plans to offer a $5 million to $20 million prize to the first team that completely decodes the DNA of 100 or more people in a matter of weeks. The foundation itself has evolved greatly over the past year and actively looking o create additional "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity."
Diamandis sees money as a "high-leverage mechanism" for problem-solving - allowing organizations to reach out to sources of innovation wherever they might be. But is it the money or the thrill of the competition? Is it pride of ownership or pride of accomplishment that drives us? Either way, XPrize is a great experiment and potential business model for fostering innovation.
Posted February 21, 2006 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)
Innovations often come from the incidental collision of talent and resources, particularly when people from different backgrounds converge. But it can be hard to find a work environment where these kinds of collisions happen easily and often. I am interested in piloting a solution for creating affordable collaborative work space...an incubator space for enabling collaborative innovation.
Organizer: Melissa Withers, Manager of Market Development, Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation; Communications Director, Business Innovation Factory. mwithers@riedc.com 401.222.2601 x134
Problem: Innovations aren’t usually planned—they typically come from the incidental collision of talent and resources, particularly when people from different backgrounds converge. But unless you’re still in college or particularly adept at socializing, it can be hard to find a work environment where these kinds of collisions happen easily and often.
Proposed intervention:
I am interested in exploring ways to create more collaborative work space where diverse professionals can go about their everyday business and enjoy the benefits of spontaneous collaboration/interaction with others…and maybe do it in a way that reduces the overall cost of maintaining an out-of-the-home work space. I think of it as an incubator space for enabling collaborative innovation.
Dream team:
I know there are people already doing this. I’m just not sure who/where they are. I imagine needing the expertise of
• Urban developers
• Potential Tenants
• Designers who could help imagine the spaces, programs and technologies to make shared spaces truly collaborative and not just an outlet for sharing expenses
• Grant writer, fundraiser, overall money magnet who knows how to secure public and private sector investment
What will it take:
Lots of time and energy. Good marketing. Awareness of how to apportion space, tools and programs in a way that encourages productive interaction.
What's driving you:
Sometimes becoming more collaborative is as simple as adjusting your geography.
Posted February 10, 2006 by Melissa Withers | Permalink | Comments (0)
How can Rhode Island get more aggressive about attracting and retaining young people to its borders? I'm interested in piloting a solution that connects young people with the kinds of exciting and empowering opportunities that will make it worthwhile for them to put down roots in Rhode Island!
Organizer: Matt Guilford, Research Analyst, Science and Technology, Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation; mguilford@riedc.com 401.222.2601 x171
Problem:
Maintaining a community of college-educated young people is essential for regions that wish to be economically competitive and maintain a vibrant creative and intellectual culture. Although Rhode Island has the highest concentration of college students per capita, the state (like many other regions around the globe) struggles to retain young, single college-educated people. This presents a significant obstacle for attracting existing companies and creating new organizations in creative fast-growing industries with high-paying jobs.
Proposed intervention:
Direct policy and government interventions have been relatively ineffective (and expensive) in other regions. Instead, our size allows us to use a network- and relationship-centric approach, building and sustaining connections between students and innovative individuals, organizations and communities in the region. We can also leverage the myriad geographies, histories and people of Rhode Island’s neighborhoods. I’d like to go beyond (but reserve the right to utilize) the job fairs and web portals that are common strategies in other regions.
Dream team:
--Decision-makers from creative local companies.
--Administrators, faculty and staff at local universities.
--Undergrads, grad students and post-docs at local universities.
--Community leaders in hip / young neighborhoods.
What will it take:
1-3 months for information gathering (interviews, focus groups, secondary research, etc.)
3-9 months for pilot in one industry / one neighborhood
9-24 months for state-wide implementation
Support from local universities, businesses and individuals
What's driving you:
I wish I saw more recent college grads (not just students) walking around Providence.
The N-gen crowd is great, and wish I knew you were here before I moved back to RI.
Our size allows us to make REAL connections between students and communities.
Posted February 09, 2006 by Melissa Withers | Permalink | Comments (0)
I have this simple rule: If three people I respect all strongly recommend that I find a way to collide with the same person then I try to make it happen. Early on when I was still forming this silly idea of turning Rhode Island into an innovation test bed and before BIF was even BIF everyone I talked to said that I had to get to know Chris Meyer. Was that ever an understatement!
Chris is the CEO of Monitor Networks and author of the books; It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business, Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, and Future Wealth. I highly recommend his work.
Chris is one of the best thinkers I have found on business model innovation and from our first whiteboard session in his office I knew I had met a kindred spirit. We have since had many such sessions, and Chris has joined the BIF Board of Directors, but I still remember the very powerful idea that Chris doodled on his wall at our first meeting.
Exploration versus Exploitation
We spent our entire meeting riffing on the importance of exploration. The idea that innovation requires a market making versus a share taking mentality and that the most important value creating ideas will require constant exploration before they can take hold at any reasonable scale. This imperative for organizations to explore new business models and the need for a safe and manageable test-bed is why we created BIF.
There is a lot we can learn from the true explorers and often the most important learning comes from surprising places. Over the holiday break I read a great book which I offer up as a contribution to the BIF Bookshelf.
1421, The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies. Menzies presents a compelling and fascinating argument that the Chinese discovered the Americas a full 70 years before Columbus. In fact, he believes that most of the renowned European explorers actually sailed with maps charted by the Chinese.
Talk about a mind blowing proposition. If Menzies is correct everything we learned in history class was wrong. All of our assumptions have to be rethought not to mention the irony as we all wring our hands watching the Chinese economic juggernaut emerge from a very long sleep.
I can’t help but draw parallels to what true business model innovation will require. For starters, a deep re-examination of every underlying assumption driving our current business models and a commitment to real exploration in order to unleash better ways to deliver value.
Here’s to the real explorers.
Posted by Saul Kaplan | Permalink | Comments (0)
The strong support for RI-WINs expressed last week by Rhode Island's leadership provides the most recent indication of the broad consensus that supports building our border-to-border wireless broadband network across the state.
A lot of hard work and a great deal of focus is required to convert such high-level support into effective collaboration and implementation of an innovative wireless network. A broad based collaboration like RI-WINs necessarily involves a lot of different organizations and people, each with a set of distinct, yet overlapping, goals and objectives. The most important job of the RI-WINs team is to find the commonality across our RI-WINs partnership and synthesize it into a powerful value proposition that drives each organization into cooperative action.
There is great logic in sharing costs and benefits across the private and public sectors (enterprises with field workers, state agencies, healthcare providers, educators, local public safety officials) across the state in order to implement and support a common high-performance wireless network. However, it requires compromise and trust, with each organization contributing resources and giving up absolute control over the outcome.
With the implementation of the RI-WINs pilot network, we will begin to see the first fruits from this labor. The pilot is the result of the successful collaboration of a large number of organizations from within and outside of the state - Atrion Networking Corporation; Brown University; Cisco Networks; Cox Business Communications; CVS; IBM; OSHEAN Networks; the RI Departments of Administration, Environmental Management, Health, and Transportation; RPM; Stratum Broadband, and of course, the BIF. I congratulate them all because a successful RI-WINs pilot will demonstrate the power of collaboration and innovation to the rest of the organizations in the state and attract them to join our effort.
Posted February 08, 2006 by Bob Panoff | Permalink | Comments (0)
