Defining and finding experts

There are more than 365,000 experts in Solver`s community all over the world. 65.8% of them have PhD degree, therefore Innocentive deals with well – educated people, who are engineers, inventors, scientists, etc. (Lakhani et al., 2007).

InnoCentive’s Solver community now consists of more than a third-million creative and talented individuals from nearly 200 countries, with an added reach of 12+ million through strategic partnerships with organizations including The Economist, Nature Publishing Group, and Popular Science. Moreover, Innocentive has partnerships with universities and science academies. They encourage them to participate offering solver’s academic department 10% of any possible award for solving the task (Omics group, n.d.) For example, in Russia, Innocentive has agreements with different universities. As for precise example, Moscow State University, Chemical faculty signed a partnership agreement and organized student Olympiad on chemistry in far 2004 (Rudenko, 2004). Of course, now there are more partnership agreements and more Solvers from Russia participate in Seeker`s challenges. Below you can see a table that shows the geographical classifications of Solvers according to Innocentive corporate blog. The data is a bit obsolete (2009), but still interesting.

Pic. 1. Top countries – participators of Innocentive

The main point of Solvers participation in challenges is they can choose any projects they like, they are not assigned to projects by Innocentive.

Participating in a project solution

In order to become a Solver, a person willing to do it, needs just to register on Innocentive web-site and make a confirmation via e-mail, there is no need to pass tests or somehow proof the intellectual abilities: Solvers directly interested in solving problems and as Seeker choose one`s Solver decision, this decision is professional and valuable. In other words, there is no chance that inappropriate Solver's solution will win an award, and therefore, there is no need to test new Solvers.

Getting reward

In terms of reward receiving, the most successful Solver, offered the best solution (that fit all criteria, and approved by Innocentive audit procedure) receive the payment. There was a concern that companies can take the idea but officially reject it, and not to pay for the best solution, but after some time it became clear that companies take part in challenges are highly respected and don`t misappropriate intellectual property – one of our major challenges in Russia, intellectual property rights are not really respected (Spradlin, 2009). As reassurance for solution submitters, Innocentive has an audit provision in company's agreement with Seekers that permits an audit of any challenge and any solution. The scientific staff of Innocentive is also used as an advocate for the Solvers to ensure that, if Innocentive believes that a solution meets the criteria and should be paid, Innocentive can escalate that kind of challenge right up through the ranks of the Seeker company (Spradlin, 2009).

NineSigma

General description of company’s business

Ninesigma is a company that provides open innovation services. It is based in Cleveland, USA. It was founded in the year 2000 and gained trust among the clients ever since. The main goal of the company is to connect companies and experts to solve different kinds of issues. In 2013 Ninesights program was launched as a platform for open innovation. In the terms of use agreement it is mentioned that the platform cannot be used in countries that the US has sanctions against.

Platform

As for the technologies that the company is using, it is unclear and there are not that many details on it. However, it is essential to mention that all the information that is diclosed on the website is claimed as non-confidential. All the forums that are created on the platform are non-public.

It is certain, that when the user of the platform is registering on the website, the company has the right to obtain the personal information of the members of the community. What is more, there is an additional agreement made when a solution to an issue is posted.

Product

The Ninesights platform is the closest to open innovation model. Through it the company offers consulting services. Ninesights is positioned as a community. The members of the community can communicate directly to each other. The registered seekers and providers of solutions have access to different blogs and discussions, news and activities.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 431