Open Innovation in 140 Characters (or less)

Posted by cbonner on May 25, 2012 @ 11:58 am

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We are all familiar with and understand the phrase “Less is more”. It’s the very notion that simplicity and clarity lead to good form. The thought first appeared in print via a mid 19th Century poet Robert Browning and the phrase has been used to describe the stylings of architect and furniture designer Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. If you’re drawn to the simplistic and clean designs IKEA is now famous for, you can thank Van Der Rohe. Even the Wu-Tang Clan had their way of expressing this classic sentiment during the song “As High as Wu-Tang Get” when they uttered, “Make it brief son, half short and twice strong”. It’s a truism and something we innately feel to be correct. Yet when it comes to Open Innovation, the space as a whole struggles to very concisely explain the processes, the why behind, and the benefits that can be realized.

This past week TopCoder and Innocentive teamed-up in Washington, D.C. for a special event. Presented by the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, the gathering was an External Crowdsourcing Training Workshop that invited in myriad government agencies & Federal and State departments to come learn from other agencies, like NASA, who have been successfully utilizing Open Innovation platforms to solve some of their toughest challenges.

On Point Read: The Universe as an Open API - NASA's Plan for Getting There

Explaining TopCoder, how it works, why we atomize competitions to attract hyperspecialists and how enterprises and agencies leverage our platform can take a good amount of time – depending how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go. So it was extraordinarily interesting to watch the Twitter stream focusing on the hashtag #NASACOECI (standing for NASA Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation) during this week’s event. It showcased some very smart people who were in the audience, digesting the TopCoder methodology and creating the below tweets. Explaining an Open Innovation platform in 140 characters or less may seem impossible, but these tweets prove that you can at least succinctly discuss the elements that comprise the platform and why Open Innovation is being explored by agencies and enterprises across the globe.

Special thanks to @jenngustetic, @stephenshapiro and @mcmahoneth for providing the following tweets during the event.

The TopCoder Methodology in 140 Characters (or less)

Comparing TopCoder to traditional avenues to produce software and digital assets.

On the topic of how we purposefully atomize our competitions.

On the topic of incentive structuring.

On the topic of what type of work TopCoder canvasses.

What Twitter demands of any successful social-author is brevity. And even though the TopCoder methodology is nuanced, complex and comprehensive, the tweets above prove that you can boil down Open Innovation into bite-sizes all can digest, understand and share. And in this “all boats rise with the tide” atmosphere that Open Innovation is currently enjoying, we applaud these micro-moments and appreciate that they all add up to more exposure, more understanding and more want of individuals to go deeper down the aforementioned rabbit hole of Open Innovation.

Thank you Jenn, Stephen and Ethan for the great social commentary. It is appreciated!