Summary
Some of the brightest ideas for social change grow in the spaces between organizations and sectors. Yet few organizations have systems that make collaboration happen. To foster innovation, organizations need to develop places where they can come together and work creatively--that is, platforms for collaboration. Three kinds of collaboration platforms--exploration, experimentation, and execution--are compared, and suggestions on how to best implement each are provided.
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Platforms for Collaboration
The Rockefeller Foundation had a simple question: How can you turn a solar-powered flashlight into an all-purpose room light? For parts of the world that lack access to regular electricity, the answer to this question could save lives in hospitals, educate children after dusk, and power cottage industries after the crops are harvested.
Yet no one knew the answer. And so the Rockefeller Foundation paired up with InnoCentive to ask 160,000 independent inventors worldwide how they might transform the flashlight. The inventors were part of a Web-based network of "solvers" that InnoCentive, a privately held companyhas established. InnoCentive is an innovation intermediary- an organization that brokers relationships between those with questions and those who might have the answers.1 Organizations with specific technical problems pose their problems on the InnoCentive Web site and offer the solvers large financial rewards for the best solutions. An electrical engineer in NewZealand named Russell McMahon ultimately came up with a flashlight that enhanced the solar battery and LEDs to create a much stronger light.Meanwhile, north of the border, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) was struggling with an overtaxed infrastr...See the full content of this document
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