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Innovation is no longer the product of a singular “a-ha” moment. It has evolved into a field that can be both studied and predicted, according to Judith Rodin, the President of the Rockefeller Foundation. At the Clinton Global Initiative, Rodin suggested three systematic innovation processes that can be applied to social sector issues like global warming and malnutrition.
Jack Ma, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group and Judith
Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation at the Plenary Session:
Harnessing Innovation for Development at the fifth annual Clinton
Global Initiative in New York City
1. User-Driven Innovation. This type
of innovation relies on “successful outliers.” Rodin says, “we found three or
four incredibly well-nourished kids in a completely improvised village [in Asia ] over the course of several days. In those few
families we found that the mothers didn’t wash out the few small shrimp and
crabs that were in the rice paddies. Their children were the only kids in an
otherwise carbohydrate-based diet that were getting some protein. Once we
observed that user-driven innovation, we taught people throughout the village
to follow this process, and that practice spread in Southeast
Asia .” Now, the number of kids suffering from malnutrition in Southeast Asia has decreased simply because mothers are
no longer rinsing their rice.
2. Crowd Sourcing. To get small businesses
involved in this so-called planned innovation, Rodin looked to InnoCentive, a
company that has a database of 170,000 registered scientists and technologies
around the world dedicated to solving science-based problems. “We could train
that brain trust who are linked virtually in social sector problems and combine
them with [research and development] units and have them work together in one
place.”
One example is an 18-month InnoCentive Challenge to develop a
solar-based mosquito repellent that was less expensive then net beds and more
cost effective. A company in Houston posted the
challenge and a company in New Zealand
was the “solver,” with the runner-up in China
3. Collaborative Competition. With a
shout-out to Ashoka, a company that
invests in social entrepreneurs worldwide, Rodin explained that a global water
challenge was posted a few months ago with a prize for the winner. Instead of
groups of people competing quietly in their own places, competitors posted
their solutions--the sooner they posted the sooner they received access and
visibility to the other solutions people posted. “That gives you two things, a
line of sight to see where the white spaces may be, and a collaboration in the
competition because the sooner you re-post and revise the sooner you get access
to other people’s re-posting.” The winning solution came from 54 different
companies connecting one solution. This solution is now being taken to scale
with a million dollar grant from Coca-Cola.
As the world has become smaller through technology,
globalization, and interconnectedness, the speed with which ideas spread around
the world is increasing, which means ideas come twice as fast and their
half-lives are halved. Instead of being a singular idea, innovation with a
capital “I” now has empirical data, an evidence-based canon of literature, and
innovation models. The “a-ha” moment, according to Rodin, is becoming yet
another predictable business model. So long innovation, hello Innovation. via fastcompany.com
Jim
Woods is president and founder of InnoThink Group; a global innovation, growth and
hypercompetition consultancy. He is an author and speaker on strategic
innovation and competitive advantage. To hire Jim to speak to your
organization - Call 719- 649-4118 or email us for
availability.
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