Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
In December 2009, a student team potentially powerful management and innovation consulting firm
from MIT won the Red Balloon practice, especially applicable for and the strategic services
Challenge organized by the Defense entrepreneurial businesses without division of Innovaro. For over
Advanced Research Projects Agency rigid organizational lines and
(DARPA), an agency of the U.S. ingrained business processes. 20 years, he has helped senior
Department of Defense responsible Innovation pioneers are also managers set strategic direction,
for developing new technology for successfully employing two other
military use.1 The team took just nine management practices, namely capture new growth
hours to track down the locations of experimentation-driven discovery opportunities and make their
ten red weather balloons hidden and future-back migration mapping,
organizations more innovative.
across the United States, exceeding with both techniques being widely
even the event organizers wildest discussed and written about by Doug Schaedler is the former
expectations. The teams innovative management experts in recent years.3 CEO of Innovaro, a global
reverse-Ponzi reward system that Used together in one integrated
encouraged knowledge owners to management system, all three intellectual property licensing
participate in its social network will practices open innovation, and innovation service provider.
be studied and replicated by many. experimentation-driven discovery,
However, the even more impressive and future-back migration He possesses deep operational
feat was that the team took just mapping could help dramatically experience in funding and
one week to design, plan and reduce the risks of nascent businesses, nurturing startup businesses
operationalize the whole system.2 essentially unlocking their value.
This teams success is a landmark The resultant unlocked value creates through his work as a founder,
example of the power of open a bigger pie that allows everyone operator and investor at a wide
innovation both in terms of the a bigger slice a win-win for
productivity of a well-organized businesses and their capital providers. range of startup companies.
network and the swiftness with
which such a network becomes Understanding Learn more about the authors,
operational. Entrepreneurial Business Strategos, and Innovaro at
The success of the MIT Red Balloon Risks www.strategos.com and
Challenge Team highlighted open Before we get into the risk reduction
innovation as a maturing and www.Innovaro.com.
prowess of management practices
1
From Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) website: https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/default.aspx: To mark the 40th anniversary of the
Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely
communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The challenge is to be the first to submit
the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations
and visible from nearby roads.
2
While the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team used the open innovation approach, Googles internal team applied number crunching and image recognition tech-
niques (e.g., looking for images and posting of red balloon locations on the web). When MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team successfully identified all ten balloons,
the Google team had found nine. https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/Default.aspx; http://socialcapital.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/behind-mits-darpa-weather-bal-
loon-challenge-win/ ; http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/120509-layer8-darpa-mit-red-balloon.html?fsrc=netflash-rss; http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-
10411211-93.html
3
See Discovery-Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity, by Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan (Harvard Business School
Press, 2009); Unleashing Innovation: How Whirlpool Transformed an Industry by Nancy Tennant Snyder and Deborah Duarte (Jossey-Bass, 2008); and Innovation
to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates by Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson (Harvard Business School Press, 2008).
4
Business intelligence worth betting on, ZDNet, 7/13/2003, http://news.zdnet.com/2100-10532_22-296373.html
5
And the Winner of the $1 Million Netflix Prize (Probably) Is , New York Times, 7/26/2009; Netflix Prize, Wikipedia
6
Best Buys Trade-In Plans: Why Let eBay Have All The Fun? , StorefrontBacktalk, March 4, 2010, http://storefrontbacktalk.com/e-commerce/best-buy-prepar-
ing-to-buy-back-used-products-envisions-profitable-untouched-lifecycle-potential
7
McDonalds sold the majority of its stake in RedBox to partner Coinstar in February 2009.
8
Click wheel was a feature for the third generation iPod.
www.strategos.com