Your brilliant idea or mine?

Ever get that moment where you come up with an idea that your company (or any company) should adopt but never do because either you're an outsider or maybe they do take your idea, and you don't get credit for it! On the same token, imagine being the company, and nobody from inside can generate a good idea, or all ideas are limited to stay within the company. Isn't it so frustrating?

Well, this could all change with Open Innovation. Essentially, Open Innovation is when a company turns to the outside public to generate ideas and opinions instead of relying just on inside talent. This idea initially started with tech companies going to online communities for open source code and is also the basis of wikis where anyone can contribute and edit their opinions. This is now seen cross industry. Starbucks used Open Innovation to ask its customer and the general public about simple ideas to save costs instead of closing stores and laying off workers. Thousands contributed simple ideas such as using cheaper material for cups to simplifying furniture in stores. Starbucks used several of these ideas to save thousands on cost. IBM used Open Innovation to find uses for its Blue Gene computer - a complex supercomputer that can solve complex calculations. People submitted ideas to use Blue Gene to track and simulate cancer mutations to see the effects of heat on a gas turbine engine. Brilliant!

Speaking of brilliant ideas, it would be nice to consolidate my e-mail, igoogle, chat, facebook, linkedin, and schoolwork all into one page. Thankfully, that dream is getting closer to reality with gmail and yahoo trying to integrate their social network tools with e-mail. A majority of people use facebook as their social networking tool of choice, but google and yahoo are trying to compete with this by vamping up their own tools and integrating them into gmail and yahoo mail.

If this is successful, I think facebook will have some serious competition from the big hitters in Google and Yahoo. Of course, the best would be if either company merged with facebook so that consumers can get the best of all worlds. I'd hate to have to choose between different social networking tools, and would rather have all my preferred tools on one portal. Until that day comes, I'll stick to have 6 different firefox browsers open. That's not a brilliant idea, but it's all I have to work with at the moment.

Real World or Informal Networks: One giant popularity contest?

I'm not sure if I ever want to re-live my junior high and high school days, but it seems that these discussions on informal or real world networks are reviving haunting memories of those times.

During junior high and high school, I was NOT the so called popular student. I participated in the non cut sports, had only so so grades, and always somehow fell through the cracks of making friends and social networks. Maybe my only claim to fame was being the only Asian guy on the track team that could run on a relay with 3 football/basketball stars that were about a foot and a half taller than me.

What does these high school memories have to do with informal or real world networks? (beside the fact that it's been nearly 10 years, and I'm hopefully a little more secured of myself now than in HS) Upon reading Wired Magazine's article on Real World Networking and MIT's article on Informal Networks, there seems to be commonality of having a central or super connected person that can make or break the network. This person is almost always overworked, overstressed and does not have enough support to maintain his role. Yet at the same time, if this person does a good job and can handle the central role, he/she often is seen as a leader and is a valuable resource to the school and to all the people that he/she has meaningful connections with. Do a bad job, and the networks break down, and those connections are severed. I guess you could say my network in high school was one of few connections and according to the MIT article, that puts me as "isolated" and "lacking skills, social and otherwise, for the job". Thanks. I really needed that confidence booster.

Doesn't this feel like a popularity contest? How do you judge the Prom King and Queen? Is it based on their achievements? Or is it how they work their networks and become central to so many people that their success validates the success of many others? Think of it this way: would you vote for the jock quarterback that has the support of the football, basketball and cheerleading squads? Or would you vote for the nerd of the math, science and language clubs? Or would you vote for the class President that happens to know who you are and helped you out with your classes and to make new friends and just happened to be good at everything?

I hoped that after high school was done that I could leave the popularity contest and become comfortable being myself. However, as real world/informal networking become more and more mainstream, I could find myself with braces and a new driver's license all over again...

A blog for class and maybe more!

I'm starting up this blog for an MBA class at American, but I may use it after the class is over. For the academic integrity requirement of this post: “On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own"