WisconsInnovation

As I was doing some company research for an upcoming interview with General Mills I came across this part of their website. It's called General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network or G-Win. The whole concept of the program is very similar to the concept InnoCentive uses. For those not familiar with InnoCentive, this is a site that links companies who have problems they cannot solve with people who want to solve these problems. Of course the winning idea receives a substantial amount of prize money from the companies who submit a problem. General Mills has taken this same underlying idea, but are instead going directly through the company website.

One thing that stood out to me the most was under the "submission process" page. General Mills offers the opportunity to collaborate on the problems if the solvers feel it could be of help. My Marketing 440 class just discussed a case about InnoCentive switching to collaboration. Most people felt it would not help the amount of problems solved. Does anyone think the collaboration option would help General Mills and G-Win?

This General Mills Program makes me wonder if other companies are taking this initiative and posting their own problems on a company run website, instead of a site like InnoCentive, in hopes a solver will figure out their problems. Maybe I will stumble upon more companies using this problem solving concept as I research more companies in the future!