WisconsInnovation

Image via CrunchBaseCrowdsourcing is a effective way to get the visibility and funding needed to launch a great idea. Like Kickstarter, Indiegogo a crowdfunding social site, requires the entrepreneur to provide details on the project - I think this works best with a video as well as text based details and images. In the case of LuminAid, they have all three.

They had some additional help through other social channels. They had a friend who leveraged the blogger community and was successful in getting the product featured on the gadget blog, Gizmodo and several others.

The ran a promotional campaign on FaceBook, and have chosen to maintain a business page for the product. In the effort of sustainability of a social business effort, these two are students or recently graduated but are responding actively to commentors on the page. Their website is current with a regular blog for updates.

The also made use of email as an outreach campaign, but the information doesn't indicate if this was done to a purchased mailing list or contacts shared via Columbia University who holds the patent and licensees it back.

According to Open Forum interview

“From there, the word spread and we raised $10,000 in six days,” says Stork.

In the end, they have a wonderful and useful product that can truly make a difference in a disaster relief situation and beyond. Their product brief on Indiegogo was direct and to the point - it clearly outlined the problem and their solution. The choice of video and images were excellent and helped extend the impact.

Even though the campaign for funding is over, I want to buy some to help others. What do you think?



LuminAID: An Inflatable Solar Light -- IndieGoGo: LuminAID: Give Light, Get Light

About the Project

LuminAID Lab is proud to introduce the LuminAID light: a solar-rechargeable, inflatable lamp that packs flat and inflates to create a lightweight, waterproof lantern. Safe, sustainable, and portable, the LuminAID light provides up to six hours of LED light, ideal for disaster relief situations, recreational use outdoors, or in the home as an extra light source. Our mission: make light more affordable, sustainable, and available for everyone.

A few new pieces of legislation, PROTECT IP Act and SOPA, are currently being voted on in the House this week. Although these bills are meant to stop online piracy, they have the potential to seriously change the internet and stifle innovation. I don't want to push a political agenda on anyone so I recommend doing your own research. Here is one article that I found helpful and fairly unbiased.

The New York Times recently published an article about a crowd sourced timeline from Science Times of what people predict to be reality in the coming years. Think cancer will ever be cured? The timeline predicts that will happen in 2023. How about making cash illegal? Readers predicted this will also happen within our lifetime, 2056. Finally, everyone's favorite, artificial intelligence. According to the timeline this will happen by 2063. Here are some other predictions the timeline made:

2012: COMPUTER ON A CHIP
2013: ELECTRONIC INK
2019: ONLINE SCIENCE
2019: UNIVERSAL MEDICAL DATABASE
2022: HALO OF DATA


This is a great example of how firms are using open source publishing and incorporates how innovation will change our lives going forward. It is a pretty interesting timeline and something fun to think about.

This is an interesting article about HP's failed attempts at developing a lasting WebOS mobile platform. Instead of scrapping the WebOS mobile platform, HP has decided to open-source its development. I think this could be a successful move for the company. Unable to develop an attractive, lucrative WebOS mobile platform on their own, open-sourcing the project may be just what the company needs.

Social Business is the biggest thing to happen to enterprise software in many years. Jive brings the innovations of the social consumer web to the enterprise. You get the great social features and user experience you love in your favorite consumer apps – while at the same time meeting stringent IT requirements. Jive allows you to:

Twitter Joins Facebook, Google, Launches 'Brand Pages' for Marketers | Digital - Advertising Age: Twitter is looking to strengthen its relationship with advertisers by launching brand pages that will be unveiled today as part of a more comprehensive redesign.

Twitter's existing brand pages have been under the radar, especially compared with the buildup around Google brand pages, which were launched last month. But Chief Revenue Officer Adam Bain said that he's spent the better part of the past year meeting with chief marketing officers, and brand pages were a recurring and frequent request.

Wendy's Note: Nope I wasn't on the list of partners to get access to the Brand Pages but I did get on the #newnewtwitter version right away. This really isn't innovation, its also ran to copy Google+ and Facebook.  I am waiting for Twitter to really take the next big leap to incorporate the next new idea. Something that someone hasn't done yet.

Here are the companies who were in the initial launch:

Twitter is launching brand pages with 21 marketers: American Express, Best Buy, Bing, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Dell , Disney, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, JetBlue, Kia, McDonald's, Nike , PepsiCo, Staples, Verizon Communications Wireless, NYSE Euronext, Heineken, Subway and Paramount Pictures, specifically for the release of "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol." It has also partnered with some charities and individuals that it hasn't disclosed. 

 Do you suppose the only way for innovation is to create a new brand and separate from the existing Twitter?

Why are so many companies struggling to innovate today? This Harvard Business Review blog entry by Ron Ashkenas attempts to inform managers of the importance of having every employee in a working to innovate. Ashkenas believes, "organizations require innovation on all fronts." This means moving outside simply innovating the main product. To do this, he believes firms need to have all their employees, including sales, supply chain, packaging, etc., seek new ways to innovate on their processes.
This is crowd-sourcing the employees for innovations in the company. Shouldn't employees already be doing this? The problem appears to be that firms only encourage engineers and scientists to innovate, leaving other employees to follow their normal methods.
To solve this problem, Ashkenas recommends three steps for building a culture of innovation:
1) Identify and implement an innovation in your area
2) Once employees have confidence that they can innovate incrementally, work together to identify a more ambitions innovation.
3) Make an atmosphere that encourages people to develop and experiment with new ideas
By successfully completing these three steps, a manager can crowd-source their employees for innovations just as many user innovation companies would source from their customers.

Hacking and modifying software is becoming more popular than ever. According to a recent story in Wired, the new Android software which is set to run on the Kindle Fire has been hacked already, even prior to its official release. This story really shows how eager the hacker community is to solve their own problems and contribute to open-source initiatives.

Fonera Fon is a hotspot router that allows people to share their internet connection in exchange for free WiFi at locations across the world -- but there's more. By sharing your connection you can make money; the more people that join your network, the more money you make. Here's a video if you want to learn more. It is a pretty interesting concept. I am a huge supporter of free global wifi, as I'm sure many of you are. It seems through various blogs people are indeed making money using the Fon Router.

While writing our final research paper for another class this week, my group members and I decided to use an application called "Dropbox" to share files and edit our paper. Dropbox allows users to "drop" any file or document into a designated folder that is then synced with Dropbox's internet service and to any other of the user's computers/devises. These files can also be shared with other users who have Dropbox, and are invited to join a "folder."

In class we have talked a lot about 3D printers and have experienced one first-hand. More and more, 3D Printers in the last few years have materialized in the marketplace, and consequently prices have dropped. Along with this desktop manufacturing revolution, the software that goes along with such a machine is beginning to prosper as well. An example of 3D printing software is from a company called Autodesk. Here is an article from The New York Times concerning Autodesk and some of its software, as well as its announcement to offer its consumer software free of charge to bolster awareness and hopefully improve the software itself.

While we are still in the midst of our class presentations, I thought our class would enjoy this TED Talk on using Dance to convey a message instead of using PowerPoint. This is certainly an innovative presentation itself, but the idea is even more remarkable. The speaker (John Bohannon) claims that by using PowerPoint, we are distracted by pictures and reading words on a slide and never fully understand the message. Do you think dance can convey any idea, or does it have limits? When watching the video, do you find the dancers just as distracting as a PowerPoint? Read some of the comments to get an idea of what other experts (dancers, scientists, etc.) think!