Open Innovation, the future

Innovation, the key thing to bring changes, making the developmental process for this society existing, is the major talk these days. Every company is now getting an innovation department or something more or less the same.

"Open Innovation", as Henry Chesbrough, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, coined describes a growing number of initiatives by companies to reach beyond their own walls to use talent and ideas from others. Open Innovation is supported by various Companies seeking for the fruit from the mass to solve challenging problems with simple and elegant ideas where anyone can participate. InnoCentive, a Waltham (Mass.) company spun out from Eli Lilly (LLY) in 2001 is one of the company running online to recruit Innovators who could be anyone..even you.

The key thing is that, these companies are tapping ideas from the mass to bring out changes in the world. Who know, maybe the idea you propose today becomes the world of tomorrow. The challenges ranges from Physics, Chemistry, Science, Engineering, a greener earth and so on. Non-Profit organizations raised challenges, and we, the general people, who have ideas proposed their ideas and you are rewarded if your idea turns out to be the next big thing!

Take a look yourself at Innocentive, the places where innovators are groom. See the various sections and the pavillions to find the right topic you are interested at. Open a project room for the challenge you want to participate, make your proposal. Wait for the result.

Open Innovation: let's make a change!

The Missing Gmail Labs Feature

Google has done a lot to improve its emailing features and User interaction through the Labs module. However, I strongly felt that the gmail labs lack one 'mundane' feature which everyone needs and would be happy to include with; and that is - an urgency rating system.

If you are one person who uses the email service frequently to communicate, you perhaps must have come to notice that the rating system is extremely essential.

What Google can add to its labs feature is a 5 options rating module, say something like the one shown on the right. The module is suppose to rate the urgency of the email.

What one usually does is read the email he or she receives first, and so the last email you sent, even though it is urgent, could be read last. It's kind of a FIFO arrangement. You can mention in the subject line, the degree of urgency but there is a better way to do that.

You can simply send a 'Someone's Dying' rated email. The subject line will appear in the corresponding color and one will identify it as soon as he sees the subject, (everyone reads the subject to the mails they received..don't they?).

Someone's Dying:
This is an email of the greatest priority. You rate this when there is and extreme need for the recipient to read the mail as soon as possible.

Finish your Coffee:
This are normal emails. The recipient reads it as when he feels like reading.
Most emails should fall in this category.

I'm Feeling Lucky:
It is a Google style rate. The recipient reads it as he wants. You can rate this when you think the email is really interesting.

Actions Required:
You give this rating when the recipient needs to perform some Actions; as the likes in which site administrators sent to its users to inform the change in its privacy policy and the users need to accept it before continuing using.

No Reply:
This is an email sent when you don't need a reply but want to inform the recipient.

SIBI Online Music Player : Concept

SIBI Online Music Player (Alpha):

1) What is SIBI?

SIBI is a new generation Online Music Player. The main concept lies in its portability and user friendly aspects.

In SIBI, users can upload their own mp3s on the SIBI server, create their own SIBI playlists, manage their uploaded files and listen it through the SIBI online player from their home PC or Mac, PMPs such as the Ipod, or through their mobile devices which supports the required platform.

2) Why SIBI?

SIBI is different, or in fact the first of its kind. It is NOT an online Radio Player.

It is different because users can upload their own music collection on the server and access it from anywhere on this planet (of course when you are connected!!). It can be imagined as the Winamp combined with your hard drive online.

Many people usually have a wide collection of music in their PC or Mac, which usually of course, exceeds the capacity of a common PMP (say of 4gb or 8gb, I myself have a collection of more than 90gb!!) and almost everyone hears music while on the travel, on the way to college, on the way to his friends place and so on; but none have the time or the patience to choose out his favorite ones to be uploaded in his 4g or 8gb PMP. No one likes to sit down and make a new collection of his mp3s which will squeeze in his PMs Memory capacity and at the same time includes all his favorites. As a person’s music collection grows over time to time, he may have a lot of albums that he may like to carry around with him but which is not possible because:

• Low Memory capacity of PMPs (Large Memory PMPs cost a fortune!)
  
  
• Doesn’t have time to sit and pick out the ones he like; or to be precise, hardly if anyone is asked what are their favorite ones, he’ll be able to say just a few out of his huge collection. The truth is, the brain doesn’t give out like a printed list saying, ‘Here’s the list you would want to put in your PMP’… pardon us, we are HUMAN!!
  
  
• But when you are on a journey, say a cross country tour, you won’t want to carry your laptop or PC over to everywhere you go, but the PMP, sure is meant for that time and moreover, you won’t know which type of songs you are going to listen during the journey; it depends on the place you visit, or the people you meet or it could be anything.
  

Bottomline: You do not know which one to put around. You just want to listen to it when you feel like listening to it.

3) Challenges to bring SIBI into production?

i) Users have to be provided a large online storage area, say 50gb for the start.

4) Purpose for SIBI?

SIBI provides users the ability to listen their favorite music anywhere, everywhere without any unwanted extra efforts, provided he has a supported connection on his PMP.

5) Monetization. 

SIBI is targeting to grab the music market. On the SIBI main page, ads for new album releases or monetized services related to music can be displayed so that users can buy them. (refer the UI design section). To increase sales, displayed new album should be displayed by finding out the user’s favorite band or music which can be known by checking out the most played songs in his or her playlist. By checking what type of songs the user uploaded, such as which bands, which region of the world the user belong, displayed new album info can be on the basis of user interest which increases the chances of sales.

SIBI USER INTERFACE: Updating.

© SIBI Music Player, 2009

Want to protect your idea??

Recently...errr well not really, it was a while ago since i've been thinking about the procedure to protecting one's original idea/concept about something... I said IDEA or CONCEPT.

The first thing that came into my mind was of a Copyright Protection. However, copyright doesn't protect your ideas/concepts. I've gone through some of the US and Indian copyright protection handbook and that led me to the conclusion that copyright, in any case, doesn't protect your ideas from being 'copied'.

The question arises now... Can an idea be protected??

Yes. An idea can be protected in the form of an invention. Patenting the creation and the technical drawings (related to the idea) is one option but someone in the university, a student or any individual may not be ready to spend the handful amount of dollars required to get the idea patented. Copyright, on the other hand is cheap and protects your idea in the form of an innovation or original creation. If you've created something, putting a © symbol protects your creation but however, you need to register it (which though requires a small fee) if in case legal issues are to be fought. Putting a © symbol conveys that the creation is copyright property and just putting the symbol ensures it rights. For federal acts or legal proceedings, valid registration with the Copyright Protection Department in your country is essential.

Other ways to protect your ideas include submission of your ideas to organisations. Many of which are available online and some charges small amount of fees while others doesn't. Another way is to mail yourself all the required documents provided the envelop in still sealed. This is valid only when there is a date stamped on the envelop by the post office and which represents the date on which your idea becomes 'yours'. However, this method is not much recommended.

Bottomline is, turn your idea into an innovation first...