The main idea of Ideagoras is to tie companies that are searching for external solution of some problems they face, and people all around the world ready to solve them. The idea itself is not that much revolutionary because before some companies also placed at their web-sites proposals to individuals to find the solution of the problem for some reward. But now web-sites like http://www.innocentive.com/ or www.mturk.com were created and marketed specially to combine all the companies seeking for solutions in external world and all the talented people from different fields of education ready to spend time trying to solve problems for significant reward.
Speaking about advantages and disadvantages of this model, it is difficult to say what it has more. But at least watching through above-mentioned web-sites and searching through the Internet we can say that companies use the model and individuals try to find solutions offered and succeed in that quite often. The idea of creators of special web-sites is working and gaining momentum step by step. (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2007/id20070215_251519.htm)
Advantages for companies:
When a firm turns to Ideagoras it usually means that it cannot solve some problem internally. And posting announcement for a competition with a corresponding to the amount of work reward, it can reach hundreds or even thousands of bright-minded individuals from different fields, with lots of ideas. A company will get so many different proposals that it would not have even after a very long work of its own department. And what is probably more important, is that a problem would be solved with absolutely different approaches. So the firm might get some ideas that have never come to her workers’ minds at all. Speaking about time, usually using Ideagoras saves a lot of it, because in a short-time period company gets hundreds of ideas. And the department would have to study them step by step, still forgetting about some.
Another important issue is financial aspect. What is less costly: to maintain the whole department for solving some kind of problems or simply use the web-site to find good idea and pay a reward? The answer is obvious. A company does not have to employ people for a full-time job. So it does not have to pay salaries every month or different kind of compensations. A firm simply finds a suitable idea of solving a problem, pays a reward and protect intellectual property rights.
Disadvantages for companies:
A key disadvantage for a firm is that because of several reasons their offer might simply be forgotten by solvers. For example, it can happen if the problem is really extremely difficult so seekers will turn to other proposals. Or the reward might seem not corresponding to amount of work and time spent for seekers.
Speaking about money, companies also can face a problem that they do not know the reasonable amount of reward they should place on the site. On the one hand, they should make people interested in their offer. And on another one, they do not want to overestimate it.
Advantages for individuals:
Finding some suitable task and finding the solution might be interesting for individuals because of several reasons. The first one is financial aspect. The point is that really talented and properly educated people can earn significant amount of money not even having a full-time job. That can be interesting for people looking for some kind of freedom. Or, of course, this can simply be an additional way of earning.
Staying at the web-site and solving some tasks given successfully, individuals also get a feeling of satisfaction. Deep inside of our minds we are all competing with each other. And a feeling that your idea was the best of hundreds others can be for sure even more important than the reward given for it. Finally, at the web-site while working on tasks people may face some other very talented people and maybe organize a community. They might exchange some ideas, gaining experience from each other.
Disadvantages for individuals:
There are more disadvantages for individuals than it might seem first. Two main issues are money and intellectual property rights. The person who had the best idea gets a reward, usually several thousand or in some cases several hundred thousand euro or dollars etc. But the company might save million dollars on investigations plus later it can earn much more on developing the idea and selling products or services connected to it. So we can say that the reward is not honest in some cases.
Furthermore, because of some rules about identity the individual would not even have a possibility to prove that was his achievement, for example, trying to employ to some job place. And speaking about intellectual rights, according to agreement they all come to the company, so the person would not have a possibility to earn on his idea in future at all.
These disadvantages are really significant because an individual faces a choice whether to get quite significant reward for his idea immediately or try to develop it himself, facing lots of risks but having a potential to earn many times more.
How our University could use Ideagoras:
There are quite many problems each University faces speaking about students that can be better solved with their direct participation. A very simple example from life is that staff might organize a kind of Ideagoras when trying to solve a problem of planning canteen menu for a month or, let’s say, half a year with given names and amounts of products they will have. No one knows what students want to eat and in which combination than they do. So the plan would be to plan everyday menu knowing the total starting balance of products and approximate everyday consumption. Of course, the reward to the best idea should not be that huge, but an amount of about 100-200 euro might get many students interested. The proposed idea is chosen extremely easy just to show where we can use the idea of Ideagoras in our casual lifes.
No comments:
Post a Comment