Comments on: Open Innovation – more Idea Marketplace options http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/28/open-innovation-more-idea-marketplace-options/ Learning how to create Market Breakthrough Products through targeted Open Innovation and Networking Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:56:43 +0200 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: john http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/28/open-innovation-more-idea-marketplace-options/#comment-34 john Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:08:32 +0000 http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/?p=112#comment-34 Thanks for your comments Kevin. I agree that Nine Sigma does a lot more than just passive display of RFPs, sorry if that wasn't clear in my posts. Good news that you are accelerating the feedback phase to clients. I have talked to a couple of people in very capable specialist technology companies in the UK who now refuse to answer RFPs because of the lack of feedback. I've learned from my experience in the innovation area that with any ideas process, feedback is critical. Also good news about expansion of open innovation to smaller businesses. Thanks for your comments Kevin. I agree that Nine Sigma does a lot more than just passive display of RFPs, sorry if that wasn’t clear in my posts. Good news that you are accelerating the feedback phase to clients. I have talked to a couple of people in very capable specialist technology companies in the UK who now refuse to answer RFPs because of the lack of feedback. I’ve learned from my experience in the innovation area that with any ideas process, feedback is critical. Also good news about expansion of open innovation to smaller businesses.

]]> By: Kevin Stark http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/28/open-innovation-more-idea-marketplace-options/#comment-31 Kevin Stark Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:07:06 +0000 http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/?p=112#comment-31 Thanks for the post and different viewpoints. We agree that there are many different ways to post RFPs and see what happens. Just to be clear, although our website at NineSigma may seem like a simple online marketplace if you just visit the website, our process is much more full service than a passive posting. In addition to working very closely with our clients to craft RFPs and publish them to our website, we push out RFP announcements weekly via our weekly newsletter, we have an ever growing affiliate network that redistributes RFPs broadly through their websites, newsletters, personal emails, etc., and we also do individual searching for each project and push out announcements to that group as well. Because of all this work, our help desk fields thousands of emails/phone calls every month to address questions/etc. so that we can receive the best proposals (trust me, we're working very hard this year to accellerate the time to feedback from our clients). Having said all this, I would agree that many of David's projects (being competitive consultant bids etc.) might not always fit into the technology partner-type of RFPs that we typically run, and our clients also post many of their broad undefined project needs on their websites too. Keep up the great dialog - there is so much more happening now in this space than when I got started with NineSigma in 2000, and it's amazing to see continued growth both by us, our clients, and other players finding their own niche in this space. Finally, to your point on the small company, we agree that many of these systems are set up mostly for the large (say > 500MM USD) companies, and it will be quite exicting to see how the power of open innovation continues to expand to cover the entire business space. Stay Tuned! -Kevin C. Stark, Sr., Ph.D. Thanks for the post and different viewpoints. We agree that there are many different ways to post RFPs and see what happens. Just to be clear, although our website at NineSigma may seem like a simple online marketplace if you just visit the website, our process is much more full service than a passive posting. In addition to working very closely with our clients to craft RFPs and publish them to our website, we push out RFP announcements weekly via our weekly newsletter, we have an ever growing affiliate network that redistributes RFPs broadly through their websites, newsletters, personal emails, etc., and we also do individual searching for each project and push out announcements to that group as well. Because of all this work, our help desk fields thousands of emails/phone calls every month to address questions/etc. so that we can receive the best proposals (trust me, we’re working very hard this year to accellerate the time to feedback from our clients). Having said all this, I would agree that many of David’s projects (being competitive consultant bids etc.) might not always fit into the technology partner-type of RFPs that we typically run, and our clients also post many of their broad undefined project needs on their websites too.

Keep up the great dialog – there is so much more happening now in this space than when I got started with NineSigma in 2000, and it’s amazing to see continued growth both by us, our clients, and other players finding their own niche in this space.

Finally, to your point on the small company, we agree that many of these systems are set up mostly for the large (say > 500MM USD) companies, and it will be quite exicting to see how the power of open innovation continues to expand to cover the entire business space.

Stay Tuned!

-Kevin C. Stark, Sr., Ph.D.

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