Engineering serendipity

I met an interesting company yesterday called CellCentric, a cambridge based company that has developed a network of specialist academics (in the field of epigenetics). In essence what they do is find links between the work done by the academics generally working in very narrow specialist silo. They then can more objectively assess the ideas and also spot opportunities to develop the intellectual property and sell on the IP to big pharma companies. This type of collaboration would usually only happen by chance very rarely.

With more distributed organisations and specialised knowledge, the need for these type of organisations is increasing, who can organise integrate knowledge and organise innovation between organsisations. And it's organisations like Innocentive, Kluster, Innovaro, The Disrupters, Innovation Arts, WhatIf and CellCentric that all create value by aggregating knowledge and brokering relationships. I’m going to coin a term and acronymn and describe them as an engineering serendipity businesses (ESB), which I also think is the business NESTA Connect is in too.

Other organisations like the IPGroup do something similar to Cellcentric with the academic research base, but on a much broader disciplinary scale. Can their success in unlocking the potential of epigenetics be transferrable it is to other disciplines, or sub-discipilnes, or sectors?

I'm always keen to collect examples of interesting ESBs so please do send me details of other good examples.

Comments

[nick jankel]

I have spent a while developing what i could loosely describe as Tickle Tactics. I worked for Greg Dyke once in the BBC trying to bring cutting-edge innovation techniques to people whose job it is to 'be creative' - and the drama that ensued was more interesting than many an HBO blockbuster. On close observation it seems that too much 'serendipity' and a lot of time and money is wasted - we all have known creatives types who love to wander around and pontificate but rarely is a breakthrough had. However the process junkies often miss the beauty of accidental (?) discoveries and alchemical 'mistakes' - sometimes time really is needed for whatever is 'seeking to emerge' (as the theory U people might say) to make itself known. I find that the real challenge is how to engineer 'lightly' - low touch experiences and elegant guidance that allow people and organisations to bring the whole of their creative potential to a challenge and have winning ideas 'tickled' out of them. It is not easy but it seems to be most rewarding on all counts.

[Liz Moise]

Interesting term you've coined, I'd be curious to hear more about your perspective on open innovation and where you think it can work best. As you might have heard, InnoCentive has just partnered with SAP and will now be offering more Challenges in the Engineering, Computer and IT, and Business sectors from SAP's clients. SAP sees innovation as key to success, as I'm sure you folks do too. Best of luck!

Liz
Marketing Manager
InnoCentive

[Roland Harwood]

Nick - Tickle tactics - nice name! Re, light engineering, I like Johnnie Moore's concept of robust uncertainty:

http://www.johnniemoore.com/blog/archives/002094.php

Liz - interesting developments with innocentive/SAP and I'd like to learn more about it. We now have quite a lot of exerience with open innovation (see here for details: http://www.nesta.org.uk/corporate-open-innovation/) and I would say it is most appropriate at the start of the innovation process to spot opportunities, and towards the end to spot markets (with the middle section being more closed and iterative). See here for some more on that:

http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/connect/2008/08/the-comedy-bow.html

Regards,
Roland

[naughton]

I find that the real challenge is how to engineer 'lightly' - low touch experiences and elegant guidance that allow people and organisations to bring the whole of their creative potential to a challenge and have winning ideas 'tickled' out of them.

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naughton
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