Innovation keynote speaker Jeremy Gutsche offers fascinating insights about problem-solving and creative thinking in his creativity strategy keynote. Gutsche believes that many of the problems companies are trying to solve have already been tackled in other industries.
His award-winning book 'Exploiting Chaos' -- which you can read for FREE here -- presents a fascinating case study of a small mining company that decided to offer a reward to the best strategy that a person outside of the organization could come up with to find new sources of gold.
"In Wikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams reveal Goldcorp's revolutionary approach. With nothing to lose, CEO Rob MacEwen tried something unprecedented. He published Goldcorp's highly-secretive geological data. He revealed 50 years of data from Goldcorp's Red Lake property, a property that seemed barren to Goldcorp's geologists. MacEwen offers $575,000 in prize money to any person in the world who could identify a strategy for unearthing hidden gold. In total, Goldcorp received 110 new strategies. Some ideas were from geologists, but unexpectedly there were ideas from students, professors, chemists, and military officers. MacEwen noted, 'We had applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, and organic solutions to inorganic problems. There were capabilities I has never seen before in the industry.'
The new methodologies led Goldcorp to unearth 8 million ounces of gold, catapulting the small $100 million company to a $20 billion valuation."
Goldcorp essentially "crowdsourced" its problem, and as a result, had 110 new strategies to choose from. Gutsche believes that this strategy can be applied in all industries and can lead to new and exciting levels of success for companies.
Cross-Pollinate Your Ideas
Jeremy Gutsche's Creativity Strategy Keynote Suggests Outsourcing Ideas
Trend Themes
1. Cross-industry Learning - Learning from other industries is a trend that can lead to new innovations and improve problem-solving strategies.
2. Open-sourcing Innovation - Sharing company data with outsiders can lead to crowdsourced solutions and breakthrough innovations.
3. Crowdsourcing Strategies - Crowdsourcing can be a powerful tool for discovering new ideas and strategies even from the unlikeliest of sources.
Industry Implications
1. Mining Industry - The mining industry can open up innovation opportunities by openly sharing geological data and crowdsourcing ideas for finding new sources of minerals.
2. Technology Industry - Technology companies can learn from other industries to improve their problem-solving and innovation strategies.
3. Marketing Industry - Marketing companies can benefit from exchanging ideas, strategies, and data with other industries to come up with fresh and innovative campaigns.