I was reading the new issue of CIO Insight last night and every article seemed like a winner. I learned something new and useful, it seemed, on every page.
Especially worth your while is the interview with Don Tapscott on open networking with trust. This interview helped me see a number of things with new eyes, especially that old notion of the virtual law firm.
The money quote:
“So how do you harness that genius?
We looked at this concept of innovation Webs, a very powerful idea, completely enabled by IT. I’ll give you an example. Rob McEwen, a director at Goldcorp, a gold mining company in Vancouver, B.C., gathered his engineers one day and told them that unless they could assure him that they could find any more gold in his largest mine, he was going to shut it down. The engineers scratched their heads; they just didn’t know.
So McEwen decided to hold a contest on the Internet. He published his most proprietary data—the specs about his mines, geological data, things that are fiercely held secrets at any mining company. He offered $500,000 to anyone who could submit a viable way to find gold. Of the 77 submissions he received, he chose the top 25, and they shared $575,000. Using those proposals, McEwen managed to locate roughly $2.5 billion in gold on that property.
That’s pretty impressive, but still a terrifying prospect for many companies that have built high walls around their employees and intellectual property.”
Does this approach have application outside of gold mines? I think it might. Is there a chance you’ll get to discuss this topic with me on Day 2 of BlawgThink? I’d say there’s a very good chance.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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