LG DESIGN THE FUTURE COMPETITION
March 17, 2010
Contestants to Compete for More Than $80,000 in Prizes
New “Prop Master’s Choice” Award Adds a Dose of Hollywood Allure to the Competition
SAN DIEGO - March 16, 2010 - LG Mobile Phones, the fastest growing mobile phone brand in North America, is partnering with crowdSPRING, an online marketplace for creative services, and Autodesk, a leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, to hold an innovative competition to define the future of mobile communication. Starting on March 15th, LG Mobile Phones will give consumers the chance to design their vision of the next revolutionary LG mobile phone and compete for more than $80,000 in prizes.
The competition will award over 40 winners. The first place winner will be awarded $20,000, one Wacom Intuos4 medium tablet, and Autodesk industrial design software. The second place winner will be awarded $10,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software, and the third place winner will be awarded $5,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software. To reward as many people as possible in the name of creativity, LG will also be giving out a whopping 37 honorable mentions at $1,000 each.
This year’s competition marks the inaugural participation of Russell Bobbitt, a world renowned movie prop master. Bobbitt has worked on a variety of visually stunning films such as Star Trek, Iron Man and Iron Man 2TM. He recently received the prestigious “Behind the Camera” prop master award for his work on the first Iron Man film. Bobbitt will serve as a guest judge to reward one contestant’s cutting-edge design with the Prop Master’s Choice award. The contestant’s design will then be created into a non-working mock-up that could wind up in Bobbitt’s next blockbuster film. The Prop Master’s Choice winner will also receive $3,000 plus Autodesk SketchBook Pro software.
“We’re very excited about this competition because it gives consumers and design enthusiasts all a chance to exercise their creative imaginations and have their ideas be heard,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of marketing and innovation for LG Mobile Phones. “You don’t have to work for LG to make an impact on the future of mobile phones.”
Autodesk will supply participants with a free 15-day trial of SketchBook Pro, a paint and drawing application for use on the Mac or PC. It offers an intuitive, streamlined user interface so even new users can be productive within minutes. The 15-day trial will give all competitors access to industry-leading professional design software and levels the playing field for professional and amateur designers alike to create the phone of their dreams.
“We’re thrilled to partner with LG and Autodesk on this innovative design challenge. The challenge represents the real power of crowdsourcing - by allowing anyone to have the opportunity to design the next generation mobile phone for a global leader,” said Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING. With a pool of over 55,000 designers and writers in more than 170 countries, crowdSPRING is one of the world’s largest creative communities and is an open platform where anyone can post projects or submit entries. Both seasoned and aspiring designers can submit their entries until April 26th at www.crowdspring.com/LG.
Competition Details
Eligibility: Any U.S. resident (citizen or green card holder) that is 18 years (or age of majority in state of residence) and older
Start and End Dates: The competition begins on March 15, 2010, at 12 a.m. PST and ends on April 26, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. PST
Winners will be announced on May 14, 2010 at www.crowdspring.com/LG/winners.
Prizes:
- First Place: $20,000 Cash Award + 1 Wacom Intuos4 medium tablet (ARV of $349) + Autodesk industrial design software (ARV of $500)
- Second Place: $10,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100)
- Third Place: $5,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100)
- Prop Master’s Choice: $3,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100) + 1 non-working concept mock-up creation (ARV of $4,000)
- 37 Honorable Mentions: $1,000 Cash Award
Official rules can be found at www.crowdspring.com/LG. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
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About LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company
LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company is a leading global mobile communication and information company. LG creates handsets that provide an optimized mobile experience to customers around the world with its cutting-edge technology and innovative handset design capabilities. Increasingly, LG is pursuing convergence technology and mobile computing products. LG will continue to take leadership in the mobile communication environment with stylish designs and smart technology. For more information, please visit www.lgmobilephones.com.
About LG Electronics, Inc.
LG Electronics, Inc. (KSE: 066570.KS) is a global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances, employing more than 84,000 people working in 115 operations including 84 subsidiaries around the world. With 2009 global sales of USD43.4 billion, LG is comprised of five business units — Home Entertainment, Mobile Communications, Home Appliance, Air Conditioning and Business Solutions. LG is the world’s leading producer of flat panel TVs, audio and video products, mobile handsets, air conditioners and washing machines. LG has signed a long-term agreement to become both a Global Partner and a Technology Partner of Formula OneTM. As part of this top-level association, LG acquires exclusive designations and marketing rights as the official consumer electronics, mobile phone and data processor of this global sporting event. For more information, please visit www.lgusa.com.
About crowdSPRING
crowdSPRING is an online marketplace for creative services ranging from graphic, web and industrial design to writing services. For buyers, crowdSPRING is a place to post a creative project, watch the world contribute ideas and choose the best. For creatives, crowdSPRING is a global stage for creativity where title and experience don’t matter. crowdSPRING is a privately held company based in Chicago. For more information, visit www.crowdspring.com.
About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc., is a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software to help customers experience their ideas digitally before they are built. Fortune 100 companies - as well as the last 15 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects - use Autodesk software tools to design, visualize and simulate their ideas to save time and money, enhance quality, and foster innovation for competitive advantage. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.
Autodesk, AutoCAD, and SketchBook are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
Inspiring Corporate Entrepreneurship to Fuel Innovation
March 17, 2010
It’s been said that successful people either are entrepreneurs - or think like entrepreneurs.
Look around your company. Are you surrounded by “entrepreneurs”? Is your team comprised of people who take ownership of any project or task that comes across their desk or inbox? Do they embrace challenges, possess the process, and take responsibility - for successes and failures alike?
Some may come away thinking that “corporate entrepreneur” and “employee” are contradictory. They believe that “entrepreneurs” take the ultimate risk - ditching the security of the day-job, as it were, and facing the personal, financial and psychological challenges of business ownership.
That’s one definition. Another would be “corporate entrepreneurship.” This realm is inhabited by people who - though they receive a paycheck signed by someone else - see the organization (or at least their small domain within it) as their turf. This is the most valued of employee.
Innovation and corporate entrepreneurship are inextricably intertwined and fuel well-reasoned risk taking. Especially in large organizations traditionally risk averse, innovation drives leaders and teams to become more corporate enterprising. This process encourages growth from within, which helps set the stage for leadership continuity.
As a business leader, you must build an environment that tolerates such entrepreneurial thinking. It’s the leader’s job to encourage such entrepreneurial thinking - to exude and build trust, to embrace the risk to fail, and to inspire people to take well-reasoned chances.
In the book, “Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship,” co-author Robert Wolcott discusses how companies can enable and support “internal entrepreneurs” to achieve innovation-led growth. Such entrepreneurial thinking drove IBM to realize some $15 billion in new annual revenues from 22 Emerging Business Opportunities, and Whirlpool to realize $4 billion in revenues from companywide innovation efforts - “despite global recession and the steep drop in housing markets,” notes one review.
The authors reveal four models of corporate entrepreneurship laid out on an axis of organizational ownership (on the horizontal) and Resource Authority (on the vertical). Each possesses unique and specific characteristics. The Opportunist (bottom left), takes no deliberate approach to entrepreneurship; the Advocate (bottom right) evangelizes for it; the Enabler (upper left) provides funding and executive attention, and the Producer (upper right) establishes full service groups with mandates for corporate entrepreneurship
Applying Robert’s Rules of Innovation , the Advocate, Enabler and Producer can thrive in this environment for each has corporate support. They have executive support, from Inspiration to Net Reward, needed for innovation borne of corporate entrepreneurship to thrive.
Yet for corporate entrepreneurship to thrive, it needs more. It requires the structure and culture. Assuming the right people are in place, leadership must provide divisional and business unit autonomy. How can you lead your organization to a climate of corporate entrepreneurship?
- Like Innovation, Define what “entrepreneurship” means. The phrase “Corporate Entrepreneurship” must mean the same thing organization-wide. Moreover, leadership must delineate objectives and point the way as part of its vision and mission.
- Incubate and nurture. Corporate entrepreneurship doesn’t flourish without guidance. It starts small - and grows through encouragement. Begin with small projects heavily supported by leadership. Those success stories should be heavily communicated as such. They then will become the lead project to pull the rest of the group or other entrepreneurial-minded teams along.
- Create a reward system. Risk and reward, when properly aligned, can foster accountability. Rewards - whether in the form of praise from immediate managers, attention from leadership, or the chance to lead future projects or task forces - are powerful motivators. They also can help solidify the creation of stronger corporate entrepreneurs.
So look around your organization. Are you surrounded by employees - or entrepreneurs? The difference may be not only the way they think, but they way they’re being nurtured.
By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar
Robert Brands is the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation“: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman, published March, 2010 by Wiley (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com).
Toyota Recall Highlights: Innovation gone too far?
March 3, 2010
Once upon a time, to start your Toyota Camry, you placed a key in the ignition and turned until the electrical connection was made and engine started.
To accelerate, you pressed the gas pedal, which pulled a cable attached to a mechanical throttle. Assuming the shift had been manually placed into gear – the car moved.
Today, electronics and computers have replaced many of the mechanical parts that once made cars move. To start many cars or place them in gear, buttons are pushed. To accelerate, the gas pedal is connected not to a cable, but to a computer – via electronic circuitry.
In light of Toyota’s massive recall of 10 million of Camry, Tercel, Prius hybrid and luxury Lexus models (and that’s a shortened list), one has to wonder: At what point does “innovation” encourage failure ?
In other words, has Toyota gone too far? In the interest of fairness, these issues potentially affect any modern automobile. Already, GM is facing recalls related to steering.
The costs – in terms of finances and consumer confidence – can be great. As Toyota mechanics are correcting millions of cars and consumer confidence lags, rival automakers have reported double-digit sales growth.
But the question of innovation for innovation’s sake – or for the sake of “technological evolution” – begs to be asked. Sure, innovation of the vehicle and the way it’s manufactured cuts costs, including labor and benefits. We continually innovate to cost reduce. But now, cars don’t just turn on with the turn of a key. And when they don’t roar to life as expected, the corner mechanic must be trained not only in auto repair, but in computers technology (assuming he or she owns the equipment).
This reminds me of a story. It was the 1970s. Two adventurers once were traveling by pick-up truck in northern Mexico when their vehicle broke down. The local mechanic took a look under the hood, grabbed a coffee can of old parts, and fashioned a fix.
How does this all relate to the innovation imperatives? In Robert’s Rules of Innovation, it mentions two key imperatives that seem to have gone awry here. First, Toyota sought the imperative of value creation in pursuit of innovation. Yet, any value created through their innovation-gone-awry is more than lost through the recall and labor costs and lost sales and good will.
Second, who has been held accountable? After first declining to do so, Toyota President Akio Toyoda made a very public appearance on Capitol Hill. He apologized and promised to “do everything in my power” to ensure the malfunctions and tragedies don’t happen again. Do Americans buy it? Can Toyota afford to wait and wonder?
To that end, the complexity of the conundrum facing Toyota at one point was belied by the simplicity of their first apparent fix. After spending days in conference over how to remedy the stuck throttle, high-paid engineers came up with a simple solution: Shorten the gas pedal.
To be sure, in the end, the issues facing the automaker were far more complex than nipping an inch off a too-long pedal. But could the issues have been remedied in the designer’s or accountant’s office years ago – when the company believed innovation would save money?
We – and Toyota – may never know. But we’ve learned that innovation poorly planned can have the greatest expectations, but the worst outcomes.
By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar
Robert Brands is the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman and which will be published in March by Wiley (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com).
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