You have to check out Phil McKinney's blog on innovations. On June 23, he discussed reverse mentoring--how young people can teach the pros a thing or two about innovation.
We at BrainReactions know a lot about that!
Anand Chhatpar started BrainReactions, after spending a summer interning at Pitney Bowes. As an intern in the R&D department, he realized that the interns generated a wider variety of new product ideas than the pros. He considered this the "curse of knowledge," and realized outside innovation from college students could be a possible solution to widening the scope of R&D.
Anand headed back to UW-Madison, and got his friends together for some brainstorming. Three years later, Anand has perfected the art of super idea generation with Darin Eich. Now we have about 200 brainstormers. We generate over 1000 ideas for new products, packaging, or marketing every 3-hour session. We have found that quantity leads to quality, and many customers have been happy with our qualitative assessment of our ideas.
Young people can add value to the invention process, by turning inventions into innovative, marketable products.
I am so glad there are companies like HP and Pitney Bowes that respect the ideas, creativity, and intellect of their interns. More companies should follow suit, and allow their interns to do more than make copies and coffee.
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