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How are Gore’s values, passionate Associates and focus on individual, team and Enterprise performance helping us to work together to create
a rewarding environment and meet customer needs? What efforts are underway to help the Enterprise better align with the intent of the Gore culture? Learn more in a culture initiative video recently published on the Gore Intranet. To view the 10-minute overview video—featuring insights from culture initiative champion Marcie Lee and fellow Associates—look under the “Culture Drives Success” section of the Dashboard on the Gore Intranet.
Reminder: Each of Gore’s three
key initiatives has a dedicated page on the Gore Intranet where you can nd background information, updates and related content. Just click on the strategy graphic on the left side of the intranet homepage and then the Initiatives link.
“It can help us to solve problems where the solution may already be known—just not by us,” Greg says. “I am con dent that our Associates can solve most technical problems, but why reinvent the wheel if we don’t need to?”
He adds, “We are very selective in what we’ll take outside Gore. We have to balance the need for collaborating externally with protecting intellectual property.”
INTRODUCING INNOCENTIVE
To tap into external solutions, Gore has partnered with InnoCentive, a Massachusetts-based crowdsourcing company whose online forum reaches 375,000-plus problem solvers from more than 200 countries. Gore posts challenges to the forum anonymously, offering a monetary reward for the top solutions.
“If you don’t consider the outside world
when innovating and solving problems, you risk developing tunnel vision. You have to make sure you are looking in the right direction for particular opportunities and solutions,” says Amos Wampler.
PharmBio Associate Trey Pichon,
Elk Mills II, for example, posted a crowdsourcing challenge through InnoCentive that yielded 56 potential solutions: How to measure the surface energy inside glass syringe barrels.
Trey explains why this challenge was a good t for crowdsourcing. “It involved an enabling technology without IP sensitivity,” he notes. “And we aren’t glass experts at Gore. The amount of time Associates would spend looking
for a solution would take time away from areas where we are experts and where we can add more value. Through crowdsourcing, we were able to explore techniques we weren’t even aware of.”
Core Tech Associate Amos Wampler, Elk Mills I, has also crowdsourced through InnoCentive. The challenge: How to measure the thickness of thin lms. “We provided some general information about the lms, but nothing that revealed intellectual property,” he explains. “In 30 days, we had 180 solutions come back to us. I was surprised and pleased. We found some interesting ideas we wouldn’t have considered otherwise, including a solution that worked in one of our divisions.”
InnoCentive is best suited for those involved in process and product development research who need to solve a speci c problem. Gore has a decision matrix to help evaluate opportunities and decide when to u se crowdsourcing.
Those who have tried it agree that it’s an option worth exploring. “I look at crowdsourcing as a research tool,” Trey says. “You can scout the waters, dive out there, see what exists today and make sure you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. You can connect with a huge volume of people. There is so much mind power to tap into.”
Amos adds, “If you don’t consider the outside world when innovating and solving problems, you risk developing tunnel vision. You have to make sure you are looking in the right direction for particular opportunities and solutions.”
Do you have a challenge you’d like to take outside Gore? Contact Greg Hannon to explore whether it
would be a good t for crowdsourcing.
GORE LATTICE . APRIL 2016 3