My last post was about the lack of innovation involved in innovation contests (at least by the contest sponsors).

I'm not the only one thinking about innovation contests - it's also the subject of a story in Business Week, "Can X Prizes Spur Innovation?" Their focus is whether or not the contests produce innovative results.

Sure. Why not? There is always that potential, but the trick is getting the information out to the right people, at the right time and with the offer of the right money!

Why worry about so many hard-to-quantify details when you can train your own staff to be innovative?