
Crowdsourcing, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arrogance of BP - rosskimbarovsky
http://blog.crowdspring.com/2010/06/crowdsourcing-bp-oil-spill-innocentive/
======
gaius
A "solution" isn't an idea. Ideas are 10 a penny. How many of those solutions
were actual plans that could be put into effect, bills of materials, Gantt
charts, cost breakdowns?

Personally I would rather BP be getting on with the job than reading
unsolicited email from the peanut gallery.

Oh, and to put that $2.35Bn into perspective, Union Carbide paid out $450M
for, umm, _killing 20,000 people_ at Bhopal. BP has made a huge mess sure, but
after the initial explosion, no-one has died. I think Americans need to take a
good long hard look at themselves in a mirror before getting on their high
horses.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
_Oh, and to put that $2.35Bn into perspective, Union Carbide paid out $450M
for, umm, killing 20,000 people at Bhopal_

First of all, let's not pretend like all American's are happy with Union
Carbide's "punishment" for that incident.

Second, BP isn't paying for deaths. They must pay for the monumental cleanup
and economic damages resulting from the environmental disaster they caused.
It's expensive.

According to the article, _Innocentive has a global network of more than
200,000 engineers, scientists, inventors, and business people who are experts
in physics, chemistry, math, life sciences, computer science, and many other
fields._. I wouldn't be so fast to discount the worth of their ideas. It's
that kind of arrogance that got them in trouble in the first place.

~~~
gaius
According to Innocentive, perhaps. But my point stands: how many of these
solutions were actually actionable? And even if all thousand of them are - the
engineers qualified to evaluate them are all busy working on the problem
themselves!

This just looks like some free publicity for Innocentive. Maybe they're the
arrogant ones?

------
shaddi
Official word from Innocentive:
[http://blog.innocentive.com/2010/06/23/innocentive-oil-
spill...](http://blog.innocentive.com/2010/06/23/innocentive-oil-spill-
challenge-bps-response/)

------
mcknz
We need ideas to replace oil or at least find safer ways to extract it -- this
X-Prize model does not work in a crisis, especially when there are already
credible strategies. There is not time to start from scratch, and BP sure as
hell isn't the entity to evaluate the feasibility. They have enough to do.
BP's call for ideas is pure PR.

------
captaincrunch
I had an idea today, where you'd take a large heavy Prism and lower it where
the pipe would go- the pipe would have to be removed. The pressure of the oil
coming out would push the sand around the prism, and allow the prism to sink.
The prism would obviously continue to sink, and it could follow with concrete
rubble.

------
danielnicollet
Unbelievable. Especially after reading the official word from Innocentive
posted by shaddi in this thread. Do we know at least what BP's rationale. They
seem to be focused on spending minimally on additional efforts to close the
open well or cleanup the spill and really rely on the August relief well as
the only worth investment right now.

Their rationale: Can't just be cost containment? That would be so idiotic and
short sighted! They are going to be dealing with this as a corporation for
decades...

They should be owning up to it now. But maybe it's just short sightedness of
the people in charge currently. They will likely all be retired long before
this is over...

~~~
eitally
The rationale is simple: it freaking complex for a large corporation to
navigate legal wranglings with "normal" trading partners during the best of
times; given that they are currently embroiled in what already may bankrupt
them, it does not make sense to embark upon a partnership with an unknown
entity type.

Put simply -- they know what they know and they know what they don't know, and
they're worried that if they step outside the comfort zone of redlines, LOLs,
and escape clauses that they could worsen rather than improve the current
situation.

<edit> That said, it is really myopic of them and it does demonstrate a
possibly disastrous lack of foresight.

