Ankur Chawla

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Amazon Studios’ experiment in crowdsourcing scripts: were they right to abandon open innovation in developing new content?
Ankur Chawla
Posted on November 13, 2018 at 8:00 pm
In November 2010, Amazon Studios launched and opened its doors to allow anyone with a movie idea to submit a script to potentially be developed at the studio. After 7.5 years and over 27,000 submissions for both TV and film, [...]

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On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on The Missing Piece: How Lego Found Open Innovation at a Critical Time :

Very interesting read, and a cool foil to the Amazon Studios crowdsourcing story.

I love the idea of Lego using crowdsourced designs because the value proposition and use case of legos was to design and build your own creations, and this created a platform for users to share those creations. It’s interesting that they took the input from the community to drive partnerships with Minecraft and others – it sounds like a great way for them to create lasting bonds with those consumers while tapping deeper into pop culture.

Regarding the question around their design team, I think there’s still value they drive – they can create entire worlds around a single idea pitched from the crowd and still have the ability to develop their own ideas and pieces to be used in new creations.

On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on From Toys to Your Butt, What’s IKEA going to Print Next? :

Great title and fascinating article!

While I agree about the potential for in-store 3D printing, particularly if it could significantly reduce supply chain costs, I’m not sure they need to build the capabilities in house vs partnering with those who are developing 3D printers. IKEA’s core competency is around designing furniture, and I’d worry investing in the development of 3D printers might not align with their skill-set particularly as 3D printing is still relatively early in its development curve.

I think IKEA could charge more for 3D printed products, but not necessarily for the sustainability reasons. If I were them, I would charge more for the customization aspects (like a chair designed specifically for me to sit on vs anyone else) rather than for social reasons which may be difficult to quantify.

On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Using Open Innovation to Fight the Opioid Epidemic :

Really cool post on HHS – would not have expected a government agency to do something like this!

I really like the questions you posed. I don’t think government needs to take the lead on social issues that could be solved by open innovation, and though not obvious social endeavors, platforms like Wikipedia, Linux, and Firefox are a few examples of it. I do think there need to be specific drivers facilitating open innovation’s success though, including the visibility of incremental change and “quick wins” that are often at odds with sweeping change around social issues.

Regarding adoption of ideas, I think the only facilitator at the government’s disposal is the ability to allocate resources to try to promote adoption.

On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on Defense Distributed: Is There a Future for Gun-control? :

Definitely a scary yet fascinating topic to think about.

It’s interesting that Defense Distributed is a non-profit – it really highlights their motives of democratizing access to firearms.

I agree with N about the designs not being protected as speech but rather classified as illegal, explicit material. I am at a loss for what regulations or policing could be applied to something like this. It seems as if there’s nothing stopping anyone with access to a 3D printer from building metal-less firearms with Defense Distributed’s plans, but like the ideas proposed around machine learning to flag potential uses of the blueprints.

On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on Moley the Robotic Chef: The Future of Cooking or An Expensive Toy? :

This case is super interesting – thanks for sharing!

Reading this reminded me of things like the “Robot Restaurant” in Tokyo, and I could absolutely see people going to a restaurant to see a robot cook their food. I have a tough time seeing it becoming mainstream in the home with such a high price tag, but as more home automation arises and prices for this technology falls I could see a machine chef certainly becoming a mainstay in every house. I’d be very curious to see how meal feedback could be incorporated for the robotic chef to improve upon existing recipes and potentially create new ones through machine learning.

Personally I think it might be a bit ahead of its time, but would 100% go to the robot’s restaurant if it had one.

On November 15, 2018, Ankur Chawla commented on Viacom: Transforming Television with Targeted Ads :

Super interesting info on Viacom and targeted ads!

To your first question, I think it’s important to note that it’s not only buy-in from advertisers that’s necessary, but all parties along the value chain for live TV in order to deliver a consistent experience to consumers – cable distributors, set-top-box manufacturers, and device makers as you had mentioned all need to be aligned to even get programmatic ads in front of consumers.

To your second question, I definitely think broad based advertising campaigns will remain important – as we saw in the Dove case this week, one of the more powerful things marketers can do to build a brand is to create a wide reaching conversation and try to enter the social zeitgeist. I’d worry that if all advertising moved to programmatic and hyper-targeted, brands might actually miss out on those opportunities to transcend their product, but absolutely see the industry moving this direction.