DiscoveryCast and SpecialChem Announce Strategic Partnership Agreement

Breakthrough Online Brainstorming Event Generates Valuable Insights and Validates New Partnership

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and PARIS--(October 12, 2010)  -  DiscoveryCast™, provider of a SaaS web-based ideation and visualization platform, announced a new partnership with SpecialChem, a leading Interactive Marketing and Open Innovation firm serving the global chemicals and materials sectors. This announcement comes just over a month after the two companies successfully collaborated during the three-day "Future of Bio-based Chemicals and Materials" online global ideation event. During this event, SpecialChem used the DiscoveryCast platform to efficiently collect input about key industry issues related to "bio" from hundreds of participants representing the global chemicals and materials industry and its downstream value chains.

While making the announcement, Cesar Castro, Founder and CEO of DiscoveryCast, said, "This event validated the DiscoveryCast methodology and demonstrated why we have selected SpecialChem as an exclusive channel partner for chemicals. SpecialChem leveraged their deep industry knowledge and their unique online community of engineers, the largest in the world for chemicals and materials, to both frame a relevant scenario and recruit over 800 industry leaders for this event. I am pleased to say this is only the beginning of the value and innovation the industry will realize because of our partnership with SpecialChem."

"This strategic partnership with DiscoveryCast is completely aligned with our corporate mission to help accelerate innovation and business development all along the chemicals and materials value chains," said Christophe Cabarry, SpecialChem's co-founder and CEO. "Our bio-based chemicals and materials event resulted in close to 1,800 ideas and exchanges on this very important topic. Many key technical and business questions were raised, many solutions were discussed, and several new applications and technologies have been uncovered, resulting in a number of business partnership opportunities between participants. The SpecialChem ideationLAB, built on DiscoveryCast's technology platform, has proven to be an extremely powerful tool for crowdsourcing and open innovation beyond the traditional boundaries of chemical and material companies. We are also offering the SpecialChem ideationLAB to our clients for private confidential events with their own employees, or to run collaborative ideation events with their customers. This process breaks down the internal silos within company walls or between organizations to capture new ideas and opinions from the 'collective brain' of selected teams."

Facts from the global event 

• Over 800 registered participants
• More than 400 companies from more than 40 countries participated
• 38% from North America, 36% from Western Europe, and 26% from rest of the world
• Close to 1800 ideas generated
• A report containing event analysis will be issued by SpecialChem in late-2010

DiscoveryCast—Connecting Ideas ∞ Driving Solutions

DiscoveryCast™ Announces Version 1.0 of Collaborative Ideation Platform: Web-based Application Helps Organizations Conduct Focused Brainstorming Events

San Francisco, CA

This morning DiscoveryCast™, a Bay Area software as a service (SaaS) company, announced the commercial availability of its Version 1.0, web-based ideation platform. The DiscoveryCast application is an on-line/real-time brainstorming platform that drives breakthrough ideas by capturing and prioritizing ideas or opinions from any imaginable network of participants. The application is designed for use during collaborative and anonymous events, thus providing a creative, “think out of the box” environment for participants to contribute ideas and other input. The announcement came at the company’s San Francisco headquarters and included a live demonstration.

Cesar Castro, Founder and CEO of DiscoveryCast, described the purpose and approach of the application by saying, “DiscoveryCast was designed to help companies drive breakthrough ideas and identify emerging trends by tearing down internal silos and eliminating political games that typically drive innovation decisions. Each DiscoveryCast event enables companies to focus on a specific scenario or challenge and is accomplished with a strong emphasis on collaboration, visualization and analytics.” Castro’s prior experience managing innovation-focused, crowdsourcing/social media projects led him to realize the need for an application like Discovery Cast. “We provide an efficient, systematic approach for companies to unleash their creative potential by better leveraging internal knowledge and expert-inspired thinking that delves deeper than the top-of-mind—to be frank, by identifying and capturing their best ideas without the drag of existing corporate mindsets and cultural tendencies.”

In addition to his DiscoveryCast role, Castro is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Business where he lectures on innovation and changing corporate culture to embrace new innovation models. He has authored a white paper on the topic of corporate innovation entitled, The Benefits of Incorporating Ideation in an Open Innovation Strategy. To order copies of Castro’s paper, send requests to info@discoverycast.com.  

DiscoveryCast—Connecting Ideas ∞ Driving Solutions