第1533期:The problem-solving prizes

What do you do when you have a problem? Do you go to an expert, ask your friends to come up with an idea? Or, given the chance, would you ask a crowd of strangers for a solution? It may sound strange, but it has spurred more than a few successful innovations. That’s the thinking behind a 'challenge prize'.当你遇到问题时你会怎么做？你会去找专家，请你的朋友想出一个主意吗？或者，如果有机会，您会向一群陌生人寻求解决方案吗？这听起来可能很奇怪，但它激发了不止一些成功的创新。这就是“挑战奖”背后的想法。Challenge prizes come in many shapes and sizes but the basic concept remains the same. Rather than consulting and paying an expert to innovate a solution, you offer the prize up to anyone who believes they can solve it and present the first to do so with a prize. This might sound odd - many would argue, 'Who is better qualified than an expert?' But actually, not using one seems to result in a great deal of thinking outside of the box.挑战奖品有多种形状和大小，但基本概念保持不变。与其向专家咨询和支付费用来创新解决方案，不如向任何相信自己可以解决问题的人提供奖品，并为第一个这样做的人提供奖品。这听起来可能很奇怪——许多人会争辩说，“谁比专家更有资格？”但实际上，不使用似乎会导致大量跳出框框思考。Some argue that formal education can kill creativity because it sometimes only teaches a single solution to a problem or single method to achieve a task. In the same way, some suggest that experts can suffer from tunnel vision. "If we launch an XPRIZE and it's just the 'experts' that come out and compete, they're usually the ones that will tell us it can't be done." says Marcus Shingles, former CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, which organises challenge prizes today.一些人认为，正规教育会扼杀创造力，因为它有时只教授问题的单一解决方案或完成任务的单一方法。同样，一些人认为专家可能会受到隧道视力的影响。“如果我们推出了 XPRIZE，而只有‘专家’出来竞争，他们通常会告诉我们这是不可能的。”今天组织挑战奖的 XPRIZE 基金会前首席执行官 Marcus Shingles 说。There are other advantages too. "You're not asking people to use a particular solution set on how to solve that problem. So you get this tremendous amount of diversity." adds Shingles. And because the crowd acts like an impromptu think tank, its lateral thinking can throw up issues that may have been overlooked.还有其他优点。“你不是要求人们使用特定的解决方案来解决这个问题。所以你得到了巨大的多样性。”添加带状疱疹。而且由于人群的行为就像一个即兴的智囊团，其横向思维可能会引发可能被忽视的问题。Challenge prizes were most popular during the 18th and 19th centuries, but have received renewed interest more recently. Historically, many practical inventions have been conceived in this way – for example, the tin can. More recently, Virgin Galactic, a company hoping to commercialise space flight, developed out of the Ansari XPRIZE 2004 winner Tier One. They successfully launched a reusable spacecraft that left the Earth's atmosphere twice in two weeks. The prize was $10m.挑战奖在 18 世纪和 19 世纪最受欢迎，但最近又重新受到关注。从历史上看，许多实用的发明都是以这种方式构思出来的——例如锡罐。最近，维珍银河，一家希望将太空飞行商业化的公司，从 2004 年 Ansari XPRIZE 冠军 Tier One 发展而来。他们成功发射了一艘可重复使用的航天器，该航天器在两周内两次离开地球大气层。奖金为 1000 万美元。However, there are dangers connected to blue-sky thinking. "You don't want to be creating a challenge prize which incentivises people to solve a problem where there is no demand," says Tris Dyson, executive director of challenge prizes at Nesta, a UK-based innovation foundation. This happened in 1979 where a Kremer prize of £100,000 was claimed by the first person to fly under human power across the English Channel. Despite its successful completion, it has not led to the adoption of human-powered flight as a form of travel. And of course, there are those who invest their personal time and money only to see no return at all: someone else claims the prize, or they find that the reward does not match the resources they invested.然而，蓝天思维也存在危险。总部位于英国的创新基金会 Nesta 的挑战奖执行董事 Tris Dyson 说：“你不想创建一个挑战奖来激励人们解决没有需求的问题。”这发生在 1979 年，第一个在人力下飞越英吉利海峡的人获得了 100,000 英镑的克雷默奖。尽管它成功完成，它并没有导致采用人力飞行作为一种旅行形式。当然，有些人投入了个人时间和金钱，却根本看不到任何回报：其他人领取了奖金，或者他们发现奖励与他们投入的资源不匹配。The pros and cons of challenge prizes affect both problem-setters and problem-solvers. But they don’t seem to be going out of style anytime soon. To many, the challenge to innovate, the lure of the prize and the prestige of being first is too much to resist. And there’s no solution for that.挑战奖的优缺点会影响问题制定者和问题解决者。但它们似乎不会很快过时。对许多人来说，创新的挑战、奖项的诱惑和第一名的声望都难以抗拒。并且没有解决方案。词汇表come up with 想出，提出solution 解决办法spur innovation 激发创新concept 概念innovate 创新（解决方案）solve 解决think outside the box 以新眼光看问题，跳出传统的思维框框tunnel vision 视野狭隘，井底之蛙think tank 智囊团lateral thinking 横向思维throw up issues 抛出问题overlook 忽略，忽视invention 创造，发明conceive 构想出blue-sky thinking “蓝天思考”，不着边际的想法problem-solver 善于解决问题的人