Government contests offer different way to find solutions for problems

The U.S. government is giving away prizes. In seeking solutions to problems, it has discovered the magic of contests, or challenges -- also known as open grant-making or open innovation. Or crowd-sourcing. Whatever you call this new way of doing business, it represents a dramatic departure from the norm for the bureaucratic, command-and-control federal government. To be sure, the agencies won't abandon the traditional method of doling out grants to predictable bidders. But in the new era of innovation-by-contest, the government will sometimes identify a specific problem or goal, announce a competition, set some rules and let the game begin. Anyone can play. The idea is to get better ideas, cheaper, and from more sources, using the Internet and social networking and all the Web 2.0 stuff as a kind of vast global laboratory.