There's no simple formula for developing innovative technology. Hiring the smartest professionals and spending substantial amounts of money on research and development is the standard approach, and it usually works. But IBM has discovered that another way is to listen to new voices. The multibillion-dollar technology vendor, which in most years ranks as the worldwide leader in obtaining new patents, is harvesting ideas from a group of computer-science and MBA college students who team with IBM business managers in an 11-week summer internship program called Extreme Blue. The 4-year-old program has been so successful―it produced 20 patent-pending inventions last year―that IBM is ex-tending it into the fall for the first time.
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