Perhaps not, but Orange's engagement with Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) - an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative - on their Orange Service Call + Reward (#OSCR) initiative marks a very visible acceptance that small companies have a lot to offer in the digital media space.
In brief, OSCR provides an opportunity for "innovators" to put forward ideas, developments or products that may ultimately be implemented by Orange in the future - but with a bit more of a twist.
Uniquely, a pot of £100,000 has been made available to help nurture up to 10 successful initial propositions for presentation to Orange. During this initial phase, applications are managed by appointed independent parties and money can be allocated to help originators Intellectual Property protection and patents - or to help refine and polish the proposition or product.
Orange gets no sight of the proposals until a formal submission date. Then it has a tight 90-day window to progress them, after which the originator is perfectly free to take the idea elsewhere.
It's an innovative, open approach to Product Development that seems to exploit the strengths of both camps; a company like Orange (and there are similar approaches being adopted by other large organisations) can bring their refined brand vision and the standing of an established, existing proposition to groups of people who are monitoring technological development closely - and are nimble enough to capitalise and create.
You can read about the specific mechanisms of the project on the OSCR website and there are videos and comments on NESTA's Connect blog
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