Wired has a great short piece on how the winning team of the Netflix $1 million challenge came up with their solution. The challenge was to improve Netflix’s search and rating system by 10% – something that took years (and he winners own by mere minutes, too). Several key Medici Effect rules stand out:

1. New ideas are generated when you combine existing ideas

“The top two teams beat the challenge by combining teams and their algorithms into more complex algorithms incorporating everybody’s work.”

2. But not all idea combinations are created equal – the more unusual or unlikely the combination the more likely that the idea is innovative

“But something else happened that wasn’t entirely expected: Teams that had it basically wrong — but for a few good ideas — made the difference when combined with teams which had it basically right, but couldn’t close the deal on their own.

…Ironically, the most outlying approaches — the ones farthest away from the mainstream way to solve a given problem — proved most helpful towards the end of the contest, as the teams neared the summit.”

3. The more ideas you come up with and decide to pursue (whether completely different ideas or even iterations of prototypes) the higher the likelihood that you will be innovative.

“The more people joined, the more the resulting team’s score would increase.”

Another 4^th rule that applies at the Intersection, that diverse teams come up with more ideas could not be gleaned from the piece but I have no doubt this was the case. Congratulations to the BellKor team!