In recent years, we have witnessed change in organisational accountability, especially toward investment in training, programs, and projects.

Employers and government are concerned about the value of their investment on vocational education and training. Today, this concern translates into financial impact, the actual monetary contribution from a training program.

Although monetary value is a critical concern, it is the comparison of this value with the project costs that captures stakeholders' attention— and translates to ROI. "Show me the money" is the familiar response from individuals asked to invest (or continue to invest) in major projects (including training programs). At times, this response is appropriate.

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Almost everyone in the business world is familiar with the brainstorming maxim: think outside the box. However, a recent study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh found ideas that were closely related to a problem helped form the most viable solutions.

Using OpenIDEO, a web-based crowdsourced innovation platform used to address a wide range of social and environmental problems like human rights violations and job growth for youth, researchers—recent University of Pittsburgh graduate Joel Chan and his mentor Christian Schunn of Pitt's Learning Research and Development Center, along with Carnegie Mellon University's Steven Dow—challenged participants to come up with solutions for large-scale problems like "How might we inspire and enable communities to take more initiative in making their local environments better?" and "How can technology help people working to uphold human rights in the face of unlawful detention?"

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