Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/156265377?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Innovation Excellence | Open Innovation for Small Business
As you doubtless know, open innovation is the action of involving in your innovation process people from outside your company. It may be as simple as inviting a trusted supplier to help you develop ideas or as elaborate as launching a web site to collect innovative proposals from the public. For the most part, however, open innovation focuses on the fuzzy front end of innovation: that is idea generation and development.
Initial Considerations
Before you get started on your open innovation actions, you need to consider a number of issues that will help you determine the best approach as well as prevent you from making disastrous mistakes.
How Much Are You Willing to Share?
Open innovation means sharing information that most senior managers prefer to keep secret. It may mean sharing confidential information about how your product is manufactured, it may mean letting people know your marketing strategy for the near future, it may reveal certain problems or weaknesses about your company. That can be hard to do.
By the same token, if you invite the public to share ideas on an open platform, your competitors can also read those ideas and act upon them!
So, one of the first decisions you have to make is how much and what information you are willing to share with whom. You need not share everything with everyone. You may simply decide to involve your suppliers more directly with your product conception and design process. That would make them privy to confidential information, but your lawyer can draw up non-disclosure agreements that would ensure anything you share remains secret. In any event, most suppliers are aware that giving away their customers? trade secrets is a sure route to a destroyed reputation.
Intellectual Property
Before you even hint to an outsider that you want to involve her in your innovation process, you need to consider intellectual property issues. If an outsider suggests an idea to you, that does not make it yours. Indeed, you could develop such an idea into a highly successful product only to be sued inside out by the idea contributor if she can prove ownership of the idea ? such as a patent.
The easiest solution is to have a legal expert draw up a disclaimer that grants your company all rights to any ideas generated in any open innovation initiative that you launch and have participants sign the agreement before getting their ideas. If you are capturing ideas from the public via an on-line tool, this disclaimer is normally an on-line agreement the user accepts by clicking a clearly labelled button acknowledging that acceptance.
Disclaimers are used by nearly every organization running an open innovation initiative. The downside to them is that some people may be reluctant to share their incredible ideas with you only to let you profit from them. So your initiative will need some kind of reward system. But we will get back to that in a moment.
You may also run into the scenario that a patented concept is shared with you. In this case, the patent owner is almost certainly not going to grant you free rights to exploit her idea ? that?s why she patented it. In such a scenario, you will have to license from her the right to use the idea.
Incidentally, intellectual property is not normally an issue with internal innovation. The employment contracts you have with your employees should make it clear than anything developed on company time is company property. If this is not the case, or you have no employment contract, you need to do something about this immediately!
Rewards
Your customers, of course, will always be happy to share with you ideas about how to make your product better ? at least in their minds ? and will generally share those ideas with no expectation of reward, beyond a better product. But such ideas are inevitably incremental improvements on existing products and not breakthrough innovations that will propel your company into the international limelight and make you and your shareholders filthy rich. For the latter sort of ideas, you need to offer some kind of compensation or reward for ideas and their development.
The kind of rewards you offer depend on the open innovation initiative you intend to launch and who will be participating. Rewards may be favored supplier status or exclusivity deals with suppliers who contribute ideas that you decide to implement. For instance, a well known pharmaceutical company runs open innovation initiatives with suppliers. Those suppliers whose ideas are implemented are required to share ideas with other suppliers, but they get favored status status enabling them to do more business with the pharmaceutical company.
When working with the public or customers, however, rewards will usually need to be money or products. For instance, if you run a competition, you will normally need to offer a cash prize for the idea or ideas implemented. Alternatively, if you invite outsiders to participate in a day long brainstorming event, you will probably be expected to pay them for their time. Such payment could be in cash or it could be in kind: such as products your company makes.
Actions
There are number of open innovation actions you can launch. These can invite all the world and their grandmothers to participate or can focus on a select group or can be restricted to people whom you invite. Each action has its advantages and disadvantages.
Suggestion Web Sites
One of the most visible open innovation actions these days are suggestion web sites that invite customers and the general public to submit ideas on how to improve a company?s products and services. No rewards are offered and some of these site boast 1,000s and 10,000s of ideas. This may seem awfully seductive: you just make a web site and wait for your customers to submit gazillions of ideas.
Don?t. Open suggestion web sites are an administrative disaster! They give no direction on the kinds of ideas wanted.. They simply ask for ideas. As a result, very few of the ideas received are in any way relevant to your business. Worse, you will see many idea submissions repeated again and again ? after all, who is going to review 10,000 ideas to see if someone else has submitted the same suggestion? And a lot of ideas will actually be complaints about your products. But those are not the real problem with suggestion web sites.
The real problem is the 1,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 ideas. Stop and think how long it would take you and your team to read all of those ideas and determine which are worth taking further? In my experience it will take 5-10 minutes per idea on average. So even 1000 ideas will take over 80 hours, or two working weeks to review! Can you afford that? Moreover, based on my experience, no more than 2% of the submitted ideas will be actionable ? and they will be incremental product and service improvements unlikely to have more than a trivial effect on your bottom line.
Public Competitions
A better alternative to simply asking the public for ideas is asking the public for specific solutions to problems. This concept has been around for ages, but was recently made famous by the Ansari X Prize which offered a reward of US10 million to the first non-government team to launch a manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. The prize was eventually won by a team led by Burt Rutan who not only won the prize, but was also bombarded with investment offers and business proposals.
Since then, companies such as Hypios and Innocentive have launched similar initiatives on a smaller level. Companies and non-profits can post on the their web sites challenges together with prizes which typically range from US$5,000 to US$1,000,000. Problem solvers, either as individuals or teams, can submit solutions. The submitters of the selected solution win the prize. Many of the challenges on these sites are highly technical or scientific in nature and require a detailed solution. But all kinds of problems can be posted. A small handful of similar sites are also doing business. If you need innovative technical ideas to solve problems, one of these sites might be a suitable place to solicit ideas.
Of course you could also launch an innovation challenge on your own company web site and promote it through local media. However, the advantage to using a well known, international site, that specializes in promoting challenges, is that you have access to an international collection of expert problem solvers. The downside can be that substantial rewards will be expected.
Another approach, which can be effective for technical and scientific innovation, is to partner with a local university and invite students to submit solutions. This would have the benefit of tapping into the creative expertise of young people as well as the possibility of identifying potential future employees. At the same time, you give university students the opportunity to work on real-world problems and get real-world feedback on their suggestions.
Private Brainstorms
The alternative to inviting the public to suggest ideas is to invite a very select group of people to suggest ideas as well as begin developing them. This is something my company has done to great success on a number of occasions. As an example, a company which makes heavy duty construction equipment was looking for a way to simplify the design of a complex component. Doing so would reduce their manufacturing costs as well as increase the reliability of the component ? and hence their equipment. They invited employees from one of their suppliers as well as their own employees to submit and collaborate on-line using an innovation process management software (Jenni). Within a couple of weeks, they had a handful of great ideas, several of which were combined in order to substantially reduce the complexity of the component. They will save a lot of money thanks to the ideas.
On another occasion, a European non-profit, working with cultural heritage sites, wanted to explore how such sites could generate additional value to visitors by using new technologies. Representatives of museums, tourist attractions and historical sites went to Brussels for a day of brainstorming. People were put into smaller, diverse groups and given exercises based around specific creative challenges. A number of intriguing ideas were generated and have since been implemented across Europe.
In scenarios such as these, the external participants have a stake in finding and developing innovative solutions, so no additional reward is necessary. However, you may also wish to bring together people who have no stake in the solution, but who have expertise you would like to tap into. In such instances, you may have to provide a fee for their time. Although this adds to the cost, it does permit you to bring greater diversity to the problem solving table ? and that can lead to a high level of creativity in the idea generation.
Quick and Dirty Open Innovation
In addition to the structured approaches we?ve looked at already, there are a number of quick and dirty solutions you can use in order to tap into the creativity of others. For example, I use Facebook primarily as a means of keeping in touch with friends, sharing jokes and seeing which on-time classmates look older and fatter than me! Aside from occasionally promoting my book, Facebook is a non-business space as far as I am concerned. As a result, it can be a great place to post questions to a diverse range of people who are often willing to give feedback.
LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has special interest groups and forums for asking questions ? which can provide places for requesting ideas and getting suggestions. However, your competitors are probably hanging out on LinkedIn as well. So you need to think about what you share there.
In addition, there are numerous bulletin boards and specialized networking web sites where you can post questions and get solutions. Again, others in your line of business may hang out in such places, so the ideas you get will not be secret. Nevertheless, you can get some great ideas and feedback from people in these groups. Moreover, a business which would be a competitor in Johannesburg is a potential resource for information and ideas if they are based in New York (assuming you both focus on local markets, of course).
Be Careful About What You Ask Customers
Henry Ford once said that if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. There is great truth in this. Asking customers what they want will generally lead to product improvement ideas. But it seldom, if ever, leads to breakthrough innovation. Indeed, if a customer has an incredible yet viable idea that is a radical improvement on your product, she is more likely to launch a business making and marketing her improved product than to share her idea with you. In other words, she is your future competitor!
Nevertheless, you are in the business of pleasing your customers better than your competitors are capable of doing. So it is important to communicate with those customers and potential customers in order to ask them questions. But your questions should be more focused on gathering insights that you can use to develop radical new products and services.
Great questions to ask include:
- ?What do you use our product for?? You may find that some customers are using your product in ways you never intended. Once you know this, you can look at ways to make the product more suited to this alternative use. More importantly, you may discover a whole new way to market your product? You might go one step further and ask ?What unusual or unexpected things do you do with our product??
- ?What do you wish to achieve when you use our product?? Clearly Henry Ford?s customers wanted personal transport that would get them to their destinations faster.
- ?What are you unable to do with our product?? This again may identify that people wish to use your product in ways other than you intended. Find out what those ways are and identify how you can change the situation.
- ?What else do you do when you use our product or service?? This may identify additional opportunities to sell products to your existing customers.
In addition to asking questions, it is useful to visit places, where customers use your product, and observe. How do they use your product? What else are they doing? What other products are in this environment? What seems to cause difficulties?
You can also run brainstorming sessions in environments where customers use your products. Invite in a few customers and suppliers and get to work. Actually putting yourself into your customers? shoes while brainstorming is great for insight and inspiration.
Putting It All Together
Open innovation is an approach every company, from the one-man-band to the world?s biggest multinationals, can use. It has the advantages of bringing new perspectives, insights and inspiration to your idea generation and development process. Nevertheless, you need to consider how much internal information you wish to share with whom and ensure that you retain ? or can license ? the intellectual property to ideas that you receive. You also need to design initiatives that generate relevant ideas that meet your business needs.
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Jeffrey Baumgartner is the founder of jpb.com, makers of Jenni innovation process management software. He also edits Report 103, a popular eJournal on business innovation. Contact Jeffrey at jeffreyb@jpb.com or visit http://www.jpb.com/ Related Posts
Source: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2011/10/31/open-innovation-for-small-business/
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Kris Humphries Robbed by Wedding Guest!
Just because Kris Humphries spent Halloween away from wife Kim Kardashian doesn't mean they're having problems with their recent marriage. What Humpries, 26, is having issues with, though, is the fact that -- according to TMZ -- one of his wedding guests just stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from him.
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Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Steelers stomp Pats
Roethlisberger passes for 365 yards, two touchdowns
Getty ImagesBen Roethlisberger celebrates with Max Starks during the Steelers' victory over the Patriots on Sunday.
By WILL GRAVES
updated 7:41 p.m. ET Oct. 30, 2011
PITTSBURGH - The Pittsburgh Steelers no longer have a Tom Brady problem. And that may be a problem for the rest of the NFL.
Old, slow and over? Not quite yet.
Ben Roethlisberger picked apart the NFL's worst defense and the Steelers rattled the nearly unflappable Brady in a 25-17 victory on Sunday, putting an end to the two-time MVP's decade of dominance over the defending AFC champions.
Brady came in 6-1 all-time against the Steelers, putting up eye-popping numbers in the process. He never got the chance on a chilly day at Heinz Field. Pittsburgh (6-2) controlled the ball for nearly 39 minutes and never let Brady get into a sustained rhythm.
"It's been all Tom Brady versus the Pittsburgh Steelers and looking back on the past, how he's owned the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I think everybody forgot about our offense a little bit and the things they've been doing out there," Pittsburgh linebacker LaMarr Woodley said. "I think they took that a little personal."
Playing efficiently and working almost exclusively on short, safe, underneath routes, Roethlisberger completed 36 of 50 passes for 365 yards and two touchdowns as the Steelers won their fourth straight following a 2-2 start."We can be as good as we want to be," Roethlisberger said. "When we don't kill ourselves and stop ourselves, we can be pretty dangerous."
Brady passed for two touchdowns but threw for a season-low 198 yards. His attempt to lead the Patriots to an unlikely comeback ended when Pittsburgh's Brett Keisel sacked him, forcing a fumble that Troy Polamalu slapped through the end zone with 8 seconds left to provide the final margin.
"We all have to individually look in the mirror and figure out what we need to get better at," Brady said.
There was no sense of panic among the Patriots, who fell into a tie with Buffalo atop the AFC East. Yet the Steelers did something no team has been able to do this year: keep Brady under wraps.
Pittsburgh sacked him three times, held wide receiver Wes Welker ? on pace for an NFL record for yards receiving in a season ? to 39 yards on six receptions while limiting the Patriots to their fewest points since a 34-14 loss to Cleveland last year.
The Patriots punted four times, missed a field goal in the third quarter that would have drawn them within a touchdown and failed to recover an onside kick with just over 2 minutes remaining.
Not the kind of brisk execution that's been the hallmark of Brady and coach Bill Belichick's highly successful tenure.
"It just wasn't a really good day for us in any phase of the game, in any area," Belichick said. "We just didn't do a good enough job. That's really all there is to say."Brady and Belichick remain tied with Don Shula and Dan Marino for most wins by a coach/quarterback tandem. Win No. 117 will have to wait at least a week after the Steelers emphatically awoke from an early-season slumber that included one-sided losses to Baltimore and Houston.
Pittsburgh didn't panic after the slow start. And while the Steelers weren't ready to declare they're back, there was a definite sense of vindication on a day that felt more like January than late October, and not just because of the chilly weather.
"It's a huge step," linebacker Lawrence Timmons said. "The New England Patriots have Belichick and Brady. This is a team that contends in the AFC every year and goes to the championship or the Super Bowl. So having this win, in our house, is huge and something to build on."
On both sides of the ball.
Roethlisberger has built a career and won two Super Bowls by chucking it deep with abandon. On Sunday he didn't complete a pass over 26 yards. He didn't have to.
Roethlisberger consistently found Antonio Brown (a career-high nine receptions), Heath Miller (a season-high seven grabs) and speedster Mike Wallace (seven catches) on short and intermediate routes.
The West Coast-style approach worked perfectly.
Pittsburgh's five scoring drives lasted 11, 16, 10, 14 and 11 plays. The Steelers converted 10 of 16 third downs and Shaun Suisham kicked three field goals.
"It's very frustrating," New England nose tackle Vince Wilfork said. "You talk about getting a team in second-and-longs and third-and-longs and taking advantage of those situations. We had them in those situations; we just didn't take advantage of them."
Despite being dominated for long stretches in the first half, the Patriots trailed just 17-10 at the break. Yet the magic Brady has been able to muster repeatedly against the Steelers throughout his career never appeared. On the same field where he won two AFC championships, Brady never really got comfortable.
"We had to beat them today," safety Ryan Clark said. "We're talking about this dominance that New England's had on us. I think we've won more Super Bowls, been to more Super Bowls than they have. It's not about history. We were excited to win today."
Notes: Woodley finished with two sacks to become the first Steeler to get multiple sacks in four consecutive games. ... New England RB Kevin Faulk ran for 32 yards on six carries and caught five passes for 20 yards in his first game of the season. ... Patriots lost for just the second time in their last 11 games coming off a bye and lost in October for just the seventh time since 2003. ... New England TE Rob Gronkowski set a career high with seven catches. ... The Steelers played without offensive captain Hines Ward and defensive captain James Farrior, who missed the game with injuries. ... New England defensive lineman Andre Carter had two sacks for the 11th time in his career.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsGetty ImagesSuper Bowl rematch coming?
PFT's 10-pack: The Steelers and Packers appear to be on a collision course for a rematch, 18 years after the last time the two Super Bowl teams got back together for a second straight year.
Getty ImagesSource: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45097782/ns/sports-nfl/
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Senators: US losing sway in Africa as China rises (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Senators voiced concern Tuesday that the United States has lost influence with African governments as China has emerged as the continent's main trading partner and a major source of investment for infrastructure development.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations African affairs subcommittee, said the U.S. goal of promoting open societies in Africa was being challenged by China offering no-strings-attached investment for repressive regimes.
Coons said about 70 percent of Chinese assistance to Africa comes in the form of roads, stadiums and government buildings, often built with Chinese material and labor, while 70 percent of U.S. government spending there goes toward crucial but less visible support for people, particularly to fight AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases.
"We may be winning the war on disease, while losing the battle for hearts and minds in Africa," Coons told a subcommittee hearing on China's role in Africa and its implications for U.S. policy.
Coons' comments echo a common theme among U.S. policymakers, that China's rise as an economic and political power challenges America's global predominance.
Lawmakers criticized China's state-backed support for governments with poor human rights records.
"China is interested in their own goals and has very little concern about the governance of the countries that they deal with," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.
But experts told the panel that by supplying loans for infrastructure development, often in return for exports of commodities China needs for its own economic growth, the Asian power was responding to what African governments want, and filling a need unmet by Western nations.
David Shinn, adjunct professor at George Washington University and former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, gave the example of Angola, which had unsuccessfully sought Western investment after its civil war, and instead turned to China, which helped develop infrastructure in return for the promise of oil exports.
Deborah Brautigam, a professor at American University, said Chinese investment was often perceived to have a negative impact on human rights and democracy, principally because of Beijing's support of Zimbabwe and Sudan. But she said there was no evidence that political rights and freedom had declined in general across the continent.
Shinn, however, believed Chinese investment had to some degree undermined Western goals of promoting democracy, good governance and human rights. He said there also was evidence of Chinese companies importing technology to enable certain governments, such as Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, to restrict the flow of information on the Internet.
He said China passed the United States as Africa's most important trade partner in 2009. In 2010, China-Africa trade totaled $127 billion, compared with U.S.-Africa trade of $113 billion. China also possibly is investing more in Africa than any other single country, he said.
Stephen Hayes, president of the Corporate Council on Africa, a group representing U.S. businesses in Africa, told the hearing that U.S. embassies should do more to advance American commercial interests. He also wanted the U.S. aid program to promote U.S. businesses as a partner in African development.
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Cyber attack from China targets chemical firms
At least 48 chemical and defense companies were victims of a coordinated cyber attack that has been traced to a man in China, according to a new report from security firm Symantec Corp.
Computers belonging to these companies were infected with malicious software known as "PoisonIvy," which was used to steal information such as design documents, formulas and details on manufacturing processes, Symantec said on Monday.
It did not identify the companies, but said they include multiple Fortune 100 corporations that develop compounds and advanced materials, along with businesses that help manufacture infrastructure for these industries.
The bulk of the infected machines were found in the United States, Bangladesh and United Kingdom, Symantec said, adding that the victims include 29 chemicals companies, of which some developed advanced materials used in military vehicles.
"The purpose of the attacks appears to be industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage," Symantec said in a white paper on the campaign, which the company dubbed the "Nitro" attacks.
The cyber campaign ran from late July through mid-September and was traced to a computer system in the United States that was owned by a man in his 20s in Hebei province in northern China, according to Symantec.
Researchers gave the man the pseudonym "Covert Grove" based on a literal translation of his name. They found evidence that the "command and control" servers used to control and mine data in this campaign were also used in attacks on human-rights groups from late April to early May, and in attacks on the motor industry in late May, Symantec said.
"We are unable to determine if Covert Grove is the sole attacker or if he has a direct or only indirect role," said Symantec's white paper. "Nor are we able to definitively determine if he is hacking these targets on behalf of another party or multiple parties."
The Nitro campaign is the latest in a series of highly targeted cyber attacks that security experts say are likely the work of government-backed hackers.
Intel Corp's security unit McAfee in August identified "Operation Shady RAT," a five-year coordinated campaign on the networks of 72 organizations, including the United Nations, governments and corporations.
In February, McAfee warned that hackers working in China broke into the computer systems of five multinational oil and natural gas companies to steal bidding plans and other critical proprietary information.
Symantec said on Monday that the Nitro attackers sent emails with tainted attachments to between 100 and 500 employees at a company, claiming to be from established business partners or to contain bogus security updates.
When an unsuspecting recipient opens the attachment, it installs "PoisonIvy," a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that can take control of a machine and that is easily available over the Internet.
While the hackers' behavior differed slightly in each case, they typically identified desired intellectual property, copied it and uploaded it to a remote server, Symantec said in its report.
Symantec did not identify the companies that were targeted in its white paper and researchers could not immediately be reached.
Dow Chemical Co said it detected "unusual e-mails being delivered to the company" last summer and worked with law enforcers to address this situation.
"We have no reason to believe our operations were compromised, including safety, security, intellectual property, or our ability to service our customers," a Dow spokesman said.
A spokesman for DuPont declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Matt Daily and Ernest Scheyder.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45105397/ns/technology_and_science-security/
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Forensic service closure defended
31 October 2011
Last updated at 10:22 ET
The government has defended its decision to close the Forensic Science Service (FSS), which analyses crime scene evidence in England and Wales.
In its response to a damning inquiry report into the closure, it says allowing the service to enter administration would have seriously damaged the criminal justice system.
The government also denies suggestions it did not fully consider alternatives to closure.
The FSS was losing some ?2m a month.
The government wants to transfer operations to private enterprise, which currently makes up 40% of the forensics market.
The original inquiry report by the cross-party House of Commons science and technology committee was published in July this year. It was chaired by Labour MP Andrew Miller.
The inquiry concluded the government had not given sufficient consideration to the wider impacts of closing the FSS. Implications for criminal justice, research and evidence archives were "hastily overlooked" for financial reasons, it said.
Shrinking marketThe response says the FSS archives - which contain case files and samples - will remain available for use in court and in cold cases after March 2012. But there is no agreement on a long-term solution.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Government response to FSS inquiryWe were not prepared to expose the CJS to that level of risk?
While accepting some of the committee's findings, the government denied accusations of a "systemic problem" with the Home Office's use of scientific evidence.
"Science has a vital role in underpinning the Home Office's work," the response states.
The committee had criticised what it described as the "minimal" consultation carried out before opting to shut the FSS, which employed 1,600 people.
It claimed the Home Office had effectively sidelined its chief scientific adviser, Dr Bernard Silverman, and described his satisfaction at his exclusion from the decision-making process as "unacceptable".
But the government strongly rejected this critcism: "We needed to find a commercial and legal solution for the serious financial difficulties facing the FSS. The Home Office chief scientific adviser does not provide commercial or legal advice to ministers," it says.
The government claims that allowing the FSS to enter administration "would have seriously damaged the forensics capability available to the [criminal justice system - CJS]. We were not prepared to expose the CJS to that level of risk."
In a reply, Andrew Miller MP welcomed the government's acceptance of committee recommendations on the continued operation of the FSS archives and on ensuring casework is not transferred to unaccredited forensic providers.
But he added: "It is disappointing that the Home Office has failed to recognise that the decision to close the FSS should not have been taken purely on commercial and legal grounds, but also on scientific grounds.
"The government says it is confident that the wind-down of the FSS is the right decision. I will be asking the committee to keep a close eye on the transition as I still fear that the forensic science research base and criminal justice system could be jeopardised if the Minister's optimism is ill founded."
FSS offices in London, Birmingham (Trident Court), Wetherby and Huntingdon are still operating; sites in Chorley, Chepstow and Birmingham (Priory House) have been shut as part of restructuring announced in 2009.
A spokeswoman for the FSS said it was currently working to transfer some 180 staff to the Metropolitan Police.
The service shut its doors to new casework submissions from most forces on 3 October but will continue to support the North-East region and the Met Police past that date. But all operations will have to be transferred by next year's closure date.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-15523182
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