ReadWriteWeb

As we've covered in the past, the cost of engaging and keeping great employees can be high. You can pay an intelligent employee to stay late, or placate them with a posh office environment, but one way to keep an innovator in their chair is to challenge their problem solving skills. Instead of hiring sub-par developers or trusting code to rogue contractors, below are two case studies that may make you consider creating competition to meet aggressive goals.

After years of struggling to beat Netflix's Cinematch recommendation algorithm by a baseline of 10%, two groups have emerged. While both teams produced qualifying systems, BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos submitted their entry 24 minutes earlier than 2nd prize team The Ensemble. Earlier this year ReadWriteWeb covered the Netflix Prize and asked the question, "Will the $1 million dollars be won in 2009?" While the answer is a resounding "yes", it was not January forerunner BellKor that took the prize, but rather an amalgamation of 4 teams that triumphed.

Earlier this month, the World Wide Web Consortium announced the availability of the W3C mobileOK checker, a free service that performs various tests on a Web page to help you determine its level of mobile-friendliness.

According to W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, mobileOK checker builds on the suite of quality assurance tools already offered by W3C and "does a nice job helping you improve your content one step at a time."