“Innovate Us” Widget - for any business
I received an email today from Ruben Robert the cofounder and head of marketing at Fellowforce.com. You may remember I introduced you to Fellowforce.com in this posting on June 16, 2007. Ruben sent me a press release outlining an exciting new way for organizations to gather innovative ideas.
Jeff Crites, Fellowforce.com Director/North America, explains:
“We started our platform for Open Innovation two months ago, and since then we’ve received ideas and suggestions for leading brands worldwide. The idea for this new service is due in large part to a submission in our own innovation box. A Fellowforce ‘Fellow’, Marcel Heinkens of the Netherlands, suggested we offer an Open Innovation widget for websites. Today, four weeks later, we’re introducing the ‘Innovate Us’ button, enabling any business to welcome ideas from a global force of innovators.”
The ‘Innovate Us’ button is like a ‘Digg-this’ application for innovation, empowering and encouraging consumers to submit ideas to company controlled (Fellowforce enabled) innovation boxes.
“We prefer to call them Innovation Boxes because consumer participation is more than just a feedback tool”, adds Crites, “it’s a driver for innovation. And for companies, this is like having a souped-up RSS aggregator to manage idea feeds.”
Now for all the critics out there, don’t be too fast to toss this concept aside. I actually think the ‘Innovate Us’ widget has real potential. Don’t get me wrong, you probably will never receive a change the world innovation through the innovation box. However, if companies learn how to use the innovation box properly… world changing innovations will happen. I strongly believe that innovation begins with context. The ideas generated through the ‘Innovate Us’ widget will be context driven ideas. Organizations should ask themselves why each idea was suggested and then follow the trail to an innovative solution.
The basic ‘Innovate Us’ button is free of charge and takes just minutes to install. Companies can upgrade for full facilitation, customization and complete open innovation box solutions. With basic or premium, companies can easily manage ideas from submission to implementation. Consumers can see status reports on their submissions, so the process is transparent between parties.
A number of companies are proud to be early adopters.
Mario van Stijn, Marketing & Sales Manager of FloorWindo International: “Our competitive advantage is caused by our ability to continuously innovate. With this button we’re inviting our vendors, end users and others to speed up our business development.”
Mindtrek Conference director Jarmo Viteli: “Normally we ask for feedback after our Mindtrek Conference has finished, but with this ‘button’, we’ll take suggestions before and during the conference as well”.
Telme Clothing founder Kevin Shane, a Business Week 2006 ‘Top 25 Entrepreneur Under 25’, jumped at the chance to use the service. As did Forrest Kolb, CEO of BizzFlip, a type of niche Craigslist for business.
