The Administration Does Not Support Blowing Up Planets

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | 1 Comment

1916277839_db58232f51_oSometimes the goal of the crowd is not the next big ad campaign, the next new product feature, the best article for how to spin fire poi, or finding the best restaurant in the area. Sometimes the goal of the crowd is simply whimsy.

One of the most popular crowdsourced triumphs recently was the 25,000 signatures achieved on the WeThe People petition requesting that the White House begin construction of the Death Star. Although the White House roundly (and quick-wittedly) rejected the proposal, people were pleased to see their voice eliciting a reaction (one of the original pleasures of democracy).

The response from Paul Shawcross (Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House) cited a few different reasons: not least of which that the price to build a death star was estimated to be around $850 quadrillion and that “the administration does not support blowing up planets.” But perhaps, most amusingly, Shawcross responded, “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”

However, simultaneously (perhaps due to the petition), there is a separate new policy. A We The People petition now requires 100,000 signatures within 30 days in order to elicit an official White House response. In addition to an infographic on the subject WTP shared the following data summary:

“In the first 10 months of 2012, it took an average of 18 days for a new petition to cross the 25,000-signature threshold. In the last two months of the year, that average time was cut in half to just 9 days, and most petitions that crossed the threshold collected 25,000 signatures within five days of their creation. More than 60 percent of the petitions to cross threshold in all of 2012 did so in the last two months of the year.”

In any case, I hope it’s the policy of future administrations not to blow up planets, as well. No matter how large the petition.

 

What do you think of We The People? What else can we learn from the Death Star petition?

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The Patent Research Battle

Posted on January 31, 2013 by | 3 Comments

4894753910_18f1af41c5_oThis is how a patent action lawsuit works (you know – without any especial legal expertise):

1. A challenge is filed to a company that may have violated a potential patent

2. A period of research is dedicated to formulating a defense

3. The claim settles or goes to court. These cases can result in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

What is interesting in this age of entrepreneurship is that the “number of patent actions filed in the United States has tripled to more than 4,000 between 1991 and 2011, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study.”

What is also interesting is how Article One (a crowdsourcing company) is playing into the research aspect of the process. Article One has a crowdsourced staff of researchers who go through numerous public records looking for ways to settle patent conflict. According to Article One:

“In a sense, looking for patent research can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. By accessing our global research community, our clients have higher confidence that they have performed blue chip patent research to look for that needle. Our community’s work allows our clients to make better patent-related business decisions.”

The results are sorted algorithmically and the best reports are the ones that end up supporting potential conflicts.

Article One is already serving companies like Philips Electronics, Samsung, and RPX Corporation, among others and the company has only been around since 2008. Microsoft was one of its first subscribers.

In cases that settle for hundreds of thousands of dollars is compensating a researcher between $3,000 and $5,000 really a fair price? Also – is there any better way to go through the research process anymore than to cast the net wide?

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A Look Back at 2012, A Look Forward to 2013

Posted on January 24, 2013 by | Leave a comment

global-translation-smallWelcome to the new year! 2012 was a busy time at IdeaScale. We’ve made a lot of changes and added a cornucopia of new offerings to our platform. But isn’t January better with another Top Five list? So, we’ve picked out our five favorite new features from 2012 and have also included a sneak peek of what’s coming up in 2013.

The Top Five Features From 2012

1. Translation: IdeaScale’s new translation tool makes global collaboration possible. Worldwide communities can now communicate within the IdeaScale network, because content is automatically translated in ideas, comments, and suggestions.

2. Private Campaigns: When conversations and questions are reserved for particular groups, IdeaScale allows moderators to restrict certain campaigns to those members with an assigned community role. Dialogues, decisions, comments, and voting can all be consigned to the most relevant participants.

3. Improved Facebook Integration: Your users are already on Facebook, but IdeaScale’s improved Facebook app now allows the entire innovation experience to take place directly on your Facebook page: suggesting, commenting, voting, and all (and it’s all automatically synchronized with your web community in real time).

4. Custom Status Tabs: You define the idea lifecycle, which means if you want to change the tabs defining the process, you can. Administrators can not only change the status of ideas but now they can easily customize or disable them, as well.

5. Migration Tool: When you’re trying to get communities to speak to each other, IdeaScale now offers you the option of combining your communities with the migration tool.

Of course there were many other new features and changes in 2012, including the newadministrator dashboard, polling functionality, enhanced search capbilities, IP address restriction, crowdfunding capabilities, a new moderation UI, additional profile photo options, active directory SSO integration, as well as SSAE 16 and EU Safe Harbor security compliance, among other things. We’d love to hear what your favorite features were.

Looking Ahead to 2013… We’re looking forward to lots of new features in 2013. But here are some of our favorites:

Assessment Tool: One of the greatest challenges in the innovation process is the evaluation of different suggestions, comments, and conversations. With the assessment tool, not only can community members vote ideas and comments up and down, but they can also evaluate that content across a number of different criteria in custom fields that are defined by system administrators (for example: quality of idea as it affects potential return on investment, how it meets company mission, delivers overall company progress). It’s one of the ways that we’re making innovation implementation even easier.

You should also look for improvements to the user interface, a souped-up super widgetcapable of managing the entire IdeaScale experience within the bounds of its tiny widget package, a Q&A tool, the advanced commenting module and the introduction of ourchallenge module as well as improved infographic-style reporting. What else would you like 2013 to hold?

If you have questions about any of our upcoming or existing features, feel free to contact us at any time.

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Introducing: IdeaScale InfoComics

Posted on January 22, 2013 by | 1 Comment

webcomic_conversations_01IdeaScale likes to communicate with our members in a number of different ways. We send feature updates to our subscribers, we have this blog. We’re on Facebook and Twitter. We’re at local events, we’re at big events like Crowdopolis (register with code IS2012, by the way, and you’ll get a free hotel suite upgrade).  We like videos and essays and we’re thinking about the world of network intelligence, crowdsourcing, and innovation ALL THE TIME. We had to find a new way to let some of our ideas come out.webcomic_conversations_03

So, we’ve started talking about trends and insights in short, shareable comic strips. Two of the first ideas were about the digital world vs. the real world, making things that happen online result in things that happen offline. The second idea was about sharing the inspiration process as a built-in check and balance against faulty directions. Check them out for yourself at www.ideascale.com/infocomics.

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Looking forward to creating more in the New Year!

Have any ideas or insights you’d like to see illustrated? We’d love to dream on them for you. In the meantime, enjoy and share these!webcomic_conversations_04webcomic_inspiration_01

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The JOBS Act – What does it mean for crowdfunding platforms?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by | Leave a comment

6838996152_c9f5948afa_oThis post is a guest written by Andrew Jackson of Oak View Law Group. He has set out an introduction to crowdfunding and how the JOBS Act might effect the average investor.

In the Spring of 2012, Obama signed the act that is responsible for changing the entire crowdfunding platform landscape. Until April 5th, 2012, a small pool of existing crowdfunding websites were allowed to operate on a donation basis, essentially providing a discount, product or an enticement in exchange for monetary funding. But with the introduction of the JOBS Act (which is an abbreviation of Jumpstart Our Business Startups), the ability for laymen to receive equity from the companies in lieu of funding is now a possibility.

The Securities Act of 1933 suggests that the entities can’t offer their securities to the public. However, it is really unfortunate to note that the crowdfunding exemption that is introduced under the JOBS Act, Section 4(a) (6) of the Securities Act won’t come into effect unless the SEC issues the regulation, because it offers the nation a real chance at not just economic recovery, but growth. The most common issue for entrepreneurs is that they find it tough to access financing not only because 98% of the time their business plans are rejected by the angel investors and the venture capitalists, but also because the US banks held $608 billion on outstanding loans during 2011. Financial analysts are of the opinion that with the present state of the recession and the country’s economy, crowdfunding could be a huge asset for the nation as the portals could serve as one of the greatest vehicles for investing in small business firms. These small businesses are actually accountable for creating 65% new jobs.

Crowdfunding is a tool that offers entrepreneurs the chance to connect with a pool of people through social networking websites and ask them to donate towards a funding target that has previously been established. With the addition of equity as the biggest potential option in the crowdfunding space, there has been extra spotlight on crowdfunding. Business-savvy individuals can dream of becoming one among the original seed investors for companies that could become the next Facebook, Dropbox or Airbnb.

There are some critics who feel that crowdfunding is actually risky for the average American. But such critics need to be aware of the fact that the Americans usually purchase $45 billion dollars of lottery tickets every year and the households spend $150 annually on those purchases. The odds of winning the lottery are not favorable, so (by turns) the stock market odds actually look a bit brighter by comparison.

If you’re a big fan of investor protection, you may see the benefits of crowdfunding. The US Securities Exchange Commission has taken a unique step forward to enhance the possibilities for start-ups and investment funds.

By Andrew Jackson, financial counselor associated with Oak View Law Group, APC now for over 4 years. He analyses people’s financial situations and advises on different debt relief options. He also helps people manage their budgets through free counseling.

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Incentives and IdeaScale

Posted on January 15, 2013 by | Leave a comment

2438188271_dcd7a302f9_zLast Wednesday, Professor Olivier Toubia from the Columbia Business School outlined the earmarks of a good crowsourcing campaign that incorporated incentives. Toubia’s research confirms that not only are crowdsourcing incentives effective, there’s a way to incentivize that improves engagement, idea quality, and overall online behavior. We thought it would be a great opportunity to share with our network how they might adapt IdeaScale to those practices.

Toubia began by outlining the benefits of using a crowdsourcing platform to gather innovative ideas.

-It allows ideas to be submitted anonymously (so that people feel comfortable being as creative as they would like). IdeaScale does offer the option of anonymous submission.
-And it allows ideation to occur asynchronously (so that users can participate at any time).  And, of course, IdeaScale is live all day, every day.

He also said that challenges that were limited to a specific timeframe were often more effective, as well. This is something that IdeaScale clients have been doing for awhile. Take, for example, NASA’s latest IdeaScale community designed to gain guidance on what the next version of nasa.gov should look like. The community was open from November 19th – December 14th. That’s just 25 days, but the site was jumping the entire time, boasting 1,500 users who submitted over 300 suggestions in less than a month.

Toubia’s model also shared quite a few qualities with  IdeaScale product.

-In Toubia’s model, users could assign points to ideas. In IdeaScale, users can vote ideas up or down. Not only can ideas be voted up or down, but comments can, as well.Report or Flag idea

-In Toubia’s model, contributing ideas were threaded so that you could see how users responded to each other’s ideas. In IdeaScale, all ideas can support a threaded feed of comments so that the conversation around one idea is always catalogued.
-In Toubia’s model, users could challenge each other if they thought an idea was inappropriate, off-topic or if the user was trying to game the system. In IdeaScale, any user can flag ideas or comments to report abuse.

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But perhaps most significantly, Olivier Toubia found that the most effective way to engage users and get them to create great ideas was to reward them not for simply submitting an idea, but rewarding users who created the ideas that generated the most engagement from the rest of the community. In IdeaScale’s gamified experience, there’s a badge for this. The IdeaScale lightning rod award is awarded to the person who has received the most amount of votes on their ideas or comments. The lightning rod is just one badge in a suite of badges that IdeaScale has automated as part of the badges system.

In the future, IdeaScale hopes to create a custom badge for an idea that not only generates a storm of votes, but also a storm of commentary in order to better align to Toubia’s research.

To learn more about how to apply these qualities to your IdeaScale community, contact support.

For the full video of Professor Toubia’s webinar, visit the video archive here.

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Get Creative with Your Rewards

Posted on January 7, 2013 by | Leave a comment

ImageAs you know, this Wednesday is our complimentary webinar: The ROI on Rewards: When To Add Incentives to Your Campaign. 

We’ll be talking about how to gamify your approach to network intelligence communities and what sort of motivation can generate better ideas and participation. But over the past few weeks, we’ve been thinking a lot about how varied different incentives can be.

One of our favorite rewards is obviously the President’s SAVE Award. After federal employees have submitted their ideas and the public has voted on those ideas and after the OMB has narrowed down the finalist to the top idea, the winner gets to come to Washington to present their idea to the President. The real award is not just meeting the President, but also the honor of having made such a difference as well. Two ideas (by themselves) have already saved the government over $42 million.

Another example is Manor, Texas – a small town that has introduced “innobucks.” Citizens that submit ideas or review and comment on ideas, earn innobucks that can be exchanged for various rewards, like a ride-along with the Chief of Police or dinner with the city mayor.

And, of course, Kickstarter has helped pave the way for rewards that are both creative and help evangelize the product/project. A woman traveling around the world offers pictures of herself at various tourist points, a man creating his own short film offers an exclusive discount on the purchase of his DVD.

But, the real reward is often simply recognition or participating in the community. How do we honor those ideas? What sort of encouragement takes place in order to value innovation? This alone can often make a difference with 69% of employees saying that they would work harder if they were better recognized. This goes for sharing innovation, as well.

What sort of incentives do you offer? Want to know more about how to incentivize your innovation program? Join us by registering here for our webinar:

The ROI on Rewards: When To Add Incentives to Your Campaign
Wednesday, January 9th, 2013
9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. PST

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Introducing To Thine Own Self: Honesty in Marketing

Posted on December 31, 2012 by | Leave a comment

tothineRomi Mahajan (who recently celebrated the debut of his book Cool Is for Fools) has released a new title called To Thine Own Self: Honesty in Marketing (available for download on Kindle). Much like Cool, To Thine Own Self has Mahajan acting as a standard bearer for a new form of marketing – one in which sincerity, transparency, and ethics are a guiding force.

One of my favorite ideas was presented within the first few pages; Mahajan predicts that firms will begin employing what he calls “Marketing Ethicists” within the next few years. That’s right – someone responsible for monitoring all messages to protect consumers from lies, to liaise with departments and organizations that align to their organization’s values, and to advocate the needs of the user.

What’s interesting is that I think this position is already there, but its definition has yet to emerge. In this era of transparent communication, where every idea, criticism, and compliment is available online, it’s important to have someone who is responding to those thoughts, acting on them, helping to steer the company in the direction of real value and honesty. We are beginning to embrace these values out of necessity – but I think it is a sea change that we are acknowledging with relief. After all, IdeaScale has long been an advocate of transparency, honesty, and innovation on behalf of the customer. These roles today are labeled as our social media managers, our customer voice specialists – but they might be even more than that tomorrow. They may be our company’s ethical compass. The book continues in this vein, offering more insight and support for these initial thoughts.

Download To Thine Own Self to see a little farther down the road in the marketing industry – it’s not at all uncomplicated or easy, but what I was pleased to find is that the view was surprisingly optimistic.

What have you learned from To Thine Own Self?

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This Holiday Season: Kids Helping Kids

Posted on December 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAs the Indiegogo campaign will tell you, Alyssa Verruto decided when she was eight years old that her holiday project was going to be raising money for a local orphanage in her town. She wanted to be able to buy toys for children in need. So, each year, both Alyssa and her sister celebrate the season by going around the neighborhood and asking for donations for the Thompson Child Family Focus Center. In exchange, the Verrutos provide luminarias for the whole neighborhood in honor of those that give.

The Verrutos have kept their fundraising local until recently and have done pretty well (averaging about $700/year), but since opening up the campaign to crowdfunding on Indiegogo, the Verrutos have already exceeded their initial goal of $2,000 and kept on going.

This is crowdfunding at its best: teaching a new generation what is possible when a group works together. They’ve already met their initial goal, have plowed through their second and are excited to be able to offer a lot to the Thompson Child Family Focus Center this year. I’m glad to share stories of such optimism.

The deadline to donate has been extended to tonight, December 24th. With a year that has brought so much turmoil, let’s continue to encourage kids like Alyssa to work hard to make better moments for anyone. You’ll enjoy a luminaria of your very own when you give.

Warm wishes to all this holiday season from IdeaScale!

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