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Dell ideastorm and open innovation

One of my first jobs after leaving University was working for First Direct Bank looking after a project that they called Quest. It was a staff suggestion scheme where everyone in the company was incentivised to submit suggestions of how to improve their products. My job was to work with each internal team, encourage them to submit ideas and then feed through the results into the projects department. During my time looking after the project there were some good wins, particularly around improving the usability of back office systems. Overall though it was really hard to make work. Why? Well it was tricky to identify the ideas that would deliver the biggest benefit, most suggestions tended to be either very difficult to implement or of a small scale and of dubious payback. There were also so many ideas to work through and that was just from the staff, not all the customers as well.

Now I see that the suggestion scheme has come of age with the application of social / web 2.0 principles. I was taking a look at Dell ideastorm today which is based on the salesforce platform. Over 20,000 customers (or potential customers) have voted to standardise power cables for laptops. Which has got to be a very powerful insight for Dell's new product development. Even better though is that the wisdom of crowds has sifted through over 8,900 ideas to choose the products and features that people really want.

Jeremiah Olswang from Forrester has got a write up of the launch of ideastorm here.

This type of approach has to be a big part of the future of new product development, engaging with your community of customers and giving them an opportunity to collaborate and participate in new product features. Easy to knock, hard to pull off. Well done Dell.

What is cloud computing?

Its all in the cloud going forward ! Ten minutes well spent listening to various definitions of cloud computing from the leading thinkers in the industry. Thanks Jas.

Happy RSS awareness day

May 1st is RSS awareness day so spread the word!

If you are reading this blog you probably already know what RSS is and use it as a tool in your daily life.

As we found out last year, in the average UK town very few people know what RSS is when you ask them the question.

Probably the best way to raise awareness about RSS would be to change it's name to something a bit more meaningful to the non techie - like feeds, or web feeds. Any ideas?

Air Jelly - the jellyfish airship

I just love this....

from airship world

The story so far for social media - Universal McCann research

 

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

From: mickstravellin, 1 week ago

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This is the Social Media Research done by Universal Mccann including 17,000 people in 29 countries

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via Nic at Equity Kicker

Signposting your direction with a product roadmap

Directions mosaic, originally uploaded by robynejay.

I have just spent the past few days producing a visual product roadmap for the web service that I am a Product Manager for. There is some debate as to whether you need a roadmap at all but I find them very valuable for the following reasons:

1) They build consensus. Agile development is team based and it helps if all the members of that team are headed in roughly the same direction. A roadmap is a reference point for all the team.

2) They are visual. My roadmaps start with the current situation in the left hand corner and the stated vision for the product in the top right hand corner. Each new feature is then plotted onto the roadmap showing progression against a given theme eg. improved search. Dates are not included as they are bound to change, it's the direction towards a stated aim that is important here.

3) They are iterative and allow for change. A good roadmap is flexible and achievable in small steps.

4) They communicate the long term / strategic vision for a product. Its very easy to get stuck in the day to day and forget to focus on the overall direction, as new ideas emerge you can then plot whether they fit with the overall plan and then decide whether its the plan that needs to change or the request for the new feature.

Our roadmap is now pinned to the team planning board and I hope will be a reference and discussion point as we move forward.

UPDATE: A really clear case argued here by Tyner Blain on why you need a smart product roadmap 

 

Cooking with farmers weekly

Excellent, Farmers Weekly Interactive have just started a series of cookery videos....

Benchmarking your product against a competitor

Having just returned to the world of product management very recently I have been spending time getting up to speed with my new product.

Something that has struck me in the first week is the focus that the team have to deliver a product that compares favourably to a key competitor.

37 signals were right when they said that you should have an enemy.

So I'm spending time this week on benchmarking metrics and tools which will allow us to track our progress as the year progresses. A bit of healthy competition can be a good thing.

Zeppelin comeback part II

As predicted at the start of the year  Zeppelins are making a comeback in London. It's good to see some big ideas getting off the ground in 2008. I'm saving for a ticket...

links for 2008-03-19

Server farms running on wind power a professor at Cambridge University has the idea of locating big server farms near to sources of wind power as data is easier to transmit than electricity and will reduce carbon emissions.

Lessons for software development from a curry house those masters of 'less is more' at 37 signals wonder what would happen if you put Gordon Ramsay in charge of your software development.

The shedworking blog described as the lifestyle guide for shed workers, this blog has some rather nice sheds (if you like that kind of thing!)