Striking Gold From Other People’s Ideas

Blogging Stocks:

One of my favorite books is Patricia Seybold’s “Outside Innovation.” Her main point is that much of a company’s innovation will come from outside its walls — such as employees, partners, investors, and so on.

For example, the hip online clothing retailer, Karmaloop, gets about 40% of its brand ideas from its customers.

Of course, the biggies — like International Business Machines Corp., Cisco Systems, Inc., salesforce.com, inc., Intel Corporation and Dell, Inc. — also operate idea sites.

So what can your company do to benefit from other people’s ideas? Let’s take a look:

Use Web 2.0: Let’s face it, people like to interact in the online world, such as with ratings, comments, reviews, and tagging. This makes things fun but also helps to create better content and community.

Rewards: So what if few people don’t participate? Well, you can find ways to provide incentives. That is, you might think of having weekly or monthly prizes for the best ideas. Prizes don’t have to be extravagant. A simple Starbucks Corporation gift card can be a nice gesture.

Be Prepared: At the same time, what if you get a flood of ideas?

“To make things work,” said Matthew Greeley, the founder and CEO of BrightIdea.com, “you better be prepared to respond, otherwise you will lose the essential trust.”

Photo by Cayusa.

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