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Making IdeaStorm Even Better!

310 points posted to IdeaStorm by pmdigangi May 4 **REVIEWED**

Here are a few ideas that Dell should consider to create a better, more effective IdeaStorm Community!

1.) Define a clear process that defines for users how to identify and describe their ideas!

Provide users with templates and help guides for submitting their ideas to IdeaStorm. The current process creates the potential for people to mis-categorize ideas, or not designate categories for their idea, making it harder for the community to locate and evaluate all ideas. IdeaStorm needs to provide examples of good and bad idea postings in order to help community members submit ideas that Dell can quickly assess and adopt!

2.) Provide users with the tools for developing consensus!

Let community members have the ability to gain some consensus on controversial ideas. Consider implementing some tools that allow community members to poll each other to make decisions on how to improve the idea.

3.) Dedicate personnel to interact as an organizational representative within the community!

IdeaStorm has certainly improved on its communication with its members. The addition of several moderators has made response times quicker, but members still do not hear from the upper management at Dell about what they think of ideas and whether or not they are feasible. Dell needs to get more involved by not only providing administrative support in terms of site management, but also executive support by having a senior manager login and talk with community members.

4.) Ask questions to understand!

Dell shouldn’t just listen to community members’ ideas, but also ask questions so that the community can improve them! IdeaStorm was created to give feedback on the products and services Dell offers. The community is here to help Dell become a better organization, but in order for the community to be effective we need feedback too. Ask members questions about the ideas to make sure that ideas are not disregarded due to a poor description or presentation. If Dell does not understand an Idea – give the community this feedback so the community can help refine the idea for Dell.

5.) If you let members vote, make it count!

Sometimes members’ views on what constitutes a great product are different from Dell’s. IdeaStorm was created to expand Dell’s ability to leverage ideas from outside the formal organizational boundaries. When members vote for an idea, it should count! Even if Dell does not see it as viable at first, the idea deserves exploring. Dell needs to consider that stifling the democracy of the community frustrates and disenfranchises the community.

6.) When Dell is ready to move forward on an idea, present progress clearly and openly!

When an idea does move forward, it is still difficult for the community to track. Make sure the progress updates are clear about what the next steps are, to keep the community informed. The community wants to know the next steps in detail. If we are your volunteer ideaforce, keep us informed so that we can correct misinterpretations and perhaps provide that key piece of information that is preventing Dell from taking advantage of our ideas.



Scroll down to see the comments from Dawn on these suggestions.





jervis961
May 4		 Its hard transitioning from just visiting a site to actially participating so I just wanted to post an extra kudo on your idea. Seems to be going well so far. :)
pmdigangi
May 4		 Thanks jervis, I've been a long-time visitor on the site now since its inception, but felt it was a good time to start participating more frequently. Just trying everything out...
dawn_l
May 9		 Hi Paul- Hope your research is going well. Here are some thoughts on your wonderful ideas above.

1. Define a clear process that defines for users how to identify and describe their ideas!
Dawn’s Response: Two items here: First the idea of templates for idea generation. We have looked at this as well and see it as a point of evolution for us. The one concern we have is the introduction of barriers that would discourage the level of participation. One of the hallmarks of Ideastorm is the ease of use. We will continue to consider what the next phases will include and will engage with the regular users to share our plans. The second idea component is the concern with miss-filing of ideas into categories. We currently review every idea and reassign as needed to ensure a clean site.

2. Provide users with the tools for developing consensus!
Dawn’s Response: Very interesting concept. I will need to spend some time blending this with some collaboration ideas we are already working.

3. Dedicate personnel to interact as an organizational representative within the community!
Dawn’s Response: This one I have to disagree on (and would love to hear comments from everyone as well). I think the best representatives on this site are the ones across Dell who are in the “working level” positions. While executives have great vision and high level plans, they generally do not have the technical detail level that the community tends to expect.

4. Ask questions to understand!
Dawn’s Response: We actually are doing this in several ways. First, we have begun to do more of this in the actual comments on certain ideas. Second, we reach out to specific customers in email to have more information or a discussion on a particular idea. One of the challenges with a public site is the balance between the need for greater participation as well as the need to incubate some ideas out of the view of the competition.

5. If you let members vote, make it count!
Dawn’s Response: This comment confuses me. We absolutely add more gravity to the ideas that are highly voted. I would love some examples here to help me understand.

6. When Dell is ready to move forward on an idea, present progress clearly and openly!
Dawn’s Response: This is another great idea that poses a couple of challenges. Many of these ideas, if updated clearly enough, would show many of our cards to the competition. This is on my list of things that I ponder late at night when I can’t sleep.

Thanks for taking the time to draft such thought provoking comments!
Dawn
dawn_l
May 9		 Changed status to **REVIEWED**.
pmdigangi
May 16		 Hi Dawn,

Yes my research on open innovation is progressing well! In fact, I have presented my work at some of our top international conferences over the last few months and have submitted a few papers to top academic journals, which I would be happy to share with you and the Dell IdeaStorm community. IdeaStorm is not only emerging as a shining example of end user innovation collaboration in the trade journals and news sites, but in the academic world too! To that point, I congratulate you and Dell on all the hard work and dedication your team devotes to meeting the needs of your customers (former, current, and future). In fact, it was IdeaStorm that sparked my interest in user-driven innovation and open innovation models. For that I thank the IdeaStorm community and Dell… now on to the responses.

1. Define a clear process that defines for users how to identify and describe their ideas!
Our intention of providing idea templates is to generate ideas that are well-rounded that provide all of the necessary information needed to understand the idea and spark discussion. Given the nature of IdeaStorm as an emerging leader in the user-driven innovation process, end users (such as myself) may not truly be able to describe an idea in terms that Dell understand and can translate into existing development efforts. One insight from tracking comments is that when contributors do not accurately describe the idea in language that is clearly understood and accessible to others, the community spends a great deal of effort cycling comments trying to refine the idea into an adoptable solution.

The purpose of the templates is mainly to provide guidance to contributors on what information to provide with an Idea, without hindering the innovative spirit of IdeaStorm. Essentially, the templates would serve a similar role as help guides that give contributors an overall sense of what information is needed. For instance, journalists follow the basic template of the 5 W’s & an H (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How). The purpose of the template is not to discourage participation, rather to avoid confusion and encourage participation that will have the proper impact.

2. Provide users with the tools for developing consensus!
The survey for the Pre-Installed Linux Idea was very effective at creating consensus in the community and articulating community interests to Dell. Prior to the survey, community members were trying to create consensus through use of the comment system, which was difficult to follow and increased the amount of information that had to be assimilated. Providing users with tools, such as a survey tool, streamlines the process and allows users another means to create consensus and refine ideas, beyond just cycling comments.

3. Dedicate personnel to interact as an organizational representative within the community!
The rationale for this suggesting stems from the disconnect between what is happening in the community and Dell personnel in the actual R &D process. We absolutely agree that “working level” representatives can provide much of the needed technical support for developing a user idea into a consumable product. However, Dell should also have people responsible for actual decision making involved in the community as well. “Executive” involvement may not need to occur within all ideas, but having executives interact with ideas that hold promise can provide benefits. The community benefits from the additional signal that the ideas are being seriously discussed at all levels of Dell’s organization. The moderators benefit from having the additional organizational power of executives that might not have been fully committed earlier. Dell R&D benefits by directly interacting with users and their ideas. Dell R&D may be more willing and able to champion an IdeaStorm idea when they actively engage in the process.

4. Ask questions to understand!
If an idea is so easily copied by a competitor that it can be “stolen” from the IdeaStorm site, it is not likely to give Dell a sustainable competitive advantage anyway. It is the ideas that Dell doesn’t clearly understand that have the greatest promise – if Dell doesn’t “get it”, then the knowledge trying to be conveyed is likely to be largely tacit and difficult to imitate. Rather than not participate in ideas that are not clearly developed or conveyed – focus on these as having the greatest potential advantage. In terms of private/public interactions, your response here is similar to your response in number six, so I will just say that this is an interesting point which will obviously need further discussion (and research :) to find the proper balance between open participation and leaking information to the competition.

5. If you let members vote, make it count!
This item was based out of our initial study examining the first 11 ideas adopted compared to the 10 most popular ideas within IdeaStorm in its initial months. We collected objective data from the IdeaStorm site (number of points (votes), comments, unique users commenting, and idea age) to determine significant differences between the adopted and non-adopted ideas. We found no statistically significant difference based on voting patterns.

The easiest example of this from our study was the OpenOffice idea which currently has no status tag. The idea received one of the largest vote counts in IdeaStorm’s history and did not receive a direct comment from the IdeaStorm moderators until over five months had passed. Obviously, this was during the initial development of IdeaStorm and I have not yet rerun my statistical analysis on the IdeaStorm site since that time, so there may be differences with the new number of moderators and the new status tag process that was implemented earlier this year. But from both a quantitative and qualitative assessment, we could find no evidence that Dell was more active in the most popular ideas.

6. When Dell is ready to move forward on an idea, present progress clearly and openly!
It is good to know that I am not the only one pondering these questions when I can’t sleep either! This problem certainly is a balance issue as you mentioned in number 4. The question becomes how is the competition looking at IdeaStorm (e.g., something to model, something to steal ideas from, or something to maintain awareness of Dell’s ongoing operations)? This is certainly a difficult question that is in need of further thought and refinement (luckily I have a whole dissertation to complete in the upcoming years :).

The difficulty lies in the inherent nature of an open process. In traditional models, organizations have had to return very little information to its customers in terms of its development processes and organizational thinking. However, in an open model, the process becomes a part of the development effort itself. As a result, asking users to contribute ideas and then cutting them off from the process possesses significant risks to the sustainability of a user community such as IdeaStorm. The most honest answer I can give on this topic would be the need to look further into the details of what constitutes information that a competitor can leverage and what constitutes information that merely provides enough detail for the community to understand the process and help get their ideas (which some can be very passionate about!) into Dell’s product and service portfolio.

I would obviously love to hear what some of the members of the community that have participated from the beginning have to say about this. Some of the research that I have read and recently conducted focuses on how organizations can identify and incorporate specific end users (termed Lead Users by Eric von Hippel @ MIT) that can provide the necessary guidance and information to organizations using open approaches to innovation. This may be the most likely (and safest) approach for presenting clear progress to the individuals that have directly invested in the development of a specific idea.
jervis961
May 16		 Here are my thoughts.

1. Define a clear process that defines for users how to identify and describe their ideas!

(my view) I’m sure it isn’t easy to explain to people how to word an idea so Dell understands it. They can hardly get people to read the terms of use or about sections. I think it comes down to Dell having to ask questions when they do not understand.

2. Provide users with the tools for developing consensus!

(my view) You hit the nail on the head on this one. I was one of the users who tried using the current system several times and find it very lacking. Some users have even suggested that instead of up or down votes we have the option of a scale rating of 1 to 10. I think it goes beyond just surveys. Some of us have learned some HTML code in order to be able to post pictures and videos in out ideas but shouldn’t everyone be able to do it? The forums have simple tools to add hyperlinks, pictures, bold type and change font sizes. These tools need to be added to the site to allow all users the same opportunity to showcase their idea in a more appealing way.

3. Dedicate personnel to interact as an organizational representative within the community!

(my view) I’m 50/50 on this one. I would love to speak with the R&D people along with some of the other decision makers but I don’t think Dell is ready to be that open with certain things. I have suggested in the past that they should create a sister site or a section that is only accessible to people they give clearance to. These users would need to sign disclosure agreements to protect Dell of course. This would allow a more open discussion where Dell would feel more comfortable.

4. Ask questions to understand!

(my view) I basically handled this in the other sections.

5. If you let members vote, make it count!

(my view) I’m 75% in agreement. I agree that many ideas have made the front page with no action taken by Dell. Some have even made it after they have flat out said they won’t do it. Also remember that IdeaStorm has no real security to stop users from using multiple accounts and run up the voting. Also some ideas that have been implemented because Dell was already working on them or they were easy to do possibly.

6. When Dell is ready to move forward on an idea, present progress clearly and openly!

(my view) I agree that Dell needs to update people more but there are some things stopping that from happening in my opinion. First the lack of administration participating from day one has caused the site to balloon to over 9000 ideas with many of them being duplicates. Now they have more people working on the site but the duplicates and backlog of work to catch up on is causing the delay in response to continue. There has been vast improvement though. The search function is also lacking so many users new to the site create a duplicate idea with no clue that they have done so.
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