Remember the “Suggestion Box” ? It wasa platform where we
could voice and share our ideas and creative inputs. The words “voice”
and “share” is of utmost importance when it comes to idea sharing. We
have shifted from the physical suggestion boxes to innovative web tools
that collate ideas from employees and customers round the globe. Today
enterprises from LG Electronics to U.S. Transportation Safety Authority
use the web for ideation to improve their products and business.

Idea management thus has taken center stage and is
crucial for organizations aiming to attain a competitive edge over
others. Furthermore, the collaboration landscape too is no more about
teams working in silos to fulfill specific goals and objectives. It is
expanding across enterprises fostering partnership and team work amidst
employees, who might have worked single handedly before. The main reason
behind this shift is, to positively encourage a company to forsake
its”need to know” approach and adopt a “need to share” culture. This
promotes free flow of information and communication amongst employees.

Crowd sourcing as an Enterprise Collaboration Tool

Today
enterprise collaboration has adopted a “people-centric” approach
thatbrings together various business units and functional areas to work
together. It aims to connect influential people, the audience at large
and organizations through technologies to generate ideas and to derive
maximum benefit out of it. Crowd sourcing is considered as a next
generation enterprise collaboration tool. The term might appear a jargon
at first, but it is an essential part of enterprise innovation programs
today. The central idea here is to tap into the collective intelligence
of masses for completing business agendas, which otherwise could have
been done through outsourcing or by the company itself. The process
enables managers to increase their talent pool size and gain deeper
insights intothe customer mind set.

You
can reap the above mentioned benefits by investing in innovative idea
management solutions. These solutions offer anappropriate platform to
bring in all concerned members of your organization and motivate them to
work ona given situation proactively. This ideation platform is similar
to crowdsourcing software that enables you to attain greater
transparency, quicker updates and viable solutions. Other benefits that
an idea management tool offers are:-

� Process improvements
� New competitive services and products’
� Enhanced decision making and enterprise collaboration in a team
� Competitive edge over other market players
� Improved brand loyalty and value
� Spot new areas of expansion and hidden talent within an organization

Social
Media and Innovation Programs Innovation programs and ideation is
incomplete if not extended to the social media realm. The choice is a
simple one. If you want your customers to come up with ideas,
suggestions and other creative contributions, they you have to be tapped
fromwhere they are. Majority of them are onTwitter, Facebook and other
social networking platforms. It helps you to accelerate your innovation
programs by publishing wikis, blogs and articles, requesting for public
feedback on fresh content and many more. Furthermore, networking
socially on a regular basis gives you anidea as to what is working or
not working for your brand.