Kindling.App – Page 5

Getting the Most from Your Kindling Campaign

How will you overcome the biggest challenges facing your business today? How will you identify your next product or pursue the the most lucrative opportunities? With Kindling, you can establish challenges and opportunities as Campaigns that guide your organization towards a desired outcome.

Campaigns are a great way to engage participants in innovating around a particular initiative. Like Kindling Categories, Campaigns are used for organizing ideas, however, they differ in that they are time-limited, with a specific start and end date. Campaigns provide structure for quick bursts of activity and fast follow-through on ideas. Because of the speed with which Campaigns happen, getting things right every step of the way is crucial. The following are some best practices for running a successful Campaign, one which generates enthusiasm among your users and gets you the rapid return on investment you’re looking for:

Get the timing right. Keep campaigns short to keep excitement high. Limiting Campaigns to a two-week time period gives users enough of a chance to innovate without the risk of creative energy petering out. Running Campaigns one-at-a-time enables participants to devote their time and creativity to that initiative alone.

The Squeaky Wheel in Your Innovation Program

Think about that innovation meeting you have on your calendar that occurs every week or month. It’s a status meeting where you talk about projects, ongoing initiatives, or areas of focus. Then you think about him. He is the one that always speaks, takes over the whole meeting, and never lets anyone else get their two cents in. Usually the direction of the group goes with what he is saying, not because he always has the best ideas, but because he is the most vocal and outward to express his thoughts. Most people would agree this scenario is not the exception, but more so the norm.

To run an effective Innovation Program, you need input from everyone. There are many types of people in this world; there are probably hundreds of personality tests that dissect the makeup of humans and our behaviors. The reality is, not everyone will be as vocal as the person sitting next to them. It doesn’t mean they don’t have good ideas, the likelihood is that they probably have some very good ideas, maybe even great ideas. Some people work best by sharing their ideas around a conference table and jockeying back and forth, while others are most comfortable by themselves in front of the computer considering their contributions. Neither is better than the other and both approaches provide valued contributions to the Innovation Program.

Kindling update — new design of the account bar and in-app notifications

One of our core beliefs at Kindling is that we need to provide our users with a way to navigate through the large amounts of content that an innovation program generates. People are busy — and we recognize the need to continually work to deliver relevant information to our users with the least amount of noise and intrusion.

We’re happy to announce that with tonight’s release, we’ve taken an important, foundational step towards this goal. Kindling now supports in-app notifications for key activities in the system. You’re likely familiar with in-app notifications, perhaps from Facebook or the other services you use. They are a means of raising your attention to key activities — in Kindling, the approval or completion of one of your ideas, that someone shared an idea with you, or that your expert feedback is required to help assess an idea — directly in the application.

The Power of “No” in an Innovation Program

Many people avoid saying “no”. We strive to please our peers and our employees, and it’s often easier to say yes or ignore a request in order to avoid conflict. But when it comes sustaining an innovation program, saying “no” is a necessary and powerful force.

Two of the important purposes of an innovation program are to orient participants around the key challenges and opportunities facing the organization, and to give a voice to all members of an organization. And saying “no” is positive step towards both of these objectives.

First, on giving program participants a voice. Employment surveys consistently show that one of the things employees want most from their employers is for their ideas to be listened to. Listened to being the key part of that sentence. Employees are realistic, they understand the constraints facing their organization — time, people, money and competitive pressures. They want their voices to be heard; they want to know that the company they work for values their feedback. Management saying “no” is in line with this objective. Because “no” is a part of a conversation, “no” means someone is listening. Contrast this with the traditional ‘email inbox for receiving employee suggestions’ — the anti-conversation. Employees are unsure if anyone is listening to their ideas, they live in a void, a black box.

Volunteering – the Ultimate Engagement with an Innovation Program

Remember that old saying “It takes a village to raise a child”? While I don’t know much about raising children – don’t worry, I’m not a even parent yet – I do know a little something about innovation and what it takes to nurture ideas into full grown projects (see what I did there?). As someone who is immersed in the planning of our product, I realize that it takes more than just one person with a really good idea to make great things happen. Kindling realizes that too, and that’s why users have the ability to volunteer for ideas they want to help accomplish.

Volunteering is an essential part of a healthy Innovation Program. Now it’s easier than ever to keep track of the ideas you’ve decided to participate in with our new “Volunteers” tab!

It all began with giving users the ability to volunteer and help in accomplishing their peers’ ideas. By selecting the “gear” icon within an idea, users can view a drop down menu with “Volunteer” as one of the options.

Top 10 Reasons Why You Need Social Innovation Software

Innovation is social. That’s not only our company creed, it’s the sentiment echoed in every conversation with our customers. An idea may be innovative but it isn’t an innovation until there’s a forum for it be heard, discussed, vetted and implemented. Social Innovation Software provides that forum. It takes the collective brainpower of the people, YOUR people, and gives it a voice. It lends life and longevity to creativity. It turns the spark of possibility into a flourishing, sustainable reality. It is the crucial element that structures your innovation efforts and makes those endeavors a success.

We talk a lot on this blog about how our customers use Kindling but I wanted to zoom out a bit and focus on why our customers use it and why Social Innovation Software is essential to your business.

Here are the top 10 reasons why you need social innovation software:

Ideas (inspiration) can happen anywhere and anytime: You need a solution that captures true inspiration, whether it strikes in the office or on the go.

You’re frustrated with email: The volume of email in your inbox makes it hard to keep up. On the other hand, if you’re not cc’ed, you’re left out of the conversation. How many people that could have added value to the conversation were not part of it?

Smartphone Usage Increases

Google recently surveyed Australians about their mobile phone usage and have published the findings in ‘Our mobile planet: Australia – understanding the mobile consumer’ report.

It will come as little surprise that smartphone penetration rates in Australia are increasing – Australia is amongst six countries where smartphone penetration is now above 50% along with UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Previous research found that 25% of users had used their mobile to research or purchase a product. The recent report shows that 28% have purchased using their mobile phone and a massive 94% use the mobile to research products.

Yet a key statistic in the report is that 79% of Australian businesses are not optimising their sites for mobile usage – that matches up with the research we’ve conducted into the mobile sites of the Australian online retail sector – How The Largest Australian Retailers Are Using Mobile Websites. The research we conducted found only 15% of Australian online retailers had a mobile optimised site.