Adobe Acrobat Ideas & Brightidea Named Finalists in the Forrester Groundswell Awards

Our customer Adobe was recently selected as a finalist in the 2009 Forrester Groundswell awards, for their highly-regarded initiative Acrobat.com Ideas, powered by Brightidea's Webstorm technology.

Specifically, Adobe Acrobat Ideas was recognized for embracing social technologies among a business-to-consumer audience. The concept behind "Embracing the Groundswell," coined by Josh Bernoff  and Charlene Li, is about engaging customers with social technologies to help in the design of products. Adobe Acrobat Ideas is a shining example of this concept; since the beginning of 2009, more than five million users have signed up for Acrobat.com, contributing valuable ideas and future improvements for Acrobat.com.

"We launched Acrobat.com Ideas as an easy way for customers to play an active role in the development of Acrobat.com.  The level of customer interaction has been outstanding and we are incorporating 35 customer submitted ideas into our next release.  Not only do we get great feedback, but also are able to get a good sense of how to prioritize what our customers need, which ultimately makes our services that more valuable to customers and shortens our development cycles." Lisa Underkoffler, Principal Product Manager, Acrobat.com

At Brightidea, we're excited to see our customers recognized for the success they're having with WebStorm. We congratulate Adobe on their selection as a finalist for such an esteemed award, and look forward to seeing more customers recognized for successfully embracing social technologies in the future.

Check out Adobe's Blog Post

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Q&A with Mensa on IdeaAid: Donate Ideas, Not Money.

Below is a Q&A conducted with Mensa on the upcoming launch of IdeaAid. For one week, November 14th-21st, IdeaAid will host a 'Brainstorming Benefit' to gather ideas to help solve some of the world's toughest problems. Brightidea's Webstorm software is powering the IdeaAid site.

Read below and participate starting November 14th as Mensa Process searches for novel ideas on how to raise 1 billion dollars annually to help eradicate global poverty. 

What is the mission of Mensa Process?

Mensa Process is the only consulting firm in the world with access to the unrivaled brainpower of Mensa — a highly respected, international organization whose membership represents some of the world's most intelligent people. Mensa members are geographically and occupationally diverse, representing more than 100 countries and thousands of professions and passions. By tapping into this group's unparalleled intellect and combining it with the creativity of other bright minds, Mensa Process helps businesse innovate, solve problems and grow.

Fortune’s Brainstorm, Sponsored by Shell, Seeks 'Wisdom of the Crowds'

 

Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN is a world-renowned conference on energy and the environment that draws the brightest thinkers around the world to tackle the toughest issues facing the future of sustainable energy. Distinguished speakers at the 2009 event included President Bill Clinton, Founder of the Clinton Global Initiative, Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Co. and Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc.- just to name a few.

Leading up to the 2010 conference, Fortune extends an open invitation to the public to become 'part of the conversation' on alternative energy solutions with the launch of an innovation social network powered by Brightidea's WebStorm solution sponsored by Shell. 

 

 Join the conversation today by CLICKING HERE

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The Future’s So Bright: Happy 10th Anniversary Brightidea!

This past week, Brightidea, Inc. celebrated its 10^th anniversary in San Francisco. Employees flew in from across the US to celebrate this milestone with 4 days of fun-filled activities including cocktails in our new office space, rooftop dinner, and a BBQ at Baker Beach that featured an all-out kick ball competition- East vs. West coast style. The weekend concluded with an exclusive party at Orson Restaurant on Saturday night.

Brightidea, in Partnership with Adobe Acrobat Ideas, Competes for 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards

I am pleased to share that Adobe Acrobat Ideas, powered by Brightidea, is a contestant for the 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards. The Groundswell Awards identify leading social applications that harness the power of innovative social technologies. Adobe Acrobat Ideas, using Brightidea's Webstorm software, is a new site for Acrobat.com users to share their voice, opinions and ideas about the services and features on Acrobat.com. The site is a great example of open-innovation fueling the process of 'customer co-creation' while providing early market validation and increasing user loyalty. 

Join the conversation by reviewing the submission and give us your feedback! 
 

Brightidea Insights: The Idea Exchange at UBS

In its June 2009 edition. Mlab’s bi-monthly magazine, Labnotes, in conjunction with London Business School published an in-depth piece on the successful roll-out of The Idea Exchange at UBS. Having been personally involved with setting up and launching the campaign at UBS, I’d like to share some basic insights that even the most seasoned administrators can be reminded of that helped shape the foundation for the Idea Exchange.

 

Brightidea was closely tied to the entire process of both Data Services Group (DSG) and Exchange Traded Derivatives (ETD) division from the configuration and best practice standpoint. Brightidea worked closely with the DSG and the ETD divisions to define and optimize configurations and best practices. We provided hands on experience to help turn their vision into reality. Prior to the launch, we went on site to work side by side with the UBS team. Based on the knowledge gained through similar rollouts, we were able to make suggestions regarding optimal features and workflows. Below are some of the key pieces of advice given to UBS for the Idea Exchange:

CloudWorld 2009 Conference

 

On August 13th, 2009, I spoke at the CloudWorld™conference in San Francisco. CloudWorld brought together the buyers and sellers of Web-centric software, infrastructure and services designed to drive acceptance and deployment of cloud computing. The conference provided a comprehensive look at this emerging technology that is radically changing today’s data center and becoming increasingly important to the enterprise because of its immense cost savings, benefits, scalability and agile functionality.

My presentation focused on Innovation in the Cloud, particularly, how innovation is a killer app for cloud software.  As a business model and architecture, cloud computing does not just cause incremental changes but constitutes a disruptive phase shift and therefore creates a tremendous amount of business opportunities. At the same time, companies are forced to develop new innovations at an increasingly faster pace. Tools like Brightidea’s enterprise products help corporations to turn innovation into a managed process - from idea to launch and embrace the new possibilities of the cloud. Brightidea’s software has become critical to companies such as Experian and Adobe, managing a billion dollar innovation pipeline and capturing and prioritizing customer feedback.

Innovation Management Practitioners - FROM THEORY TO APPLICATION: BOF 3.0 RECAP

 

Last week, Brightidea's third Innovation Leaders Birds of a Feather(BOF 3.0) meeting held true to its pledge to promote “progress in the field of innovation”.   Designed for real world practitioners looking to discuss and
share strategies in innovation management, the event was an open forum where attendees spoke about their experiences and heard from industry leaders.

Art Beckman of Hewlett-Packard was the keynote speaker at BOF.  As an innovation expert at HP and the Program Lead for The HP Garage, Beckman spoke frankly about the challenges and opportunities facing HP as they expand The Garage, HP's internal idea hub, to all 300,000 employees.

 

Open Innovation Sites

Real-world examples of actionable innovation are flourishing, but sometimes these great resources can get lost in the sea of information out there on the Web. In my day job as head of an innovation software company, people often turn to me for advice on how to create their own open innovation initiatives. These models of innovation are everywhere, and we have decided to gather them in one place as a resource for all those budding innovation practitioners.

So, in the true spirit of innovation at work, here at Brightidea we have created a list that includes of some of the top open innovation sites, to help inspire some of your own.

 

Please leave a comment below if you have anything on the list you would like to add, modify, or edit.

 

Adobe Acrobat Ideas

Adobe customers can submit, vote on, and provide feedback on ideas about how to improve Acrobat.com
 

BMW Motorrad Innovation Contest 2009

Motorcycle, scooter, moped riders and enthusiasts: use Atizo’s platform to submit your ideas on the perfect motor bike of the future

Innovation Essentials: 10 Basic Principles of Innovation - Everyone Should Know

After 10 years of working in the trenches of innovation, I have attempted to distill down the ten MOST important concepts, that I believe anyone working in this field should be aware of:

1. Product vs Process Innovation - In my opinion, this is the highest level break-out of the painfully broad term "Innovation". Product innovation is developing a new product (iPhone). Process innovation is improving the processes employed to produce or deliver the product, and to make it more efficient or productive (eg. Robot welders on the factory floor at GM). Process innovation often falls under names like (Six Sigma or Operational Excellence). Generally product innovation is concerned with increasing revenue and process innovation with reducing costs. It's very difficult to do both at the same time, for a given product, and the emergence of a "dominant design" is what triggers the shift of effort from product to process innovation. (see Utterbeck)