May 2008 - Social Software for Innovation and Collaboration

[Sue Klein Lebeck]

May 2008

Social Software
for Innovation and Collaboration:
featuring Dreamfish and BrightIdea


Join us for an up-close look at two social software platforms designed to increase the success of your organization's innovation and collaboration initiatives.

Dreamfish is a a new social networking platform, optimized specifically for effective organizational and personal collaboration. Loni Davis, Dreamfish' Director of Client Success Services, will show us how Dreamfish goes beyond photo sharing and online conversation to support the further essentials of true collaboration.

BrightIdea is an innovation pipeline management platform, optimized to manage the generation, evaluation, and prototyping of your organization's best ideas. BrightIdea's Michelle Fairbanks will describe the BrightIdea platform and show us what's possible beyond the initial "WebStorm".

Innovative collaboration. Collaborative Innovation.
Join us for the conversation!

[Sue Klein Lebeck]

Notes and Gems....

May 2008

Social Software
for Innovation and Collaboration:f
eaturing Dreamfish and BrightIdea

During our panelists’ feature presentation,
I noted these observations on innovation, innovation management, and collaboration.

From Michelle Fairbanks of BrightIdea:
Ideas that are not managed in an effective system get lost.
- Like other ideation systems, BrightIdea’s “webstorm” front-end allows you to capture ideas from tens or tens-of-thousands of people. It also allows you to discuss and evolve those ideas.

Ideation system leads you to the creative people in your community;
like ideas, ideators can be lost if not managed in an effective system
- Ideas, comments, and opinions remain linked to the people who make them. People are linked to their professional profiles.
- Can tap passions, and discover innovation players with specific capabilities, interests and value to the organization
- Power-users earn points, which can be cashed in for rewards; can create motivation to participate continuously

The evaluation of ideas has many dimensions.
- Early detection of the popularity or “sticki-ness” of a concept provides an early glimpse of potential market acceptance.
- “Score-carding” directs questions to targeted constituents – helping you get the feedback you need from the people you need it from.
- Information from a broad range of evaluators leads to informed decision-making.

Important to include players from across your constituencies
- ability to easily invite players, and even to pre-load users from existing directories

Important to recognize and integrate similar ideas
- tags create linkages across ideas
- similarities in wording are automatically detected
- “clusters” can be created

Integrate selected ideas with Project-Management tools
- PM tools integrated in
- critical paths and alarms provided
- financial information integrated in


from Loni Davus of Dreamfish:
Choose a name that inspires you
- “Dream” refers to innovation
- “Fish” imagines schools of collaborative players, acting together within a healthy system

Choose an under-served audience and meet an un-met need
- Dreamfish is an Enterprise social media platform – creating connections within and between organizations
- Designed to foster collaborative alliances across organizations – together, yet separate
- Social media used not just to connect, but to achieve an organizational mission
- Offerings include community-management and other consultative services
- Platform can also be used by an organization as a marketing tool
- Businesses and NGOs currently running on Beta-phase platform.

Mission is to help customers achieve their collaborative initiatives/objectives, and also to help change the collaborative culture
- Dreamfish’ founder and leaders are organizational development experts
- Offerings include community-management and other consultative services
- Dreamfish helps customers change behavior together, and overcome resistances to new ways of collaborating
- Social network transactions go beyond photo-sharing and discussions to include other collaborative structures, such as “opportunities” and “needs and offers”.
- Multi-media platform allows for many ways of knowing and connecting
- On-line activity can be supplemented with on-the-ground activity

Future of social-networking will be people-centered, not just network-centered
- Dreamfish has a user-centric design, where a user can participate in many Dreamfish networks, i.e. organizations.
- User decides who sees what where
- Represents an early recognition that people are independent of the networks they are in, and supports a growing trend toward user-mobility

Finding your particular added-value is key
- Consultative services are an unusual, and welcome addition to the Social Media space
- Position your innovation to allow for the strongest business model possible
- “Find your personal uniqueness and press it into the product” -- Matt Greeley

Enjoy!