I heard some good talks on innovation a few months ago at a user conference for iRise software. One of the topics was how to create an innovation pipeline for your business using social networking concepts. A few companies have already started doing these types of things to great success.
For instance, Dell has its new IdeaStorm web site. They use a unique form of crowdsourcing to introduce product innovation to the company. Users go to the web site, submit new product ideas. Ideas can be modified, voted on, discussed, etc. The main idea of the site is to use the user to initiate innovation within their line of products. An interesting idea since the consumers are really the product experts. Especially power users, those who are the most passionate about the products, have a lot of untapped insight.
Tying this all into a software model, programmers, business analysts and architects have been trying for years to bridge the gap between the user and the end product. Things like forums and message boards are often catalysts for enhancement requests and bug fixes. But, some companies are taking this to the next level by only including feature requests which are the most popular. Using a voting system, Atlassian determines the most popular product enhancement requests. This list determines the features to be added in the next version of the software (along with other factors). It is a pseudo-open-source model. They obviously continue internal innovation but user input seems to be the main factor.
Considering this Atlassian model works well for commercial software (although I could argue they may be too transparent about their future plans which puts them in a competitive disadvantage), I was considering how this could work for internally developed enterprise software. I could see this really working. Sit down with a seasoned customer service rep (power user) and you find out quickly where the limitations of your software lie. If they only had a formal model or process where their feedback is adequately captured and fed into the enhancement pipeline. Not overwhelming bureaucracy, just a direct line of communication between the grunts (users) and the grunts (programmers). Like the red Batphone Commissioner Gordon had in his office.
