Increasing Collaboration Though Spigit Community Platform

By Bill Ives
Expert Author
Article Date: 2009-06-18

InnovationSpigit is a community platform offered by Spigit that uses the concept of market dynamics to manage the innovation process and engage employees in this effort. I last wrote about them almost a year ago (see Innovating Through Market Games with Spigit for details on how the application works) and a lot has happen since then.

Last week I spoke with Paul Pluschkell and Hutch Carpenter about the last year. In a past life I helped developed some custom gaming solutions with the same goal so I am very much onboard with what they are doing.

Paul said they have over 1.5 million new subscribers, a million of these were added in the last four months. I found their breakdown of subscribes by industry very interesting with a few surprises: Pharma 15%, insurance 14%, retail 21%, technology 14%, finance and banking 10%, and other 26%. Their idea management solutions are primarily used internally but they can be easily used externally for co-creation with customers as well

There are three main use cases. First, there is complete idea and innovation management. This can be a major competitive advantage. A few years back I helped develop an innovation management system for a major UK retailer that produced significant ROI. I wish we had Spigit as a starting point as I am sure the costs would have been lower and the return higher.

Second, InnovationSpigit is used for sharing and perfecting best practices from highly complex matters to simply the best way to wash hotel towels. Third, and related, is the sharing of cost reduction methods. One firm said it saved 8 million with one idea. Paul said the competitive nature of these innovations prevent mentioning them publically and this makes sense.

There are advanced administration options and metrics to customize the platform to meet specific needs and better identify and measure community value. Here is a look at an administration page that shows the simplicity and some of the range of options.

Paul said that the number of users with an enterprise often grows with use. One insurance company went from 5,000 to 10,000 to 50,000 users in a few months. We looked at some of the features. One is Hot Spots, or what are the most talked about topics within the company. Another is new idea page. Here is a screen shot.

There is also a buzz algorithm and other metrics on the conversations within a company. You can determine the most talked about people, as well as topics. The metrics also provide the reputation of users, as well as their popularity. You get rewards for participation and here is a sample rewards page.

You can also see who has accumulated the most reward points. Paul said that the system has a very positive impact on employee morale. It gives people a voice and rewards them for participation at the same time. I think that the sense of voice is likely the biggest reward. InnovationSpigit integrates with Sharepoint, several commercial wikis, and some HR systems. While they offer both cloud and on-premise solutions, 95% of their customers as choosing SaaS.

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About the Author:
Dr. Bill Ives is an independent consultant and writer who has worked with Fortune 100 companies in business uses of emerging technologies for over 20 years. For several years he led the Knowledge Management Practice for a large consulting firm.. Now he primarily helps companies with their business blogs. He is also the VP of Social Media and blogger for TVissimo, a new TV schedule search engine. Prior to consulting, Dr. Ives was a Research Associate at Harvard University exploring the effects of media on cognition. He obtained his Ph. D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Toronto. Bill can be reached at his blog: Portals and KM. He also writes for the FastForward blog and the AppGap blog.