Last week, General Electric Co. launched its GE Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid, an open 10-week contest searching for ideas for new green grid technologies. The global challenge is powered by Brightidea’s innovation pipeline management software.

Partnering with four renowned venture capital firms—Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and RockPort Capital—GE is investing $200 million and a major promotional campaign into this online contest, taking the concept of open innovation to a whole new level. 

By calling on the wisdom of the crowds, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt is aiming to achieve two major objectives:

New Solutions

The smart grid market – expected to grow from $20 billion today to as much as $120 billion by 2030 – holds great potential for GE. To stay competitive, the company knows it needs to combine its large scale enterprise with entrepreneurship in order to move through more opportunities faster.  Public challenges spark innovation and open up a dialogue. For GE, the Ecomagination Challenge is an effective way to reach and collaborate with a wider network of entrepreneurs and strengthen its position as a leader in the power grid market.

Brightidea’s WebStorm technology facilitates and fosters collaboration with a range of features:

• Voting and Commenting on Submissions 
• Team Submission with Public and Private Fields 
• Integration with Google Maps 
• Share and Promote Ideas on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube 
• Mobile iPhone App 

At the Ecomagination Challenge launch event, CEO Immelt and his venture partners said they were looking forward to discovering new ideas from unexpected sources. Immelt quoted Sun co-founder Bill Joy, saying, “Whoever you are, the smartest people don’t work for you!”

Speed to Market

GE aims to expand its current $2 billion digital-energy business tenfold over the next 20 years. To achieve this goal, the company has to continue to accelerate its innovation processes. “Speed is what the entrepreneurial community and the internet live for”, says Paul Koontz, Founding Partner of Foundation Capital. Therefore, GE uses this contest to leverage the World Wide Web and Brightidea’s best-in-class crowdsourcing technology to get access to more ideas than ever within just 10 weeks. 

Idea Evaluation and Implementation – Keys to Success

Fast, effective evaluation of ideas and efficient execution will be crucial to the initiative’s success. GE is committed to finding the best ideas as fast as possible and implementing them in collaboration with the respective submitters. 

Brightidea’s software helps expedite the evaluation process through advanced routing tools and private collaboration rooms for diverse teams of subject matter experts. Throughout the process, our team offers support to ensure the campaign’s success.

The results so far have been amazing. Almost 300 ideas were submitted within the first 3 days after the innovation portal opened its virtual doors – a great start for the Ecomagination Challenge that promises powerful new solutions for GE’s power grid. 

Released July 13, 2010

1. WebStorm Image Library

After successful testing and enhancement, the Image Library in the WebStorm setup is now available to all administrators. Please navigate to “Setup” to start adding media files to your WebStorm or Enterprise system.

2. Switchboard tag filter navigation fixed

Administrators can now use tags to filter ideas in Switchboard’s “View Idea” page. Clicking on a tag hyperlink will direct the admin to a WebStorm page that lists all ideas with the same tag.

3. “Invite to Network” profile picture resized

In the ‘Invite to Network’ pop-up box, the profile picture has been resized and now displays the correct layout.

Released June 16, 2010

The 'Enterprise My Messages' widget no longer displayed in other user’s profile page

The ‘My Messages' widget on Enterprise level will no longer show up while viewing another user's profile to avoid the confusion between your own and other users’ messages. The widget will continue to work as is on your own profile page. This change has only been implemented onl...

Released June 2, 2010

Status Updates
Status changes made via Switchboard will now be updated in the ‘Updates’ widget at campaign & enterprise level.

Switchboard – Status Change pop up
‘Change Status’ pop up in Switchboard (right click menu) will display the complete status title text rather than ‘…’

New Emoticons
The following new emoticons have been added to the ‘Updates’ widgets at campaign & enterprise level.

(bullhorn) – Bullhorn
(cake)       – Cake
(cal)          – Calendar
(clock)      – Clock

Submission Form
The text of the sub tab “Submission Form” in WebStorm > Setup > Ideas has been changed to “Submissions”

Released May 26, 2010

WebStorm:  Idea Title on the browser header
Clicking on an idea will display the idea title instead of the campaign name on the browser header when you go to the detailed idea page (view_idea.bix).

Widgets moved to ‘Approved’ widgets
The following widgets have been moved to the ‘Approved’ widgets at campaign level.

• Mini Idea List
• Mini Top Contributors
• My Favorites

At Brightidea, we strive to continually provide the best in product and customer support.
That’s why we are excited to announce that our customer support portal has taken another dramatic step forward with several new features & functions that will help our customers do what they do best, innovate every day.   

Click here to get started: http://support.brightidea.com

The Evolution…
Version 2.0 of the Brightidea Support Portal gives customers on-demand access to the knowledge, resources, and interactive support administrators need to be successful innovation practitioners. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, the portal will allow administrators to submit issues and questions to the Brightidea Support Team, collaborate with other Brightidea System Administrators, utilize a comprehensive, searchable Knowledge Base, and track submitted tickets, all within a click of a mouse.

Detect, Resolve, Repeat.
Issues unfortunately arise. Our ability to properly log issues and resolve them quickly is the utmost priority for the Brightidea Support team. Administrators can submit tickets describing the situation in detail and will be notified when the ticket is received, tracking the status of a submitted ticket through resolution. Simple, easy and reliably stress free.  

Tap the wisdom of the community!
Our community of users consists of some of the most intelligent, active innovation practitioners in the world. Why not tap the knowledge of your peers’ first-hand experience? Using the Community Help page, Administrators can post questions to live forums where either a BI Support Team member and/or fellow Administrators can view, respond & contribute personal insights and experiences.

Knowledge, On-Demand
There is a wealth of information out there, but finding what is relevant should be easy, quick and readily accessible. The Support Portal offers an intuitively organized and searchable Knowledge Base containing articles, posts, case-studies and links that address commonly asked questions about functionality, troubleshooting, setup, etc. Administrators can comment on the articles and further collaborate on important topics. To provide additional means of support, users can access Video Tutorials for both WebStorm and Switchboard. (Coming soon for Pipeline)

Our Commitment
“With the release of the Brightidea Support Portal 2.0, we at Brightidea continue to demonstrate our commitment to superior customer service and support.” states James Pasmantier, Vice President of Professional Services. Feedback for Brightidea can be shared in the “Tell us what you think about Brightidea!" forum. We promise to take your comments seriously.

As always, we are still just a phone call away. Administrators continue to have access to Brightidea’s 24-Hour Emergency Hotline for queries and urgent issues that cannot be addressed through the Brightidea Support Portal.

With over 10,000 submitted ideas, “Your Country, Your Call”, the Republic of Ireland’s open challenge to find ground-breaking proposals to boost the country’s economy, was a success beyond expectations. 

Powered by Brightidea’s WebStorm and under the patronage of the Irish President’s Office, this revolutionary effort aimed at truly leveraging the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ and allowed anyone, anywhere in the world to contribute to the cause.

YourCountryYourCall.com had over 94,700 visitors, and over 20,700 registered participants who posted ideas, and voted and commented on others’ suggestions. 

Careful preparation and professional execution made the great results of this initiative possible. Here are some components that many WebStorm administrators, like yourself, can utilize:

Unique Design and Flexible Customization

With the help of Brightidea, the contest website for Your Country, Your Call was designed to be professional, inviting and intuitive. WebStorm’s flexibility allowed for easy customizations to harness the contest’s specific requirements.

Comprehensive Promotion to Create Awareness

The President Mary McAleese and her office encouraged participation in the campaign through a commercial that aired on Irish television and was featured on the website.

“Your Country, Your Call is a competition.  But it’s more than that.  It’s an act of faith in our collective brain power. […] What we need now is fresh radical thinking.“ – Mary McAleese, President of Ireland

Irish newspapers and TV Stations offered free advertising time to get the word out to a mass audience. 

Healthy Competition through Rewards

The campaign offered attractive rewards – 100,000 Euros for each of the top two ideas, and dedicated funds of up to 500,000 Euros each for their implementation.

Our Brightidea representatives have extensive experience in making all types of WebStorms a success for our customers. Please contact us for more information!

April Release Notes

Released May 11, 2010

Apostrophes in Categories (#1829)

 With this enhancement, administrators can now add apostrophes in categories.

Switchboard – New Admin Tab: Reports

A new admin tab has been added in Switchboard that currently displays the following reports:

• Download Action Items Summary (idea, #assigned, #completed)
• Download Action Items Detail (all responses)

Blog Post Updates in ‘Updates’ Widget

With this enhancement, blog posts & comments on blogs will be updated in the ‘Updates’ widget at both WebStorm and Enterprise level.

Released May 5, 2010

WebStorm – New Report: Download Idea Status Change History

A new report has been added in WebStorm: the ‘Download Idea Status Change History’ Report will list the history of status changes for all ideas in that campaign.

Pipeline – New “Launch Date” Column 

We have added a sortable "Launch Date" column to the Projects List and My Projects List.

Released April 28, 2010

Switchboard - 'Prescreen' AI (Bug# 1906)

With this fix, all ‘Prescreen’ action items will be HIDDEN in Switchboard, but will still show up in Platform. The count of action items in the ‘Action Item’ tab (in the navigation bar) will be adjusted accordingly; i.e. it will NOT include the number of ‘Prescreen’ action items. Additionally, ‘Prescreen’ action items will NO longer be displayed in the ‘My Action Items’ widgets in WebStorm and Enterprise, and the Excel action item export.

WebStorm –Idea Title on the View Idea Page 

Clicking on an idea will display the idea title instead of the campaign name on the view_idea.bix page.

Enterprise Design ver2.0

Design ver2.0 has been added at Enterprise level. The functionality has been designed similar to the one in WebStorm. Note: Favicon & Footer HTML have not been added yet.You can find this option under Enterprise > Setup > Design

Enable Enterprise CSS

Admins can now copy the CSS from Enterprise level to WebStorm campaign.You can find this option under Enterprise > Setup > Design ver2.0

Show/Hide Toggle on ‘View Idea’ Page
With this enhancement, you can choose to hide or show an idea on the ‘View Idea’ page as well.

Switchboard – Better UI for Idea Collaborators

A new and improved user interface has been added to the Idea Collaborators in Switchboard. 

Released April 21, 2010

 
Enterprise – Active/Closed/Archived WebStorms  

On Enterprise level, WebStorm campaigns can now be categorized as Active, Closed & Archived. You can also change the status of a campaign by selecting the desired state (radio buttons) and clicking 'Save Changes'.

Note: All ‘Inactive’ campaigns from platform will be moved to ‘Active’ campaigns in WebStorm and will obey the rules mentioned below for 'Active' campaigns.

Active WebStorm

• Shows up in campaign lists
• Obeys ‘Enterprise WebStorm’
• Obeys ‘public/private’
• Obeys voting on/off
• Obeys idea submission on/off

Closed WebStorm

• Still shows up in campaign lists
• For non-admins
• Voting disabled
• Idea submission disabled
• Comments disabled; Comment replies disabled
• Blog Comment Submission disabled (NOTE - New Blog option has been created for this)

Archived WebStorm

A non-admin user cannot search for ideas from an ‘Archived’ campaign. 

**Rest of the design is under consideration.

Released April 14, 2010

 
Enterprise – Session Timeout (similar to W...

Consensus Point is the recognized leading provider of enterprise prediction markets – the solution to bring ROI to collective intelligence. The Consensus Point Foresight platform can reduce the risk of uncertainty, accelerate innovation, and reduce costs by providing accurate and real-time priorities for an organization’s most critical business investments.

Integrating Brightidea’s WebStorm as social front end to the Foresight platform and Brightidea’s Switchboard for idea and investment evaluation, this partnership offers a complete end-to-end crowdsourcing solution.  

As organizations move through later phases of the innovation process, costs and risks increase.  The Consensus Point Foresight platform can help mitigate risks in these later innovation phases and enable your crowd to efficiently and quickly prioritize the best investments that will yield the highest return for your company.

“Integrating objective thinking from top industry leaders, innovators, and leading academics will enable us to spot trends ahead of time for our clients. Consensus Point brought us a technology platform and market-leading solution to create a dynamic collaborative forum,” says Amanda Mesler, Chief Client Officer at Logica. 

Consensus Point offers a comprehensive, SaaS-based solution and ensures their customer’s success through experienced strategy consultants, prediction market experts, and management tools such as executive dashboards and real-time variance alerts on key investments.

Consensus Point is excited to partner with Brightidea and to help accelerate customer’s success across the entire innovation life cycle. Therefore, the first three companies that commit to use our integrated innovation life-cycle solution receive a free two-week pilot (only set up fee applies).

Contact Paul Tran ptran@brightidea.com or Rebecca Munn at rebecca@consensuspoint.com or 615.346.4093.

This month, Brightidea is releasing a new feature that will surely benefit our administrators.  As part of the setup section of a WebStorm, administrators will now have access to our “Support Tab.”  In the support tab, administrators will have access to videos, training guides, and helpful links to aid the support process for our customers.

The biggest portion of the support tab is the Administrative videos section.  With eleven videos to choose from, administrators can watch step by step training videos to learn both basic and advanced operations within WebStorm and Switchboard.

The administrator can select any video to watch a demonstration and the video will pop up on your screen:

 
In addition, you will find that the Support tab also incorporates administrative guides that walk through all setup options of both WebStorm and Switchboard.   The admin guides also includes a FAQ document filled with 100 basic questions and answers, as well as a basic CSS guide, a sample Switchboard workflow overview, and widget guide! 

Administrators also have access to hyperlinks to our Knowledge base where we have collected articles that have emerged with our customers.  You will have access to a full range of question and answer type articles.  We have also included links to both the Support Portal where administrators can submit their issues as well as access to the Knowledge Base.  Lastly, we have provided a hyperlink to BrightIdea’s Client Idea Exchange WebStorm where administrators can contribute and collaborate on ideas for future BrightIdea releases! 

Note:  This tab can only be turned on by a BrightIdea representative.  Please contact your BI rep to enable this for you.

Released April 7, 2010

System Administrators at Enterprise level
System Administrators can now be added at an Enterprise level. You will find this option under Enterprise > Users > Administrators

 

Groups & Evaluation Teams Are No Longer the Same
A new fix has been deployed that will take care of the issue where groups created in Platform/WS were showing up as evaluation teams in Switchboard. Evaluation teams & groups will be completely separate henceforth, i.e if you add/delete groups, it wont affect the evaluation teams & vice-versa.

Released Mar 31, 2010

Apostrophe in Email Address Prevents Logging In

With this enhancement, users can now have apostrophes in their email address & can log in our Brightidea system without any difficulty.

Released Mar 24, 2010

“Older Posts” Button Added to Enterprise Updates

With this enhancement, the Enterprise Updates widget will now be truncated in Enterprise. Only the recent 25 updates will be displayed by default. To view older updates, a new button "Older Posts.." has been added at the bottom of the widget.  Clicking on this button will display the next 25 updates & so on.

Currently, this enhancement has only been done at enterprise level & will be soon followed at WS level.

Profile pictures links to user profile
With this enhancement, the profile picture is now linked to the respective user’s profile. That is, clicking on the profile picture of a user in Enterprise Updates widget will redirect you to that user’s profile page.

Currently, this enhancement has only been done at enterprise level & will be soon followed at WS level.

‘Need new CSS’ icon moved after text  
The ‘This feature requires new CSS classes’ icon has been moved from left side to the right end of the text.

Switchboard List Download
With this enhancement, users can now download the Switchboard list in two additional file formats:
    Comma Separated (CSV) Download
    Tab Separated (TXT) Download
 


Released Mar 17, 2010

Switchboard displays Chips Voting
With this enhancement, the chips voting score will be displayed in Switchboard once the Chips Voting option is enabled for the corresponding WebStorm campaign.

Copy WebStorm now copies the new CSS/Banner/Favicon
With this enhancement, the Administrators can now copy CSS, Banner & Favicon along with labels, etc from their desired WebStorm campaigns.

Profile Info on W/S download reports (# 1823)
All Ideas, User Activity, Login History and Search History reports in WebStorm will have all the Profile fields appended as extra columns in the reports. The profile fields appended are: Login Name, First Name, Last Name, Job Title, Department, Address, Phone, Employee ID, External ID, Photo, Mobile Phone, Email, Work History and Expert Skills.
If any of the profile fields are changed because of the label edited, the change will be reflected in the corresponding columns in the Reports.
To download the reports with profile information, check the Checkbox “Include user profile data” below the “Download Report” button under each report in the “Reports” tab.

Design Editor

Released on Feb 24, 2010
Change the color of your WebStorm & Enterprise skin with a single click!! 

With this enhancement, an administrator can change the skin color of the WebStorm & Enterprise by a single click. 
Also, the 'Switch to Design Tab v2.0' has been moved to the top right corner of Setup table. Clicking on it gives the option to pick a color to customize the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) on the fly, type in custom CSS code or upload a CSS file.

It also gives you the ability to add cool & personal 'Favicons'

 
'Twitter' & 'Updates' 

Released on Feb 24, 2010

Users can now not only add “Updates” & the “Tworker” feature at an Enterprise level, but with this enhancement, they can also at a WebStorm level. Note – For the “Tworker” feature, if a user “tworks” (enters a comment) in a WebStorm campaign, that entry post will not be visible at an Enterprise level & vice-versa.  The Administrators can add these features from the ‘Approved’ widgets option. 

Delete Category

Released on Feb 24, 2010

With this enhancement, a new warning message window opens up when a user tries to delete a category in admin setup. This message window will offer the option to either delete the category along with all the ideas associated with that category OR move all the ideas to a different category before deleting the selected category.
  

Duplicate Checker

Released on March 3, 2010
This enhancement extends the Duplicate Checker functionality to Tags & Category. i.e. If you enter a text that has been added as a tag/category earlier, it will pop up the idea using the duplicate tag.

You can find this under Setup > Ideas > Duplicate Checker


Meta Keywords & Meta Description

Released on March 10, 2010
With this enhancement, administrators will now be able to add meta keywords & descriptions in WebStorm setup menu.

You can find this enhancement under Setup > Site > Info

 
HTML universal footer option in the design 2.0 section

Released on March 10, 2010

Added an HTML universal footer option in the design 2.0 section.

It works exactly like the current html banner but it’s only available in the CSS version2.