Comment posted by Keith Brooks07/21/2008 11:39:25 AM
Homepage: http://lotustech.blogspot.com
sheepishly suggests I ranout of ideas to vote on, really what's with all the developer issues anyway?
Comment posted by Bob Balaban07/21/2008 12:09:28 PM
Homepage: http://www.bobzblog.com
Because Lotus went and implemented all the fixes and enhancements?
Comment posted by Peter Presnell07/21/2008 01:13:08 PM
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/
Closing the feedback loop!
To be a success long term, most suggestion/idea schemes need a feedback mechanism that recognizes/rewards the people who took the effort to either create the idea (or to vote). Without this the value is largely therapeutic (I got this off my chest). The business world is full of idea schemes that are started in a blaze of glory but went nowhere because of this lack of feedback/reward/recognition.
At this time it is not possible to see results for the contributions made to IdeaJam. Where would I go to find this? How many of the ideas have IBM implemented or committed to implement? Of those, were these things IBM were working on anyway or did IdeaJam actually make a difference? In the long run if IBM do not show tangible support for IdeaJam and a way found to provide feedback to contributors I suspect it will die a slow death and an important community resource will be lost.
Comment posted by Julian Robichaux07/21/2008 01:14:21 PM
Homepage: http://www.nsftools.com
No, I don't know. TELL ME, MAN, TELL ME!
Comment posted by Bruce07/21/2008 01:25:03 PM
Peter nailed it:
"In the long run if IBM do not show tangible support for IdeaJam and a way found to provide feedback to contributors I suspect it will die a slow death and an important community resource will be lost."
Comment posted by Colin Williams07/21/2008 01:33:05 PM
Not only would that be sad, it would be plain stupid on IBMs part. As a community, how do we give them a collective slap around the chops so they wake up and get it?
Comment posted by Henning Heinz07/21/2008 02:15:04 PM
The IBM people that read IdeaJam probably already know a lot of what could be fixed/enhanced, decision makers probably still prefer Yahoo finance and Bloomberg as their personal information resource. This does not mean that Idea Jam is useless. A good combination of silent internal lobbying, awareness and a bit of luck might bring some of the ideas to market. I never voted on IdeaJam as my frustration level about IBM is already high enough but I really do admire those that are never getting tired to stop fighting for a better Lotus Notes. At the end that will make a difference.
Comment posted by Paul Mooney07/21/2008 03:54:53 PM
Homepage: http://www.pmooney.net
Bruce (and don't take this wrong at all mate) - can you show us a few examples of when IBM responded due to ideajam voting?. I would use it more if I honestly thought it would make a difference.
I pimped IdeaJam at every session at Lotusphere, and at Admin conference, and at ILUG - telling people that IBM are reading and listening... so Im not beating it. I love the concept as a business model and also what it could do for Lotus product suite - can you give a few examples where they listened?
Comment posted by Ian Randall07/21/2008 05:42:49 PM
Yes Bruce, even if only one in a thousand ideas was actually implemented by IBM/Lotus, the concept would still work, but only if you you tracked the adoption rate and fed that information back to the contributors.
It would also help if you provided some statistically relevant correlation between a higher adoption rate and those ideas that received the highest number of votes. In that way people would be both encouraged to post new ideas as well as to cast a vote, as their contribution (and time) would be seen to have some value.
Comment posted by Bruce07/21/2008 06:08:50 PM
@Ian,
We need to see how we can get IBM to manage the Lotus Community IdeaJam sites ideas. The system has the capabilities - we need IBM to take over the controls.
Comment posted by Bruce Elgort07/21/2008 07:07:03 PM
Mary Beth Raven has a nice blog entry on IdeaJam that she just posted:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/marybeth?entry=ideajam_release_cycles_and_a
Comment posted by Ed Brill07/21/2008 07:28:13 PM
Homepage: http://www.edbrill.com
I warned of this when you first launched IdeaJam.
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/the-ideajam
The release cycle for Notes/Domino is longer than most can pay attention. By the time of launch, Notes 8 was already shipping, and 8.5 was already in progress. MBR's blog entry captures the thoughts from the IBM side very effectively -- this has to be a long-term process for the community to truly see the impact.
Comment posted by Bruce07/21/2008 07:36:06 PM
@Ed,
We (IdeaJam.net) aren't going anywhere. Thanks to you and Mary Beth for dropping by.
Comment posted by Charles Robinson07/21/2008 08:46:20 PM
Homepage: http://www.cubert.net
Ed, I know Mary Beth and a few others read IdeaJam, what I don't know is whether that has ever translated into action. If we saw IBMers taking ownership of ideas or even just acknowledging that some made it on the feature list for consideration we would take the commitment more seriously. So far it's been one-way communication.
Comment posted by John Head07/21/2008 09:29:15 PM
Homepage: http://www.johndavidhead.com
@Charles - but the total number of IJ voters is a minute number of Notes users and customers. I blogged about this. IJ is just one of multiple factors that gets put into the pot when making decisions on features. Until there are far more people voting, I think the impact will be basic. Customers and Partners in the Design Partner program and betas represent more users than IJ does ...
Comment posted by Bruce07/21/2008 09:42:28 PM
@John,
Why not get them to post their ideas in IdeaJam? Once place willing and waiting. Why wouldn't any company want to take advantage of something like IdeaJam?
Comment posted by Bruce07/21/2008 09:43:32 PM
All IBM has to do for their customers, partners, dp's etc. is to tell them to go to IdeaJam.
Comment posted by David Killingsworth07/22/2008 12:22:38 AM
Homepage: http://domino.symetrikdesign.com
Here are some ideas that no one has thrown out yet.
1. Maybe the novelty factor has worn off.
2. Maybe the limited number of existing IJ users have run out of ideas to post about, and thus number of comments have diminished on ideas.
3. No growth in the number of new idea generators and thus no new 1st generation commentors, and thus 2nd generation commentors.
The people who have already generated ideas and commented are energetic Lotus Notes/Domino people with a technology vision. Maybe there are a limited number of people out there that possess these talents AND have the free time to visit the site.
Comment posted by David Killingsworth07/22/2008 12:26:16 AM
Homepage: http://domino.symetrikdesign.com
Maybe you need a point/reward system for the most ideas/comments.
There could be a view for both ideas and comments. You could get your name on a list if you contributed the most.
Nice graphs and pie charts always make things more interesting....though I believe you have been posting those already.
Comment posted by Kerr07/22/2008 01:23:02 AM
Do idea creators need to do more to pimp their ideas? I've stopped visiting regularly, (spending more time on linkjam 
) and don't feel like voting on lots of the ideas that are there. I think a lot of the ideas are really explained very well, or don't engage me as being something I care about.
Comment posted by John Head07/22/2008 06:24:18 AM
Homepage: http://www.johndavidhead.com
Bruce, why would IBM want to do that in the public? Much of that is under NDA and in discussions long before it is ready for a general audience. Many things we talked about at the beginning of the 8.5 cycle changed or will not make the release.
I think the reason voting is down is that many people, no matter what you wrote on the site, expected it to be an official communication method to IBM. That was never the case. Perception is as important as reality.
The key is the IJ user base has not grown. You need to grow that user base.
Comment posted by Bruce07/22/2008 06:45:38 AM
@John,
I am not going to do IBM"s job. They are big boys and girls and can do that by themselves. We however to sell IdeaJam to companies wanting to innovate on the ideas of their internal and external customers. We can provide IdeaSpace administration to IBM via a database ACL. If they tell us who owns an IdeaSpace we can allow them to modify idea status's etc.
IBM has a terrible track record with community based organizations such as OpenNTF, IdeaJam etc. Ed recently blogged about wanting to change that. Like I said above - we aren't going anywhere and would love to help IBM.
Comment posted by Craig Wiseman07/23/2008 11:07:45 AM
Homepage: http://www.wiseman.la/cpw
It's important for IBM to stay insular and keep focusing and listening on those folks that will tell them they're headed in the right direction. Afterall, that process helped us get Workplace and Connections.
If the process isn't broken, don't fix it.
Comment posted by Gregg Bendtsen08/21/2008 11:55:47 AM
I used ideajam for a little while. Recently, I looked at it again and was trying to find how IBM was integrated into the process. I couldn't find anything that indicated it was and quit looking at the site.
