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Innovation is key to the survival of businesses today. To innovate, however, there has to be a way in which employees can share all the ideas that they have. This can become overwhelming, even in smaller organizations, as simply being able to speak to every employee may seem impossible. Furthermore, if an organization has several hundred of even thousand, employees, then once the ideas are gathered, it will seem like an impossible job to evaluate them all. However, this is where crowdsourcing software can help.
Essentially, this type of platform allows different people access to a specific online platform where ideas can be gathered, and where people can work together in collaboration on developing these ideas. Essentially, it is a software tool that automates every element that no longer requires any manual involvement. Hence, there is no more need for costly contractors, hundreds of meetings, and a lot of downtime. Rather, every single employee is able to come together, regardless of their physical location, and share their ideas. Best of all, these ideas can generally be shared anonymously, which means people will be even more inclined to actually say what they feel.
Crowdsourcing software does more than gather information, however. It also enables people to actually sort through all the ideas and information that has been placed here. Oftentimes, incentives are provided to actually do this, including prizes. However, for most people, participation of itself is enough. In many cases, crowdsourcing software comes with a type of badge system, which means people can show the rest of the community that they are engaged and working on further engagement.
How Does it Work?
So how does crowdsourcing software work? Essentially, once installed, a number of administrators are assigned to it. They then launch a community that relates to a specific area of business that needs to be developed. This can be anything from a product to a full company reshuffle. People are then invited to take part in this, enabling them to show what their thoughts are on dealing with a current challenge, an existing problem, or even an ongoing innovation.
Once all ideas have been gathered, teams can be allocated – often from the pool of people who took part in the crowdsourcing effort – to actually come up with ways to implement these recommendations and proposals, and to evaluate how this could go. After the stage of proposal, further stakeholders and administrators will run another period of evaluation. Those ideas that are most likely to bring about a return on investment can then be green lit, which means yet another team implements them. While this may seem like a long winded process, the reality is that it is highly inclusive because it is transparent as well.
It is important, to do this properly, to have crowdsourcing software that can be customized to your particular process, vision, and goals. Once you have found this and have launched your first project, you can be ready to see your organization transform.