Jive releases idea organizing tool

This week Jive Software released Ideation, an idea filtering and organizing tool. In many organizations, ideas may be locked on local hard drives or inside Excel spreadsheets, but this tool provides an outlet for the community to talk about these ideas and vote them up or down.

Users can submit ideas, then they can be filtered according to where they are in the process. Filters include "Active," "For Future Consideration," "Under Review" and so forth. A manager or community member can easily find the types of ideas he or she wants by narrowing the list with a filter. The community can then vote on these ideas in a manner that looks similar to Digg, but also leave comments, start a discussion, add a video or any of the actions you might expect in a collaboration tool. The Ideation tool is part of the Jive suite so it's completely integrated with other tools.

J.C. Groon, who is head of innovation programs at NAVTEQ, a company that generates digital map and traffic solutions, says Ideation has helped employees generate and find the best ideas, regardless of where they are in the world. "Success in our innovation program depends on our ability to enable our employees to interact across geographic and functional boundaries and innovate together." A tool like Ideation enables them to do this.

In a business, where you don't see many new ideas, a tool to manage ideas is a good one and it's unique. It provides a way for employees to check out the viability of their ideas, and while there is probably going to be political and social intrigue mixed in with all of this, it gives companies that thrive on ideas a place to test them out and see what others think.

Ideation is available as a module for Jive software customers.

For more information:
- see the Jive press release

Related Articles:
The convergence of ECM, KM and innovation management
Avoiding the content silo trap
Collaboration tool news