SWIFT Opens Innovation Portal

SWIFT, the global inter-bank communications network and money transfer system, recently announced (see link below) that it has implemented a comprehensive cloud-based innovation initiative using BrightIdea's enterprise-level innovation management solutions. 

Founded in 1973 to replace the telex, SWIFT has long been at the forefront of technological innovation. Its standardized interface software and messaging services now connect over 8,700 financial institutions in 208 countries worldwide. Up to 13 million messages per day are sent over its system, which is a cornerstone of the global financial infrastructure. 

Following the introduction of Innotribe, an extremely successful innovation initiative at their annual SIBOS conference in Hong Kong, SWIFT is now launching Innotribe.com in order to further leverage the innovative potential of their distributed corporate and customer base. 

BrightIdea's powerful innovation management solutions provide the infrastructure for Innotribe.com to effectively harness the power of crowdsourcing to gather, filter, prioritize and implement new ideas from the financial community. Kosta Peric, SWIFT's Head of Innovation said, "We are thrilled to launch Innotribe.com. Innovation is a shared responsibility and this tool is a great step forward in bringing together the collective creativity of our community. We want to facilitate the process of idea management, and be the driver that enables ideas to grow into bona fide business projects."

Voting is Live for Paypal’s X Developer Challenge

 

Voting began today for the Paypal X Developer Challenge (launched Nov. 4, 2009) for developers to solve the fundamental problems people face when trying to pay or get paid.

With prizes totaling $75,000 in cash and $75,000 in waived fees, the PayPal X Developer
Challenge offers anyone with an idea the opportunity and seed capital to create a new business based on the PayPal open payments platform, PayPal X.

Voting is open to anyone, just register at x.com. Finalists will be determined by the popular vote on x.com and a panel of judges including eBay founder Pierre Omidyar; PayPal president Scott Thompson; general partner of Andreessen/Horowitz, Marc Andreessen; and Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha, will choose the top two prize winners.  

 

There are certainly some interesting ideas to view and vote on. A couple that stand out are the ability to make offline paypal payments, Pay-what-you-think-its-worth application activation, and Charge Your Account With Your Voice (a little dangerous in my opinion, making those impulse buys just a little too easy!) .

 

Osama Bedier, PayPal's vice president of platform and emerging technology, said in a statement. "We're challenging developers to take PayPal X for a spin. And while the prize money is certainly an incentive, the real reward will be making payments easy, for the very first time, for an entirely new generation of applications built by our developer community." 

 

So get out and vote!

Follow these hashtags for live updates and activity on Twitter: #xcontest #paypalx

Forbes Interviews Phil McKinney CTO of HP

HP is one of Brightidea's most prominent clients and partners. Currently HP is rolling out its internal innovation site, aptly named The Garage, to all 300K+ employees. Built on Brightidea's enterprise innovation management software, The Garage is the nerve center for innovation at HP.

 

This week the Forbes CIO Network is featuring an interview with Phil McKinney, CTO of HP.

McKinney's insights quickly point to a central problem among large organizations that "CIO's are kind of missing an opportunity to really transform their organizations around innovation." A key hurdle lies in reevaluating the distribution of available funds between necessary day-to-day operational cost and innovation. The challenge is recognizing that if no overall budget increases exist, how can a CIO free up dollars for innovation and why is that even important?

Brightidea Goes Mobile

 

Fresh off the wires is Brightidea's announcement of Idea Management Apps for iPhone and Android Platforms. This marks the first Mobile Apps designed exclusively to support corporate innovation on-the-go. Now innovation as a business activity is not limited to a desktop, conference room, single event, or innovation space.

 

              

Brightidea Mobile will allow Brightidea clients to extend the accessibility of their innovation programs and campaigns to their increasingly mobile workforce. As Brightidea's CEO, Matt Greeley stated, "The best ideas often arise when we least expect it: at a meeting with a big client, while waiting for a flight, or when standing in line at the grocery store." Now those ideas can be easily tapped into and seamlessly integrated into the existing flow of ideas from all parts of the organization.

 

Brightidea Mobile can be downloaded directly from the iTunes store and is available to current or prospective Brightidea Clients. To download visit the iTunes store and search 'Brightidea Mobile' or contact a Brightidea Representative. Additional fees apply.

Full Press Release

Take a Tour of the App

Innovation Spotlight: Text to donate…

 

TEXT "HAITI" to 90999 is a great example of innovation in fundraising. A crisis of Haiti's proportion presents a unique challenge for NGO's and non-profits. These organizations need to provide a quick, easy method for individuals to donate, and this initiative answers that call. By partnering with major cell phone carriers, the Red Cross was able to create a unique and simple way for people all over the world to donate. The intiative addresses a key challenge for fundraising, getting people to answer the call to action without making them go to a website, pull out a credit card, or phone into a hotline. By utilizing an established medium of communication, the Red Cross cut out the traditional transaction channels and streamlined the process of donating to a simple text.

 

This is Innovation at Work.

Simply text "HAITI" to 90999, and a $10 dollar donation will automatically be given to the Red Cross. Donations appear on customer's monthly bills.

 

For more information on this innovative method of fundraising visit: http://bit.ly/7fmoJL

Brightidea - All Access Pass to CES 2010

 

 Last week, more than 2,500 companies gathered in Las Vegas for the 2010 International CES, the world's largest trade show for consumer technology.

Brightidea attended this mega event to join customer YTL Communications for the official launch of their mYprize global innovation challenge. With this open competition, YTL rewards unique applications, devices and ideas that highlight the benefits of its 4G Network in Malaysia with one million US dollars. But that’s another story…

This year’s CES featured over 20,000 new products and a large number of first-time exhibitors. As with most events of this kind, mega vendors like Sony or Microsoft were closely surrounded by numerous little exhibitors. We noticed an increased amount of booths from emerging innovator nations, most of all China, among them.

 

We had interesting conversations with innovative thinkers and entrepreneurial minds, who want to push the envelope and drive progress. They are curious about new ideas and look for new ways to turn visions into reality. Across the board, the atmosphere seemed optimistic and, whether established industry giant or small exhibit floor newbie, the need for more open, automated innovation processes was top of mind for everyone we spoke to. There was overall consensus that OnDemand services as tools to implement these process are the way to go – besides for the United Postal Service, who will continue to use the mail for customer feedback, but who would blame them…

Brightidea's Paul Tran, Business Development Director,
& Max Partl, Business Consulting Manager, at CES 2010

The Consumer Electronics Show 2010 was a great stage to kick off the next decade of electronic innovations and an exciting playground for tech enthusiasts. For the Brightidea team, it was also a platform for interesting personal encounters and new friendships in the innovation space.

Inside the $1M YTL "mYprize" Global Innovation Challenge

Techie Diva's Gina Hughes and Ponzi Pirillo sit down with YTL's CEO Wing Lee, and SVP Rick Robinson to talk about the mYprize Global Innovation Challenge running on the Brightidea Webstorm Innovation platform.

Last week during the annual Consumer Electronics Show, YTL CEO Wing Lee and SVP Rick Robinson gave an insider's overview for GadgetSpin.com of the recently launched mYprize innovation contest. The 1 million dollar contest launched January 8th, 2010 globally with the goal to bring "the best 4G applications and devices out there into the marketplace," Lee said.

Q&A with Cisco: Inside the Cisco Live Program

 

This Q&A was conducted with Matt Asman to discuss the Cisco Live event slated for January 2010 in Barcelona.

 

Overview of Cisco Live:

Once a year, Cisco creates an opportunity for its Customers and Partners to sharpen their skills and grow their knowledge with the Cisco Live event. The purpose is to equip Customers and Partners with the technical knowledge required to stay competitive in today's challenging economy. The event is designed for Cisco's most technical customers, often referred to as the Networkers community.

 

Innovation at Cisco Live is a new initiative designed with the Networkers community in mind and with the specific intention of enhancing our knowledge of what is important to them. To achieve this we are placing this community firmly at the center of the way we develop our products and services whilst making a positive change to the future of Cisco technology. 

Brightidea goes to Hong Kong

Between Twitter, Facebook, email and phone it's fairly easy to let everyone know what's going on in your life, wherever you are, at any given moment. Sometimes, though, "twittering home" alone does not quite do a travel experience justice. It's just not the same as sending a good old-fashioned postcard…

This week, the Brightidea San Francisco office received three cards from Hong Kong sent by our CEO Matt, our Biz Dev Master Paul and Solutions & Pre-Sales Expert Max. Of course, the postcards arrived at home after the travelers did. Some things don't change.

The reason for their trip was nothing less than Brightidea's first innovation management software deployment in China, specifically at China Light & Power Group (CLP), one of the largest electricity investor-operators in the Asia Pacific region. The power company joins a rapidly growing list of Brightidea clients in this thriving part of the world.

Adobe Acrobat Ideas & Brightidea Named Finalists in the Forrester Groundswell Awards

Our customer Adobe was recently selected as a finalist in the 2009 Forrester Groundswell awards, for their highly-regarded initiative Acrobat.com Ideas, powered by Brightidea's Webstorm technology.

Specifically, Adobe Acrobat Ideas was recognized for embracing social technologies among a business-to-consumer audience. The concept behind "Embracing the Groundswell," coined by Josh Bernoff  and Charlene Li, is about engaging customers with social technologies to help in the design of products. Adobe Acrobat Ideas is a shining example of this concept; since the beginning of 2009, more than five million users have signed up for Acrobat.com, contributing valuable ideas and future improvements for Acrobat.com.

"We launched Acrobat.com Ideas as an easy way for customers to play an active role in the development of Acrobat.com.  The level of customer interaction has been outstanding and we are incorporating 35 customer submitted ideas into our next release.  Not only do we get great feedback, but also are able to get a good sense of how to prioritize what our customers need, which ultimately makes our services that more valuable to customers and shortens our development cycles." Lisa Underkoffler, Principal Product Manager, Acrobat.com

At Brightidea, we're excited to see our customers recognized for the success they're having with WebStorm. We congratulate Adobe on their selection as a finalist for such an esteemed award, and look forward to seeing more customers recognized for successfully embracing social technologies in the future.

Check out Adobe's Blog Post

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