Paul Walker of PulsePoint Group presented on leveraging crowdsourcing and social innovation to generate new product ideas. Key points included defining social innovation as leveraging crowds to produce exponentially more valuable ideas. Case studies of successful social innovation programs at Dell, a consulting firm, and AT&T were provided that showed generating thousands of ideas and implementing hundreds. Key learnings included having executive support, focusing submissions, community management, recognizing top contributors, and establishing metrics.

1. PulsePoint Group
Building On Social Listening Centers:
Crowdsourcing New Product Ideas
A PulsePoint Group Study Conducted in Collaboration with The Economist Intelligence Unit (Wave I - 2012)
Presented by Paul Walker, PulsePoint Group
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2. Meet Paul Walker
Paul Walker is widely recognized as one of the country’s
leading communications and marketing digital media
specialists. He has more than 25 years of experience in brand
management, market development, business development,
digital media and venture investing and development.
At PulsePoint Group he leads the Digital Strategy Practice,
which works with Global 1000 companies in areas of brand
and reputation management, marketing, innovation,
collaboration and performance management. He was the
chief strategist behind Dell’s IdeaStorm, the company’s widely
recognized crowdsourcing platform. Based on IdeaStorm and
his experience in venture capital at Accenture, Paul has
worked with a number of major organizations on innovative
initiatives.
Paul has held leadership positions at WPP, Accenture and Y&R. He is a graduate of The
University of Texas. Paul lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children.
Connect with Paul on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare.
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3. What is Social Innovation?
Leveraging the power, insight and
wisdom of crowds to generate new
ideas through “networked
brainpower” that produces results
exponentially more valuable than AKA: crowdsourcing,
co-creation, idea
the sum of the individual parts. engines, idea mining
3 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

4. Did You Benefit This Morning?
Starbucks created an innovation platform, My Starbucks Idea, to generate ideas and motivate
employees to accelerate ideas already generated by the team. This led to the development of
solutions implemented throughout the word, like a splash stick to prevent spills from cups.
4 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

5. “101 Reasons We Shouldn’t Do This…”
Perceived Issues Reality
Legal: IP issues that may lead to IP issues handled in guidelines
disputes and litigation
HR: Violating code of ethics and Establish clear guidelines and
employee rights expectations
Marketing: Capacity to assess Idea management process is critical
and respond to ideas
IT: Get in line Executive sponsors are critical
Everyone: Concern about the Community managers model good
quality of ideas and their abusing an behavior, clear guidelines and
open channel effective moderation.
5 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

6. THE FLAVORS
OF SOCIAL
INNOVATION
Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

7. Types of Social Innovation
Focused:
Limit ideas to
specific challenges
Open to All: By Invite Only:
Anyone can Selected members
submit ideas can submit ideas
Wide Open:
Ability to Submit
Any Ideas Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.
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8. Dell IdeaStorm: “Voice of customer”
• Michael Dell wanted to inject the “voice of the customer” back into the
hallways at Dell.
• They quickly got stuck in the “we can’t do this” tornado until…
• Michael Dell championed the innovative platform and pushed for its launch.
“A company this size is not going to be about a
couple of people coming up with ideas. It’s
going to be about millions of people and
harnessing the power of those ideas.”
– CEO Michael Dell
8 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

9. Dell: Embracing “Voice Of Customer”
2005
– Register, create profile
– Submit ideas, promote or demote
ideas, comment on ideas
2009
– Storm Sessions: Dell
employees can share an
opportunity that needs ideas
2012
– Extensions: Allows users to
expand a proposed idea
– Idea Partners: Identify Dell
employees to get involved with
ideas
– Gamification: Gaming elements
added to provide added value
– Rock stars: Treat program
champions with excusive
programs
Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.
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10. IdeaStorm: The Numbers Speak For Themselves
• Founded in 2007
• 60,000 registered users
• More than 17,000 ideas
(about 300 per month)
• About 1 million votes
• More than 500 ideas
implemented
• 50% of employees submit
ideas to EmployeeStorm,
Dell’s internal idea platform
10 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

11. Dell’s Ubuntu (Linux) Laptop
• An early Idea Storm idea suggested selling
Ubuntu-equipped machines alongside their
Windows counterparts.
• The idea received more than 130,000 votes.
• Within one year of the product launch, Dell
sold 40,000 Ubuntu machines without
having to advertise.
11 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

12. Consulting Firm: Best Ideas to Best Clients
• A leading global management and IT consulting
firm is creating a managed service offering
• The offering: “Tap into” intellectual and
creative assets of their employees, consultants
and alumni to solve client challenges
• Positions the firm as innovative
• Builds new relationships
• Generates incremental revenue
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13. The Model
Select the Evaluate,
Activate
Client and Package Deliver
Your Best
Define the and Present Value
Minds
Challenges New Ideas
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14. Early Results (For One Large Client)
• 800 target consultants (20% on vacation)
• 586 active participants (>50%)
• 286 new ideas
• 13,687 page views; 1,375 posts
• 33 new ideas received
• 27 new ideas presented to client
• Potential: $30 million in incremental revenue
14 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

15. AT&T’s Innovation Pipeline:
World’s Largest Corporate Crowdsourcing Program
• Employee idea generation and “At ATT, we believe great
collaboration at scale and
ideas can come from
fosters a culture of innovation
anywhere”
• 100,000 members in 40
John Donovan
countries
Sr. Exec.Vice President, ATT
• More than 500 ideas per
month
• 30 executive challenges
generated more than 200
potential solutions each
15 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

16. ATT’s Process Works
Tip Phase I: SOCIAL INNOVATION
Vote Submit, vote on, discuss and “invest in” ideas
Collaborate After three months, the top ideas are selected to “pitch”
Tip Phase II: PROTOTYPE
Pitch Founders develop business cases and pitch to “ATT VC’s”
Tip Phase III: PRODUCTION
Develop Funded ideas are moved from prototype to production and deployment
Tip Phase IV: COMMERCIALIZATION
Launch A successful project could be adopted by an ATT business unit or spun off into
an external company
16 Copyright © 2012 PulsePoint Group. All rights reserved.

17. Key Learnings
1. Ensure executive sponsor and real commitment to invest in new ideas.
2. Agree on and win buy-in and commitment for an Idea Management
Process Timing, from collection to assessment to decision and response.
3. Provide “focus” for community members’ ideas based on priority needs
and opportunities.
4. Community manager and moderators need to be passionate, empowered
and enabled to engage community members in real-time.
5. Give employees the opportunity to submit ideas. They are a great source
of ideas and can be evangelists for the initiative.
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18. Key Learnings
6. Have a plan to keep the program fresh and interesting – brainstorms
around specific topics, sharing progress, etc.
7. Recognize top contributors on the site and in other appropriate forums –
this is one of their top motivations.
8. Celebrate ideas that are implemented and make a big deal out of their
contributors.
9. Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and make sure the team is
assessing performance and taking steps to improve it. Importantly, this also
should be across the idea management process.
10. Ensure the selected software platform can’t be easily gamed, supports the
idea management process.
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19. PulsePoint Group
Building On Social Listening Centers:
Crowdsourcing New Product Ideas
A PulsePoint Group Study Conducted in Collaboration with The Economist Intelligence Unit (Wave I - 2012)
Presented by Paul Walker, PulsePoint Group
19