Regarding public sector, you seem to emphasize on citizen satisfaction and perception as effects to be measured. I see public crowdsourcing also as a means to solve complex problems (too complex for a public org. to solve by itself). Main driver for using open innovation will then be, along with shorter lead times and reduced costs: getting to good solutions at all.
To me it seems to indirect measuring this by citizen satisfaction, while this tend to be short term focused, whereas benefits of public projects are usually more long term.
So how to measure? Percentage of challenges solved through crowdsourcing? How do you define solved? Somehow, reaching the goals (financial, environmental, societal, ..) set by the respective public organization should be reflected in the metrics. I am interested in your thoughts on how to integrate this.

Regards, Peter Kuyt

Like or Dislike: 0  0

Thanks! Linking effects to $-value is not easy! But as suggested: If you accept a “less than perfect” approach to data you might design a valuable proces and scorecard. Inspired by your question I have dedicated a post to this issue – hope you find it usefull:
http://www.sofusmidtgaard.dk/how-does-innovation-contribute-to-the-financial-results-of-companies/

…comments and suggestions for improvements are more than welcome…

All the best
Sofus

Like or Dislike: 1  0

Thanks for your feedback – spot on! I have updated the article and integrated your sub grouping of project goals.

Furthermore I have expanded: Evaluating the quality of ideas, partly based on your feedback and added some more examples on parameters for internal scoring of ideas.

What are your experience with participants use of more complex feedback mechanisms like rating ideas on innovation, practicality, affordability etc.

All the best
Sofus

Like or Dislike: 1  0

I find it useful to think of those initial project goals in three distinct sub-groups about participation:

Quantity of Participation
* Number of ideas submitted
* Number of votes
* Number of comments

Quality of Participation
* Quality of the ideas
* Quality of comments
* Quality of dialogue

Diversity of Participation
* Number people who submitted ideas / Number of ideas submitted
* Number of people who voted / Number of votes
* Number of people who commented / Number of comments

So for example: 1 idea submitted per person is 100% diversity, 100 ideas submitted from 1 person is 1% diversity.

Of course quality metrics may introduce a new bit of complexity if, for example, you include more open voting metrics to help gauge quality. Five-star ratings of comments, multi-dimensional rating of submissions (like 5-stars for innovation, 5-stars for practicality, and 5-star rating for affordability)) In fact in many case I’d recommend such an approach instead of flat voting (vote for your 1 or 10 favorites) which yields results that are typically extremely skewed by Pareto Effect.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 3  0

Good point with a further discussion on whether it is an idea-platform you need at all! Choosing approach and tools based on what you wish to achieve is the basis for a series of articles and scorecards in itself. So until then I added your point under “Before you launch an open idea platform.”

I agree to part of your point. For many companies there will often be faster/more efficient ways to equally good ideas than launching an idea platform.

But if launched successfully an idea platform has many other positive effects besides generating a few good ideas. The open public/semi-public publishing and voting on ideas create management attention/pressure to react and launch new products, fix existing or chance inefficient processes.

All the best
Sofus

Like or Dislike: 0  0

How much more cheaply and quickly could we have obtained the same (or better) results in a different way?

(Open idea platforms are notoriously inefficient.)

Like or Dislike: 0  1