How can social computing solve product lifecycle management (PLM) problems? Here’s a peek into some research, Issue in Focus: Social Business Collaboration and the Product Lifecycle: Combining the Power of Social Media with PLM, that helps clarify things a bit. I’ll start with some of my thoughts on the value of social computing for product innovation and product development and then poke some fun at myself for totally missing something in regards to social computing in PLM (again).

Some Thoughts on Social Computing in PLM

First, let me step back. For those of you that follow my blog, have seen me present, had a drink with me, or passed me in a hallway you have probably heard me wax on about how Facebook fails for product development. I have probably overused it, but it was a powerful moment when a COFES attendee in my presentation on social computing and PLM said “We will not design an airplane on Facebook!” It was a passionate, and brilliant, statement. What that led to was the basis for my views on social computing and PLM. In short – the concepts behind social media sites like Facebook can provide a lot of value for product development, but sites like Facebook, twitter, Dropbox, and others are not the right approach.

There are major gaps that would need to be filled, but one of the primary issues is that social media sites don’t have any connection with the context of product development – the product. They also have no domain expertise (or interest) in PLM. See the post for more details, including a clever (if I don’t say so myself) chart on the differences in using social media for personal use versus product development.

A Bit of Mythbusting – Why I Might be Wrong

So I had my ideas set. I believed that the only possible way that companies could get to a socially enabled PLM solution was by integrating social computing techniques into PLM. In fact, vendors like Siemens PLM, Dassault Systemes, and PTC have been hard at work doing just that. But something happened recently that made me ask the question. What if I was wrong!? Now I have been wrong before, and I like to confess to it. In fact, to be fair, I missed the impact that social computing would have on product innovation processes in my 2010 Predictions for PLM. My crystal ball failed me, I didn’t even ask the question in my 2009 survey. I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly. But I am a firm believer that the use of social computing in PLM is both highly valuable, and entirely inevitable. It just makes too much sense.

A new company came along that made me think differently. No, it’s not Facebook or anyone like that. It is a new company called Nuage. They have a lot of PLM and product development expertise, and decided to come at the problem differently. They are building a platform for companies to collaborate first, and then adding in proven PLM capabilities. I have to admit I was surprised that they would do that, and I promise to follow up more on them over time. What they convinced me was the a social computing platform could be socially enabled as opposed to an existing PLM solution “going social.” My myth that the only path was for PLM solutions to add social capabilities was busted. There is a bit more to the story, but that is for a different time. For now, back to the research.

The Research Findings

The research reiterates findings from previous Tech-Clarity research, including Tech-Clarity Insight: Going Social with Product Development and Tech-Clarity Insight: Product Collaboration 2.0 – Using Social Computing Techniques to Create Corporate Social Networks in regards to the value that social computing in PLM can offer. In addition, it defines what a social business collaboration platform requires to become a socially capable PLM solution, including the ability to:

• Manage business processes
• Put conversation in the context of products and projects
• Integrate effectively with underlying data and documents
• Provide security for IP
• Allow people to easily share and discuss product development information
• Understand the complex relationships between product data
• Provide the right level of control

Of course the main finding from the research was that there are two potential paths to achieve socially capable PLM, not just one. In fact, there are probably three:

• Add social computing capabilities to existing PLM solutions (or wait for your vendor to do it)
• Implement social business collaboration solution and implement PLM capabilities into it (or find a vendor doing it, now an option)
• Some combination of the two

This is a pretty interesting development, for sure.

Implications for Manufacturers

So what does this mean to product developers? The concept of adding PLM capabilities to a social business collaboration platform is worth investigating. There are four things to remember from the report that I believe are important for manufacturers to take away from the research (but go ahead and read it yourself, you might find more):

1. New product development is an inherently social, team-oriented, collaborative process that can be significantly improved with social computing.

2. The greatest benefit will come from combining the collaborative power of social computing with the control provided by PLM.

3. To realize the potential business value of social product development, the next generation of solutions will need to combine both social computing techniques and proven PLM best practices in a seamless way.
4. New market entrants lead to the possibility that social business collaboration software can be enabled with best practice PLM capabilities.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social business computing and PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

Note for frequent readers: I typically do not mix research results with mentions of specific vendors, however without mentioning a credible new market entrant I didn’t think the post would make sense. If it weren’t for somebody willing to take this new approach, I would still be sitting back believing that PLM would have to go social and that the other option wasn’t viable (due to lack of focus and interest by the social media sites, for the most part).

This is an invitation to speak your mind on the use of social computing in product innovation, product development, and engineering. I have the honor of helping one of my favorite innovation and PLM consulting firms, Kalypso, with some new research. Please take our survey on using social media for product innovation now.

My Thoughts

I have been a clear proponent of the use of social computing to improve innovation, for some history see:

• Mythbusting “Facebook and Business Don’t Necessarily Mix”
• Social Software and PLM – Gap Filler or Intelligent Network?
• Why does Facebook Fail for Product Development? (and how to fix it)
• Connecting Social Interaction with Product Information (Interview)

My Predictions

One of my favorite things to do is “mythbust” analyst and research predictions. It’s great fun to go back and see what people predict and compare it to what actually happened. I particularly like to poke fun at myself when I was wrong (and maybe brag a little on the occasion that I am right). Of course I cheat and use research to fuel my predictions, so I stack the deck a little bit. So here is what I posted in 2011 – The Year Social Computing Explodes in NPD and PLM?:

• Collaboration – “will happen sooner rather than later“
• Discovery – “is coming“
• Product Knowledge – “will take a little longer“

Your Chance to Make it Real

Way more important than my thoughts and predictions are what companies (like yours) are actually doing. Am I spot on? Did I blow it? This is where you come in.

Please take the survey now!

(It shouldn’t take more than about 10 minutes or so. And if you like, we will send you a copy of the results.)

So that’s what I believe is happening in the world of social computing and product innovation, I hope you found it interesting. More importantly, tell us what you think by taking the survey! One last time, the link is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CQ37WKP

What I learned this week … was that there is still innovation in innovation-focused events! Last year, I heard from two separate friends about a new event they participated in that they thought was fantastic. Instead of the usual physical conference, they attended a virtual event. This wasn’t the first virtual event I had heard of (I have attended a few and present over the web frequently) – but this was the first one that I heard get high praise.

<Updated to correct my glaring typo – thanks Jenna>

The Event

The event from last year was called Pipeline. It included a series of speakers that rivaled any you would find at an onsite conference. In addition, it had virtual booths that allowed you to get information and interact with speakers and sponsors. Why was this event so much more interesting than others? I have to admit, I don’t know the answer. But they did a few things right:

• The platform for the event was built for this purpose
• The speakers were educational, not giving product pitches
• There is an opportunity to chat with the speakers, perhaps better access than at a physical conference where they have another session to attend
• The sponsors were there to educate as well
• The organizers focus on putting on a great event, not trying to steal the limelight
• They had over 1,000 people attend

In general, it wasn’t a sales pitch wrapped up like a conference. In fact, I wasn’t sure who organized it before looking into it a little bit deeper. Well done. I usually don’t get those kind of unsolicited, positive comments on anything related to a conference.

My Opportunity to Participate (and Yours)

This year, I was surprised to get a phone call from Planview (a portfolio management vendor, a Pipeline sponsor, and also the company that organizes the event). I told them how impressed I was with the conference and was surprised to find out they were asking me to participate. I am happy to say I will be presenting on Social Computing and the Product Lifecycle at Pipeline2011! I plan to attend as well, there are some great speakers. You can register for Pipeline2011 here, it is free to attend and you don’t have to leave the comfort of your office (no travel expenses, and no hangover from staying out to late at the conference).

So I am looking forward to speaking, and also attending. This is a pretty unique event. Who knew that there were such well received virtual events? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.

Join me this week or a quick peek into some of my research in one (or more) of several PLM-related webcasts this week. I will be joined by some great speakers that will share their views as well. I am not sure why this week is so densely packed with web presentations, but it should give everyone an opportunity to tune in and get a perspective on a few different interesting topics! We have product innovation, product development, product documentation, engineering, and more. Last week a podcast on the business value of PLM, now a handful of webcasts – Mom I have gone multimedia!

The Topics

• Tuesday (2:00 PM, Eastern US) – The Five Dimensions of Product Complexity – Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity will present with Matt Greene of Siemens PLM on the trend towards increased product complexity, how it has made developing profitable products more difficult, and how Product Lifecycle Management solutions can help.
  Register

• Wednesday (11:00 AM, Eastern US) – Transforming PLM for the Economic Recovery - Jim Brown will present with Chip Perry of Kalypso on this Aras ACE Innovation Series webcast on how to leverage PLM to take advantage of the upturn in the manufacturing industries, including innovation to increase revenue, decrease product cost, and reduce product development cost.
  Register

• Thursday (2:00 PM, Eastern US) – Streamlining Product Documentation and Raising the Bar with 3D Communication - Jim Brown will present with Garth Coleman of Dassault Systemes on this IndustryWeek webinar on how to use 3D product communications to improve efficiency, time to market, quality, cost, and customer experience.
  Register

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So that is a quick peek into some recent research I will be presenting, I hope you find it interesting and helps bring the research to life for you. Please feel free to look for more PLM-related webcasts (upcoming and archived) from Tech-Clarity.

What I learned this week … came from a great conversation with Sankar from Younomy. I have been in a number of conversations recently that make me realize that the world of social computing is looking into social product development and social innovation as much as the PLM and manufacturing communities are looking into the social computing world. Still with me? Sorry, that was a mouthful. You can read Sankar’s interview of Jim Brown (me) on social computing and product development on Younomy here and learn more by reading this collection of social computing in PLM posts on my site.

Who is Looking at Who?

What I realized is that we are all trying to learn from each other. Manufacturers are trying to learn from what other companies are doing, and other companies are interested in some of the early initiatives from manufacturers. To me, this is just another reminder of how new social computing is. I am fortunate to sit in both camps – the advancement of social computing in business and the maturation of PLM. That is why the intersection of social computing and PLM is so interesting to me.

Implications for Manufacturers
One of the key points that I made in the interview was that I see the greatest value not from one side or the other (social computing or PLM). I believe that the most significant improvements to product innovation, product development, and engineering performance will come from linking social interactions with product data. That’s why I pay so much attention to what PTC, Siemens, Dassault Systemes, Vuuch, Sopheon, and others are doing in this space. That is the where the real power is unleashed. Generic tools will be helpful, but by connecting the two we get:

• A product-focused discussion that directly helps develop better products
• A source of product knowledge (the discussion itself) that can be captured and reused into the future

It was great to have an opportunity to discuss this with Sankar to remind me how passionate I am about the potential of taking the concepts of things like Facebook and applying them to product development. I hope you found the discussion (and the interview) interesting.

I had the chance to talk with … CogniStreamer about their innovation portal as a part of some front end of innovation (FEI) research I did in preparation for Aberdeen’s Leadership in Product Development Summit. Cognistreamer is one of a number of vendors that I believe can play a role in helping manufacturers leverage social computing technologies for innovation. I am still formulating my views on the rapidly evolving landscape of software for product innovation, I hope you find my perspective useful (and I look forward to hearing yours).

What do they Do? (OK, this is really more on “Idea Management,” skip ahead for what Cognistreamer does)

Cognistreamer is one of a number of vendors I have looked into that fall into the “idea management” space. I was talking with a friend today about the need for a framework to represent idea and innovation-oriented software. It seems to me that I should start segmenting the space into different categories such as: Ideation, Incentives/Rewards Management, Scoring/Filtering, Concept Collaboration, and Business Case Development (which would then tie into Product Portfolio Management (PPM) and Value Management). Of course then I would have to add in segments for IP Management and Innovation Process Management. No matter how I segment it, I am sure there will be dissenting views (please share yours if you have one, I am open to ideas). See more of my views on idea management software in my post on software vendor Brightidea. OK, it seems like I can’t start a post on this topic without a diatribe, thanks for bearing with me.

What do they Do (post diatribe)?

So back to the point. Cognistreamer does not call themselves idea management, but instead offers “innovation through collaboration.” The solution is designed to harness and mature collaborative ideas. In my conversation with Ron Shulkin, VP North America, it was clear that they understand the issue that manufacturers don’t just need more ideas – they need to get to the better ideas quickly. Cognistreamer provides the ability to start with challenges that offer strategic guidance to innovation efforts. The guidance helps companies focus innovation effort on specific topics (if desired) through challenges. Then, they leverage social computing technologies to “collaboratively filter” ideas through algorithmic social science that scores ideas based on a combination of votes and participation to allow the good ideas to move to the top.

Beyond the idea stage, Cognistreamer progresses ideas through a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis and further to a feasibility study. In this way, ideas can be advanced and promoted from step to step in the innovation lifecycle. What’s interesting is that Cognistreamer bases these promotions on the social scoring algorithm, again to allow the best ideas to move forward. The process steps and the scoring mechanisms are user-defined and can change based on campaign, a very unique approach. Throughout the innovation process, Cognistreamer employs expert reviews and collaborative assessments – an interesting use of social computing that leverages the community to help mature the idea into a concept that is ready to be reviewed in a portfolio.

What do they Offer?

The Cognistreamer product is the Cognistreamer Innovation Portal. The solution offers some interesting features including tag clouds, similarity search, and collaborative filtering based on votes, participation, and activity. The solution also provides the ability to follow ideas, and receive alerts for new activity and comments. The portal is integrated with e-mail so that users can interact with the system in their own environment. This also allows remote use, providing links to smaller web pages that can be viewed and acted on effectively using a smart phone. Some other unique features pointed out by the Cognistreamer team include “persuasive design” features that engage portal visitors on the most important topics and support for deployment in multiple languages. There is also a module called “Listener” that polls the web (including social media sites like Facebook and Twitter) for key words and automatically brings related information in as new ideas. Pretty interesting approach, and one I haven’t seen elsewhere.

Who do they Work With?

Ron explains that the solution can be used in many industries, but that about 75% are international manufacturers. Cytec Industries (specialty chemicals and engineered materials) and Case New Holland (agriculture and construction equipment) are listed on the website. Additionally the company says that Bakeart (metals and materials) has over 40,000 users, in addition to other manufacturers like Vestas (wind power). Cognistreamer is a Belgian company, and has mostly a European customer base.  The company is focused on the US market, however, and has six pilots started in the US this year.

So that’s what I hear from Cognistreamer, I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them? I have talked with others about this as well, including Brightidea and a view into the idea management application Colgate partnered on with SAP. This is a very fragmented market, who else should I talk to in this space? I found this article that Ron wrote (before he joined Cognistreamer) that ambitiously set out to list every innovation, collaboration, idea management, and content management (CMS) on the market. Who are the key players in this type of software? Who else is interested in this space?

I had the chance to talk with … the team at Brightidea about their products to generate, manage, track, and prioritize innovative ideas. Brightidea is helping companies leverage social computing technologies for innovation with a suite of solutions to drive innovation and foster the resulting ideas through the innovation pipeline. I was impressed with a number of aspects of the solution, but perhaps the most surprising observation was the solution is “enterprise aware.” That is my term, not theirs, and not something that they specifically pointed out. But in an area where I see a lot of light-weight “solutions” being built internally or quickly rushed to market, it was refreshing to see that Brightidea developed their solution to address the complexities of the enterprise. It was also nice to see that they spent quite a bit of time understanding the process by which ideas turn into winning products instead of just developing a portal and a database.

My Views on “Idea Management” Software

Put simply, Brightidea is one of a number of “idea management” vendors. I am not a big fan of that term because I think it understates the importance of what some of these companies are doing. They are not simply “managing” information or acting as an online suggestion box. They are helping companies drive innovation in targeted areas and nurture the ideas in a social setting to help them mature. That, in  my opinion, is much more than “idea management.” Moreover, the solutions that I think are adding the most value are not just ones that help gather ideas, but those that help companies determine which ones to pursue. As one manufacturer I spoke with explained getting a lot of ideas isn’t the problem, it’s filtering through all of the ideas to find the good ones. Managing ideas is boring (although it has to be done). On the other hand, using social and collaborative technologies to incubate  ideas and drive further discussion to help raise the best ideas to the top and give them a jump start in product development is compelling.

What Does Brightidea Do?

OK, with my diatribe over, let’s turn back to Brightidea specifically. I particularly liked the analogy that Vincent Carbone, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Brightidea, offered me. He explained that what they do is similar to what Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems do to manages leads. But instead of leads, they manage ideas. He points out that a sales lead isn’t worth much at first but could turn into a multi-million dollar deal. CRM systems offer lots of management capabilities, pipeline reports, etc. for leads. He says that Brightidea gives executives what they have for leads in CRM but for their ideas, including dashboards to observe/optimize innovation. I like the analogy because one of the big challenges companies face with sales leads isn’t getting a lot of them, it’s picking out the good ones to pursue through a process of lead qualification. CRM also recognizes that leads go through a lifecycle, starting small and gaining value over time as they are nurtured – or fizzling out and becoming a part of the historical record for later use. I may be taking his analogy too far, but to me it speaks volumes about their understanding of the nature of ideas.

What do they Offer?

The offering from Brightidea is the Brightidea Innovation Suite. The solution consists of three primary parts:

• Webstorm is an online solution used to collect and drive innovation. It offers capabilities to prompt, post, and discuss innovation ideas.
• Switchboard is used to prioritize, collaborate, and score ideas. It provides the ability to turn ideas into product proposals to take to the next step.
• Pipeline is the execution piece. It includes “social project management” and helps track milestones, stages, gates, and provides visibility to projects.

The suite provides a broad array of capabilities, although I am sure that some companies choose to integrate to existing tools for some of the processes covered. Brightidea demonstrated a lot of ability to customize the Webstorm sites. Each individual site can be set up appropriately to fit the social environment and match the company culture. As they explained, each Webstorm can look completely different. The innovation sessions can be directed by some upfront ideas to get them started in the right direction. They can also support ad-hoc webstorms using a button that says “run your own webstorm.” All of the ideas stay in the database, and people can search on them.

What surprised me most, as I mentioned earlier, is the ability to fit into the enterprise. The software can have multiple sites by location or can be shared across business units, geographies, product lines, business units, or functional areas. Those sites can be rolled up to higher levels based on permissions. To me, it looks like a model that is ready for the enterprise.

Who do they Work With?

So who should consider Brightidea? The solution supports multiple industries and is in use by companies both large and small. The Brightidea website lists a host of companies across industries. It doesn’t appear to have any limitations. Some examples they gave in our discussion included:

• R&D people using it
• A pharmaceutical company using it for chemical reactions
• A consumer packaged goods company putting in new names for products

In fact, I used the solution when I acted as master of ceremonies for Aberdeen Group‘s Leadership in Product Development Summit and the solution fit our process well. Unfortunately, I have to admit, we didn’t put enough of our own effort into it to get the most value out of the solution. But the potential was clear, the site was nicely developed, and it was easy enough to work with.

Brightidea also has a partner strategy. For example, HP is a global reseller. They are also including Brightidea inside other software solutions. The examples we discussed were Planview (Product Portfolio Management, PPM) and Rally Software (Application Lifecycle Management, ALM, Agile). In addition, they discussed a strategy to partner with specialty consulting firms to tailor the solution to specific industries.

So that’s what I hear from Brightidea, I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them? I have talked with others about this as well, including a view into the idea management application Colgate partnered on with SAP. Who else should I talk to in this space?

What I learned this week … came after reflecting on this video on social computing in PLM I ran across on PTC’s website. I spent a significant amount of my time and energy last year trying to understand the implications of the social networking explosion on product innovation, product development, and engineering. It was interesting to listen to the podcast with the benefit of time moving on a bit to reassess the situation and see what will likely happen in 2011. So what happens next?

Brief Background and Views

Take a look at the video, but my viewpoint in a nutshell is:

• Social networking and social media have ramped up significantly in our personal lives (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)
• Social computing is continuing to gain ground in work environments and applications (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
• Product innovation is a team sport (inherently requiring collaboration and cross-functional participation)
• Facebook and similar tools aren’t appropriate for new product development (NPD), but the concepts are (see Facebook fail post)
• The content for the social interaction around product development and engineering is the product (making it a natural to integrate it with PLM)
• Early adopters are on the move and gaining benefits (see early results from the Spike research I worked on with Kalypso)

My Crystal Ball Says 2011 Will Bring…

First, I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t see the future. All I can do is tell you that this is one of the most obvious directions companies will take. This is as close to a “no-brainer” as they come. I do believe that social computing is happening in product innovation and NPD and will continue to expand. The tie to product data is also intuitive to me, although it will take more time and work. So here are my thoughts:

• Collaboration – This will happen sooner rather than later, it is the proverbial “low hanging fruit.” Companies will leverage generalized applications like Microsoft SharePoint, as well as specialty applications like Vuuch. The PLM vendors are actively working here as well, including PTC with SocialLink and Dassault Systemes with SwYm, and Siemens PLM. Integration to product data and existing PLM process will take longer, but the direction has been set. With so many companies still trying to get the basics in place (let’s face it, there are a lot of product data management (PDM) projects still in the works to put the foundation in place) I don’t think that this will cross into the majority this year, but there will be a lot of projects going on.
• Discovery - Finding ideas, people, and information internally is coming. While collaboration is typically within the known product development or engineering team, discovery extends this to a broader group. I think we will see progress on this in 2011. This can start relatively easy with discussion groups and innovation portals. I see a lot of companies experimenting with this. I believe a lot of this will be internally focused, however, which doesn’t stretch business models or existing processes but enhances them.
• Product Knowledge Management -This is an interesting one, and I think it will take longer. The promise here is not only to collaborate and discover, but to capture that interaction for future reference. This requires integrating the interactions back into the product record and storing them. The value is there, but it has to be done in a coordinated, integrated fashion so will take longer (in my opinion).
• Community, VOC, New IP -Developing external communities and gathering ideas from the outside is something I have always said will take longer. I am rethinking that. It requires people to think differently and develop new business models. But I have seen innovative companies get behind this.  For example, Kimberly-Clark talks about an innovative program in this interview. My opinion has changed as I view this as a standalone initiative. Full integration to innovation processes and NPD (and particularly engineering) will likely take longer, but a good idea that doesn’t require a huge investment is not going to wait in an innovative company. I see vendors like Brightidea, Congistreamer, Imaginatik, Spigit, and a host of others making an impact here in addition to the traditional companies.

Implications for Manufacturers

Things are happening. The world is changing the way we communicate, and the leaders will find a way to be more innovative and drive higher levels of profitability. Innovation has started and will continue. When? That is the big question. My crystal ball only works backwards (researching what has already happened). But I think we will see a lot of progress this year. Check back with me in 2012 when my crystal ball (aka rearview mirror) is working.

So those are my thoughts for 2011, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think, or more importantly what you are planning to do about it!

I had the chance to talk with … SAP and their customer Colgate in June, and learned that they have been hard at work improving the way manufacturers innovate. I was attending an SAP customer event on PLM to get updated on the progress of SAP’s PLM efforts. SAP continued to showcase their new PLM interfaces (now including Recipe Management for the process industries). But the thing that caught my attention most was a presentation on a newly co-developed solution for product innovation codenamed “Edison.” While this isn’t a formal SAP product as of yet, it shows some real promise on how companies can use social computing to drive innovation.

Note: Hopefully this wasn’t the only thing I learned in June, but things have certainly busy and I am behind in sharing!

What they are Doing

The solution, presented jointly by SAP and Colgate, is labeled as an “idea management” solution. To me that description falls a bit short of what they have developed. The solution handles a broad range of the innovation process, including:

• Idea Solicitation – to help target innovation as opposed to an all purpose suggestion box
• Idea Submission – to capture ideas from participants, including any supporting media they choose to submit
• Review and Processing – to help companies find the ideas they want to focus on, including search, filtering, sorting, tagging, and commenting
• Evaluation – allowing companies to score innovation and promote the good ones
• Execution – although this was a little less clear to me, this is the idea that the promoted ideas would flow into SAP’s PPM solution to turn into product development projects

The first thing that stood out to me as evidence that this was based on practical experience was that they didn’t assume that getting more ideas was better. I run into vendors all the time who like to talk about helping their manufacturing customers get more ideas. All of my research and interviews end up with the same conclusion from manufacturers: “I don’t need more ideas, I need help sorting through all of the junk to find the good ones!” Manufacturers want better ideas, and they want a way to make sense of the volumes of input they get. Kudos to Colgate and SAP for getting this right, which I have to imagine came from Colgate’s real-world experience in innovation.

Another thing I was impressed with was the objectives of the project. They set out to build something “simple, usable, flexible, and extendable.” As well thought out as the solution seems, it doesn’t appear that they over-designed it. The solution does not look or feel like SAP, but instead is a light, web-based experience. While this might not be appropriate for the highly transactional world of traditional SAP solutions, it is ideal for this application where broad use by untrained participants is a key to success. After all, you don’t want all of your innovation coming from a few trained insiders!

One final point that Colgate made which I think is important to consider, is that the solution is not only valuable in the front end of innovation but throughout the new product development process. In fact, early use of the tool at Colgate has helped solve supply chain issues like cost reduction.

Implications for Manufacturers

The use of social computing techniques to drive innovation is beginning to take shape. SAP is clearly interested in providing this capability, as are standalone innovation management solutions such as Brightidea, Imaginatik, Ideajam, and others.  Some upcoming research I will publish soon with Kalypso shows that many manufacturers are getting started in the use of social media in innovation, and those that did are going to increase usage next year. Times are changing, and it will be interesting to see who can best take advantage of this new opportunity.

So that is what I heard from SAP and Colgate, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it. Who else should I be paying attention to in this space?

A quick peek into some research on … on social computing for product development. Why does Facebook miss the mark? Can it be fixed? I have been talking for some time about the potential value of social computing in PLM and have mentioned before why Facebook will fail. I am preparing for a presentation next week, and decided to pull my thoughts together. So here they are, I look forward to your feedback.

The Research Findings

There are two parts to the findings. The first is a list of concerns that I have heard, here is a short list:

• What relevance do status comments and photos have to do with serious engineering?
• How will we protect intellectual property?
• What does Facebook know about business processes or how to manage them?
• What does Facebook know about engineering data? CAD files? Projects? Engineering in general?
• Why would I trust my business performance to a technology platform like Facebook that doesn’t appear stable or perform well (sorry Facebook, that is just my practical experience not a sound technical analysis)?
• How do I have time to pay attention to this in addition to everything I already do?
• How do we address security concerns?

OK, part two. Can it be fixed? Yes, but I doubt they will do it. There are two reasons:

• They are not focused on this and don’t have domain expertise
• They don’t have the ability to connect to the underlying context, the product data

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let’s see what Facebook can teach us about PLM. Here are my thoughts (and if you happen to be in Helsinki next week stop by to see this live):

Implications for Manufacturers

Don’t look to tools like Facebook to help you with social computing in PLM. But don’t discount the concepts. Learn from them. They are compelling. And manufacturers are getting started. In fact, I look forward to sharing research that I am doing with Kalypso that gives some great insight on what companies have been doing.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on Facebook failing in PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Yes, I know they didn’t design to tool for product development, so I am really not picking on them. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.