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).

I had the chance to talk with … Rob Fisher of Madison Electric Products following the 2011 Spike Summit. Amy Kenly of Kalypso presented his company with the Spike Award for Manufacturing for theirs Sparks Innovation Center. I think you will enjoy hearing about the opportunity that they saw and how they took advantage of it to develop some great new products.

Note: You can also listen to my interview with Spike Award winner for CPG Justin Winter and my interview with Spike Award Winner for Technology CDC Software.

The Sparks Innovation Center was created to gather product ideas from the large network of electrical contractors that Madison counts as customers. They realized that there were lots of potential product ideas in their customer community, and developed a crowdsourcing site to tap into that knowledge. I was impressed that Rob is as excited about helping the budding innovators in his customer base as he is developing new, successful products for his company (which they have done). This one is definitely worth a listen.

Rob’s presentation (along with mine and a number of others) is still available for replay by registering and attending the virtual event via the Spike Summit Expo. The entire virtual event was a great experience, and between the speakers and the award winners we all heard some great examples of social computing can help improve product innovation and product development.

Let us know what you think of their innovation center and crowdsourcing initiative. Do you like it? Have a similar example to share? Please feel free to check out the blog for more on social computing and product development or read a report on social computing and innovation.

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I had the chance to talk with … Robert Roy of CDC Software following the 2011 Spike Summit. Amy Kenly of Kalypso presented CDC Software with the Spike Award for Technology based on their use of social strategies, processes and supporting technologies to improve innovation, product management, and product development. Rob provided some great insight on the processes that CDC Software uses to get product feature ideas from their customer base for release planning as well as how they use social computing tools to collaborate during their agile development process.

Note: You can also listen to my interview with Spike Award winner for CPG Justin Winter and my interview with Manufacturing Spike Award Winner Madison Electric Products.

The CDC presentation (along with mine and a number of others) is still available for replay by registering and attending the virtual event via the Spike Summit Expo. The entire virtual event was a great experience, and between the speakers and the award winners we all heard some great examples of social computing can help improve product innovation and product development.

Let us know what you think of their program. Do you like it? Have a similar example to share? Please feel free to check out the blog for more on social computing and product development or read a report on social computing and innovation.

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I had the chance to talk with … Justin Winter of Diamond Candles following the 2011 Spike Summit. Amy Kenly of Kalypso presented Diamond Candles with the Spike Award for CPG (consumer packaged goods) based on their use of social strategies, processes and supporting technologies to improve innovation and product development. Justin provided some great insight on the program they used to get new product ideas from their customers.

Update: You can also listen to my interview with CDC Software for winning the Spike Award for Technology and my interview with Manufacturing Spike Award Winner Madison Electric Products.

I enjoyed hearing Justin’s presentation at the Spike awards. His presentation (along with mine and a number of others) is still available for replay by registering and attending the virtual event via the Spike Summit Expo. It’s a pretty cool experience. I was impressed with the way that Diamond Candles was able to share information with their customers, receive new product ideas from them, and then introduce the new products back to the customers. It was an interesting way to combine outbound marketing with crowdsourcing and gathering voice of the customer (VOC).

After talking to him, I even bought a candle. Wish me luck,  I hope I get one of the $5,000 rings in mine! If you don’t know what I am talking about, take a look at the Diamond Candles web site, their goal is to “make buying candles fun again.”

Let us know what you think of their program. Do you like it? Have a similar example to share? Feel free to look around the blog, you will see a lot of information on the use of social computing to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering.

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I would like to give you a quick peek into some blog posts by Evan Yares on social product innovation that I think are worth sharing, and that bring up a good question. Where will social solutions for engineering and product development actually come from? For those of you that know me, I have been fascinated by the intersection of product innovation and social computing. And if you know me, you probably know that I have some opinions… but let’s start with what Evan has to say. And in the interest of not musing too long, let’s start with his first post which brings up an interesting metaphor for social product development – the humble pencil.

Evan’s Thoughts

First, it is great to see such great work and a refreshing approach. Evan is wicked smart and has a unique way of seeing things (Don’t worry, I blocked Evan’s IP address so this doesn’t go to his head). Evan’s musing on I, pencil really made me think. People have been collaborating on developing products for years. The point from the essay was that no one person knows how to make a pencil. It is the work of many with different skills and purposes (think supply chain, not final production). Evan’s takeaway from it is “How do we give people better tools to help them work together, and make better products?” – which is exactly the point, isn’t it?

Implications for Manufacturers – My Thoughts

My thoughts you ask? You didn’t? Sorry, I will share them anyway. To me, the idea of social product development offers the ability for a supply chain to collaborate in parallel. Perhaps before they are even a supply chain, but more of a collection of capabilities and know-how. As I,pencil points out – not many in the supply chain knew (or cared) about the pencil – they just played their role as a means to their own end. It took someone else to pull all of the pieces together. But what if we get all of the right skills together in a (virtual) room to invent a better pencil? What if the materials experts, the mechanical experts, and those that are looking for a writing solution (and perhaps a marketing visionary to represent voice of the customer as well) shared ideas interactively without filtering in between levels based on what one person thinks is possible or a good idea? To me, that is the promise. Of course there will be lots of very tactical (but important and valuable) uses that simply mimic an engineer walking down the hall to talk to another engineer – but the promise of co-creation and co-innovation is even more exciting! I firmly believe that social computing will expand the possibilities of what humans can invent by connecting more minds and allowing people access to more of the world’s collective knowledge. And now that we have an iPad 2 with a camera, maybe we just do have a better pencil (and paper, and …). But even with a great visionary (thanks Steve Jobs), products like the iPad relied on an innovative supply chain to pull it all together.

So how do we capture this opportunity? Evan’s next post was on the future infrastructure for social product development. I will follow shortly with some thoughts there as well, starting with what Evan has to say. It’s great to have Evan’s voice exploring these topics, we are all better when we share and expand on each other’s ideas.

So that was a quick peek into some recent reflection on social innovation, 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. And feel free to join Kalypso and others in the upcoming Spike Summit to hear me share some research on trends in how companies are using social innovation. It should be a great discussion. And I think what you hear will surprise you.

Hear Jim Brown invite manufacturers to vote in the 2011 Spike Awards.

The Spike Awards, run by leading innovation consulting firm Kalypso, rewards companies for using social computing processes and technology to improve product innovation, product development, and product management. Jim Brown is acting as a judge for the awards for the second year in a row, but is asking you to share your views by voting for the company that has the best use of social product innovation.

Please vote, register for the Spike Summit. Also, please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

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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.

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?