[Imagination Club] Challenge: How tomaketheimagination club better
Jack Thomas
jthomas at merzusa.com
Wed Aug 10 11:19:24 GMT 2005
THIS LOOKS LIKE AN EXCELLENT MODEL. THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR INSIGHTS AND EXPERIENCE.
JACK
GREENSBORO, NC, USA
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-----Original Message-----
From: imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com [mailto:imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com]On Behalf Of MaulikDave at torrentpharma.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 2:31 AM
To: Imagination Club
Subject: RE: [Imagination Club] Challenge: How tomaketheimagination club better
I completely agree with Jack that selling to internal customer is sometime very difficult. Two years back, I was with one MNC petro chemical company. The company has 5000+ employees spreading all over the world, and communication medium they used: phone, fax, courier, email and video conference. No proper recording of document they share. Suppose, after six months somebody wish to refer the fax they have received six month back, NO WAY!
I came up with proposal to develop an employee portal, where employee from all over the world can come and communicate. Properly document their communication for future reference. Employee can make the information public(all employees of the company) or make it private(restricted to group of employees).
And this one application can be gateway for other hundreds of application for internal leave request, travel request, computer replacement request, Sales Force Automation system access etc. etc. So, they don't have to login into different system for different task. And just require to remember one login and password.
To implement the application, I needed approval from more than 15 department's head. I had to meet them individually as all of them can not be available for meeting at same time. To push them to stop using legacy systems and ask them to start using new efficient system was hardest part. My observation says people in top position with 50+ age are reluctant to changes. I mean, their philosophy is if something is working, don't touch it.
Of course all legacy systems were working without any major problems, but they were not efficient. They required lot of manual interference to provide usable data. That means waste of lots of man hours. Daily almost 20-25% of employees time used in manual interference. But, still I got almost zero 'Go ahead...' node. They all said, we will think about it, and never came back. Without department head's official approval employee can not start using the system. I had to find a way to launch it. What I did was:
I launched the employee portal without those new applications. It was just meant for fun & interactions between employees. It had discussion forum like ours, daily post of positive quotations, daily post of cartoon/joke, list of birthday today, opinion polls etc. etc. It slowly started to get momentum. Within one months time, it was so popular every employee logged into system at least once a day. Then I started posing poll for 'new features'. And I show those poll results to department heads. Few of them said yes, and I launched those application for few departments.
Then onwards it was all mouth publicity. Other department head came to me themselves to make available those features for their department too.
It is long email, but hope it is useful to someone.
Introduction to myself: I am Maulik Dave from Ahmedabad, India. I am a website developer having 6+ years experience in my field. I have developed web based applications for domestic as well as International clients, including MNCs.
I believe TEAM stands for, 'Together Everyone Achieves More'. And that's why I am proud member of 'Team - Imagination Club'.
Regards,
MD [Maulik Dave]
"Jack Thomas" <jthomas at merzusa.com>
Sent by: imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com
08/10/2005 01:48 AM
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RE: [Imagination Club] Challenge: How to maketheimagination club better
Hello Everyone!
My name is Jack and I work for a pharmaceuticals company in beautiful down town Greensboro, NC after retiring from a Fortune 50 consumers products giant. I work 4 days a week and love what I do -- get involved with international logistics, forecasting, etc. Guess you could say I am semi-retired. I have always enjoyed by career -- feel like I never worked a day in my life!
Creativity has always been a very strong interest of mine down through the years. I would like to mention a couple of items to the group for comments. Here goes...
1. I have had several instances of submitting ideas over the years to senior managers and would often get a response indicating very little interest. After I retired from a Fortune 50 consumers products company, several of these ideas started showing up in the market place!!!!
Would like to get some discussion on successfully promoting and selling ideas internally in your company and how others have handled this situation, what their successes and failures have been and resulting key learnings. Presenting new ideas is complex and depends on many factors including timing! Perhaps this group can come up with a model that would be helpful to all.
2. Over the years I have developed an effective creative tool that runs on Excel that has a very broad application as well as it can be tailored to specific situations. It has been very productive and useful to me. I am not sure what to do with it but feel it could help others.
Any comments or interest?
Jack
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-----Original Message-----
From: imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com
[mailto:imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com]On Behalf Of David
Onyemaobim
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 10:38 AM
To: 'Imagination Club'; 'John Tunney'
Subject: RE: [Imagination Club] Challenge: How to maketheimagination
clubbetter
Excellent forethought, Jeffrey. I like the simplicity and functionality of
the "imagination archive".
-----Original Message-----
From: imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com
[mailto:imagine-bounces at lists.supertrade.com] On Behalf Of Jeffrey
Baumgartner
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 9:15 AM
To: John Tunney; Imagination Club
Subject: RE: [Imagination Club] Challenge: How to make theimagination
clubbetter
Great ideas, John.
By the way, there is an archives of all posts at
http://davie.textdrive.com/pipermail/imagine/
Jeffrey Baumgartner
On 8 Aug 2005 at 14:01, John Tunney wrote:
> You will be aware that the unconscious mind can continue to
> work on a creative challenge/problem after you've
> 'forgotten' about it. Some of the past creative challenges
> could be selected and a refresher email could be sent to ask
> contributors if they have thought of any more ideas on the
> subject. Also perhaps every six months an email could be
> compiled on past subjects (and suggestions) to ask members
> if any new ideas come to light.
>
> A blog could be set up (or web page) that lists all creative
> challenges and ideas as they occur. This would be a good way
> to record our ideas. For me, I would prefer this to be a
> record only, as I like the way current contributions are
> distributed by email.
>
> A kind of reading group could be set up where a book on
> creativity (such as the De Bono or Buzan output) could be
> chosen (every two months, say) and members would be able to
> give their thoughts on the book.
>
> Along similar lines, some creative challenges could be set
> where members are encouraged to solve/think about problems
> using one creativity technique alone (there is an
> alphabetical list of techniques at Mycoted.com) One
> challenge could be based on random stimulation (such as the
> random word) and the next on attribute listing etc.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> From: "Jeffrey Baumgartner" <jeffreyb at jpb.com>
> Reply-To: Imagination Club <imagine at lists.supertrade.com>
> To: imagination Club <imagine at lists.supertrade.com> Subject:
> [Imagination Club] Challenge: How to make the imagination
> clubbetter Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:38:25 +0200
>
> Happy Monday:
>
> Today, let's focus our creative energy on how to make the
> Imagination Club better value. I have a few ideas which I
> shared with you last week, but I'd like yours too. After
> all, this is your forum.
>
> Bear in mind...
>
> 1) The main aim of the imagination club is that it is a
> place to stretch your imagination and share creative ideas
> with other imaginative people.
>
> 2) The imagination club generates no income (nor is it
> meant to do so), hence there is virtually no budget for
> investing in tools, software, marketing, etc.
>
> The best ideas will, of course, be implemented!
>
> Jeffrey Baumgartner
> Your Fearless Moderator
> --
> Helping businesses innovate better
> www.jpb.com | Tel: +32 2 251 7725 | GSM +32 478 549 428
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imagination Club is an e-mail based discussion forum for
> playing with ideas.
>
> To unsubscribe, go to
> http://lists.supertrade.com/mailman/listinfo/imagine or send
> an e-mail to supertrade-request at lists.supertrade.com with
> unsubscribe in the message subject.
>
> For more information, visit http://www.jpb.com/imagination/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imagination Club is an e-mail based discussion forum for
> playing with ideas.
>
> To unsubscribe, go to
> http://lists.supertrade.com/mailman/listinfo/imagine or send
> an e-mail to supertrade-request at lists.supertrade.com with
> unsubscribe in the message subject.
>
> For more information, visit http://www.jpb.com/imagination/
>
_______________________________________________
Imagination Club is an e-mail based discussion forum for playing with ideas.
To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.supertrade.com/mailman/listinfo/imagine
or send an e-mail to supertrade-request at lists.supertrade.com with
unsubscribe in the message subject.
For more information, visit http://www.jpb.com/imagination/
_______________________________________________
Imagination Club is an e-mail based discussion forum for playing with ideas.
To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.supertrade.com/mailman/listinfo/imagine or send an e-mail to supertrade-request at lists.supertrade.com with unsubscribe in the message subject.
For more information, visit http://www.jpb.com/imagination/
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_______________________________________________
Imagination Club is an e-mail based discussion forum for playing with ideas.
To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.supertrade.com/mailman/listinfo/imagine or send an e-mail to supertrade-request at lists.supertrade.com with unsubscribe in the message subject.
For more information, visit http://www.jpb.com/imagination/
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and
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