Friday 3 April 2009

Projectplace Ideas - collaboration is the only way forward

In December, Projectplace introduced a new way of getting feedback from our users through Projectplace Ideas.

Projectplace Ideas is a way of publically posting ideas that you have about features that you would like to see or change in Projectplace. But just as important as your inspiring ideas and feedback are the comments and votes that you add to other ideas. The process of innovation is very much a collaborative one, just look at the way the Nobel price is usually split between groups of scientists that have either worked together or simply evolved each other's ideas.

Aside: Yes, it could be considered sligthly conceited to compare an idea forum with the greatest scientific achievments. Then again, if you don't aim high you will never exceed your own expectations.

Every month I will acknowledge someone who has made my life as Community Manager happier, easier or generally better. This month's special thanks goes to Johannes Ortner who is the top contributor at Projectplace Ideas if you include votes and comments and has also added a photo. I like to see the people I talk to:)

Projectplace Ideas is a way for us to gauge roughly how big the interest is for a certain development/how big the percieved problem is for our users. This is important to prioritise when the ideas are endless and the resources finite. Sometimes we might even want you to contribute by asking about a specific area of Projectplace. Right now we have a category open about YAP. You don't know what YAP is? Faster than Excel and easier than Microsoft Project it's a new solution for task scheduling. Read more about it and test run the prototype at Projectplace Labs.

Our intital target was to get an average of around 100 hits a day when we started Projectplace Ideas. In hindsight this was a very moderate target. We now have about 300 visits to Projectplace Ideas every weekday. This makes me proud, proud to have such wonderful, engaging and inspirational users, but not satisfied.