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Weekly Digest Vol.21 (2012)

Содержание Online Creative Crowd-sourcing of the Six Kinds .......................................................................................... 1

Synaptics: Content, Collaboration and Crowdsourcing ................................................................................ 1

Innovative Leaders in Gamification ............................................................................................................... 4

3 Tips on Communicating with an Open Innovation Community ................................................................. 5

What Is Crowdsourcing & How It’s Used [INFOGRAPHIC] ............................................................................ 6

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Online Creative Crowd-sourcing of the Six Kinds АВТОР: Marco Torquati ДАТА ПУБЛИКАЦИИ: 29.05.2012 ИСТОЧНИК: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/online-creative-crowd-sourcing-of-the-six-kinds/15050 АННОТАЦИЯ: инфографика, содержащая описание шести видов креативного краудсорсинга и иллюстрирующая их отношение друг к другу

Synaptics: Content, Collaboration and Crowdsourcing АВТОР: Andrew Gori ДАТА ПУБЛИКАЦИИ: 08.01.2011 ИСТОЧНИК: http://talentmgt.com/articles/view/synaptics_content_collaboration_and_crowdsourcing/1 АННОТАЦИЯ: статья, в которой описывается опыт использования технологической компанией Synaptics коллаборации и краудсорсинга для поиска персонала и повышения эффективности его работы.

Tech company Synaptics leveraged an enterprise 2.0 HR portal to aid recruiting, boost workforce collaboration and launch an employee wellness initiative. Many organizations are aware of concepts such as enterprise 2.0, but don’t fully understand how they can be utilized to perform specific functions. For example, when social networking benefits are understood and a clear strategy is implemented, it can become a valuable asset that can increase a company’s efficiency and decrease immediate and long-term expenses. Synaptics, a developer of human interface solutions such as notebook PCs, digital music players and mobile phones for the mobile computing, communications and entertainment industries, was able

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to do just that. As in most companies, finding and retaining a talented workforce is essential for its survival. Further, as Synaptics is a high-tech company, locating talent with the appropriate technical abilities can be difficult. To increase the odds of finding the best employees, the company reaches out to a global candidate pool, which also can be challenging. Then, once secured, it can be difficult and expensive to quickly train and on-board new hires. Due to normal turnover, many employees move on to other companies, though they often remain in good standing with their former colleagues. To take advantage of these still-warm relationships, it can be beneficial to remain in contact with former employees, paving the way for new opportunities and long-term business relationships. On top of all of the aforementioned issues, Synaptics has to deal with the challenges and costs associated with human resources: health care, development and employee queries that can strain the HR department. Jim Harrington, Synaptics’ global director of human resources, said he recognized the need for a single solution that could deal with all of these challenges. Realizing the tools and infrastructure used by social networks such as Facebook also could be used by organizations, Harrington opted to implement an enterprise 2.0 solution: the BroadVision Clearvale Ecosystems for HR. This allowed Synaptics to create multiple networks to enable communication and collaboration among internal departments, partners, clients, potential customers and job candidates. Choosing an access portal with an interface that is familiar to anyone who has used Facebook, LinkedIn or any other popular social network is beneficial as it creates a moderate learning curve, allowing talent managers to easily connect with employees. An unfamiliar interface can be daunting and can encourage employees to return to default tools such as e-mail, which does not foster collaboration. For instance, like Facebook, a good enterprise 2.0 solution will have an easily accessible area devoted to uploading and storing files such as company policies and procedures. If managers need to make a change, they can do so. The new version is uploaded to the portal, ensuring everyone has access. If that document is sent out attached to a companywide e-mail, there is no guarantee every employee will access the new version when appropriate. Further, HR departments deal with sensitive information. Concerns due to negative press about Facebook breaches in security and the loss of sensitive data have made many organizations wary of, and ultimately prevented them from, adopting an enterprise 2.0 workplace portal. Synaptics chose a platform that allowed total privacy and security control over who has access to what and who can edit information. Just Like Facebook Most employees are familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Synaptics decided to adopt a cloud-based platform similar to these social networks. Rather than existing as software that must be installed on every computer meant to employ it, once someone becomes a member of a network, he or she can access the portal via a Web browser. This is an important distinction considering Synaptics’ global recruiting efforts. Individuals who want to browse the company’s job openings do not have to download software or access job openings from particular locations; all they require is Internet access. A good enterprise 2.0 workplace portal also employs popular social media-based tools such as blogs, forums, wikis and message boards. With these tools, marketing teams can collaborate on press releases, sales teams can maintain databases of potential customers, and employees companywide can learn about each other’s roles. When content is uploaded, users have the option to allow communities, specific users or the entire network to have access. A major concern for Synaptics was the difficulties many organizations face when departments or teams become siloed and do not effectively communicate with one another. The nature of enterprise 2.0 is to actively prevent this by making it simple for employees and departments to communicate easily.

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“When designing our strategy, that was a potential problem we wanted to solve right at the start,” Harrington said. “We were able to do that, and as a result, we are now in a position to further develop our approach to enterprise 2.0. The alternative would be to build multiple silos, none of which speak to one another. Using a portal promotes collaboration by making it simple for employees from different departments to work together.” However, to be truly effective, it’s important to move beyond general enterprise social network capabilities and focus on specific goals. For Synaptics, that meant lowering recruiting costs and increasing employee interaction. Thinking Globally One of the most important ways Synaptics is using its enterprise 2.0 portal is to aid recruitment. Potential employees live all over the world, and for Synaptics to be able to build a talented workforce, it must be able to reach out to as many potential hires as possible without significantly increasing expenses. Using the Clearvale portal, Synaptics has created regional recruiting sites around the world, including the U.S., South Korea and Japan. The company can customize each recruiting site to cater to the various languages in each geographic region. However, it’s also important for Synaptics to retain certain company standards. “In terms of recruiting, we use the portal to brand ourselves to the outside world and passive candidates,” Harrington said. “Despite the fact that people are looking at our sites in a variety of places around the world, they know who we are and what our culture is.” Individuals looking for a job may take advantage of the anonymous option, allowing them to look through various job postings without having to worry that their current employer or anyone else will be alerted that they are looking for a new job. Even workers from competing companies have access to all of the jobs listed. Individuals who are passively browsing the listings may find a job that interests them and become active candidates. Converting passive candidates to active candidates increases the likelihood that Synaptics will find the right person to fill a position. Compared with traditional recruiting methods such as building sites from scratch or employing job-listing services, Synaptics has reached a wider audience of potential hires through the portal. Since implementation in June 2010, it has decreased recruiting costs by about 20 to 30 percent, or between $5,000 to $10,000 per new hire. Ancillary Benefits Using an enterprise social network has benefits that extend beyond the recruitment process. For instance, employees can have access to company training materials, guidebooks and benefits documentation, all without straining the HR department. “We’re also using Clearvale for employee collaboration, learning and development,” Harrington said. “It allows us to be creative, innovative and solutions-oriented, all in real time.” Synaptics’ enterprise 2.0 portal also helped it to keep in touch with alumni. Employees move on, especially in the high-tech sector. It’s important to sustain good relationships with former employees, track their successes and maintain the possibility of future partnerships and other business relationships. Initially, Synaptics utilized a static website for alumni, which did not foster interaction. Now that the company has adopted an enterprise 2.0 portal, former employees have a central location that allows Synaptics to stay in touch with them without having to dedicate many resources to the effort. A major concern organizations have about using an enterprise social network is how to get employees to reduce their reliance upon traditional methods of communication, such as e-mail, and

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adopt something new. Synaptics leveraged a graphical user interface familiar to anyone who has used Facebook or a similar social network. Its home page is a centralized location for widgets, including blogs, status updates and file sharing that are relevant to the user. Individuals can customize the layout of their home page, ensuring they have quick access to the features that are most beneficial to them. “It’s easy and self-explanatory,” said Harrington. “The fact that most of them have used Facebook is a major plus. For employees who have not used Facebook, you just need to show them a few of the features and they get it. The key is to not jam it down their throats.” Going Forward With the costs of health care increasing, Synaptics recently has used Clearvale to launch an employee wellness program that will utilize crowdsourcing, allowing employees to share experiences about maintaining a healthy lifestyle and dealing with illnesses. Company leaders hope that this will encourage employees to interact with one another and that this knowledge sharing will help them avoid getting sick and recover from illness quicker, decreasing health care costs and workdays missed due to illness. Further, the company is currently working on an internal social network, to be completed in 2011. Within this network, employees will be able to interact with one another in ways not necessarily work-related. But leaders hope that giving employees the opportunity to learn about their co-workers will not only increase morale, but also provide opportunities for them to better understand other roles within the company and work together more effectively

Innovative Leaders in Gamification АВТОР: Sebastian ДАТА ПУБЛИКАЦИИ: 29.09.2011 ИСТОЧНИК: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/innovative-leaders-in-gamification/6874 АННОТАЦИЯ: публикация, дающая представление о лучших решениях в области геймификации, включая наименования соответствующих игровых приложений.

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3 Tips on Communicating with an Open Innovation Community ДАТА ПУБЛИКАЦИИ: 13.06.2012 ИСТОЧНИК: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/innovative-leaders-in-gamification/6874 АННОТАЦИЯ: следование трем советам, представленным в статье, позволят сделать работу с виртуальными сообществами эффективной, а коммуникацию в социальных сетях оптимально соответствующей потребностям клиента

Communication breakdown, it’s always the same. No matter if it’s a global enterprise or a local Little-League team, communication between the individuals that comprise the whole is paramount to success. When you are producing assets with a global community and hosting scores of Open Innovation challenges to procure those assets, the focus on how you communicate with the individuals competing only intensifies. Whether you are on the TopCoder platform as a client or simply looking to better how well you communicate with your crowds, social fans and contributors, here are three communication tips that will help you get the very most from the individuals who comprise your communities. For the three tips below, it’s important to realize varying contest types will require different approaches, especially when reading tip #3 where the amount of detail you offer in a contest specification will vary greatly between a creative design contest and a software development contest. 1. Be on Time, Every Time If you are hosting competitions or asking your contributors to perform some act for you, you are most likely setting some submission deadline, some date and time that their contributions are due. It is imperative that you then reciprocate this adherence to established deadlines when it is time to perform your duties. What kinds of duties are we talking about? As an example: In the world of TopCoder there are often milestones, a set date where submissions are reviewed and feedback is given, allowing the competitors to digest the feedback and alter their submissions based on the client feedback. Milestone feedback is due to the competitors within a certain time-frame. If you are asking others to adhere to a strict submission schedule (and in Open Innovation practices, you should be), then you must meet your own deadlines, every single time. It’s a matter of respect for those around the globe who are taking their time to participate in the community and submit their work. If you demand it of them, demand it of yourself. 2. You Must be Honest It does no member of a community any good to be dis-honest or less than honest. If a particular submission is simply not that strong and you are looking to offer that individual feedback, don’t be afraid to be honest. You can do this without being offensive or rude and in a way that is truly constructive for the individual submitter. Why does this matter? Inside a competitive community, those competing are often working on something they’d like to master or get much better at. Sometimes people enter competitions because they want practice, they are striving to gain a new skill and improve themselves. That kind of community behavior should always be supported, and the best way to do so is to offer them honest advice, while politely laying out ways the individual can seek to improve or hone their skill. At TopCoder, we have witnessed coders, algorithmists and designers go from very humble beginnings, work hard, listen and apply feedback, compete often and emerge as a consistently strong competitor. That individual progression happens when the individual understands what to improve, and that is a consequence of honest communication. 3. Give Detail Without Micro-Managing Creativity When you are setting up a new competition it is crucial to give guidance as to what you are hoping to see in their submissions. Often, our clients will provide a reference to an existing asset to further the point. However, be careful not to take this exercise too far. If you offer too much detail you can stifle creativity and lose would be competitors who most likely would have submitted quality, innovative work. Remember, you like what you like because you’ve encountered it and though it

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may be a great solution – like an intuitive UI experience – you should leave room, and even expect to be surprised. There are over 410,000 members in the TopCoder community spanning more than 220 countries. That adds up to a whole lot of cultures and experiences and preferences you most likely have not encountered yet. When you create your contests, give direction, shed some light on your preferences, but don’t attempt to micro-manage creativity. Instead, when it comes to the details, be purposefully vague, allow your community to ask the questions they want to ask and encourage them through communications to bring their unique experiences to the solution. You will end up with a greater variety of solutions and maybe even a few submissions that completely blow you away.

What Is Crowdsourcing & How It’s Used [INFOGRAPHIC] АВТОР: Benjamin Fossel ДАТА ПУБЛИКАЦИИ: 10.05.2011 ИСТОЧНИК: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/what-is-crowdsourcing--how-its-used-infographic/3966 АННОТАЦИЯ: инфографика, в которой наглядно представлены ответы на вопросы о том, что такое краудсорсинг и для чего он необходим современным компаниям

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