I had a great idea for a new product recently. As making this product myself would require more effort than I am willing to invest and because an already established company would be able to produce and mass market the product easily, I decided to check the company's website for their "Suggestions Box". To my surprise, I found that the company didn't have an online blog where suggestions could be made!
With online social networking on the rise and the average American spending approximately 32 hours per month online, it is surprising that more companies do not leverage this opportunity to perform market research. After all, isn't it the customer that drives innovation? Additionally, the cost savings realized through reducing traditional methods for doing market reasearch such as through paper or phone surveys would likely contribute to their bottom line. Since most companies today have websites, it would be easy to solicit new ideas and comments from their customers by implementing web logs. Companies such as Telligent, through its Community Server platform, can help organizations integrate forums and blogs into their existing sites and further facilitate communication with their customers.
While there are companies such as Dell, with its Idea Storm forum, that have implemented online communities to discuss and vote on new product ideas, there are still too many companies that have not caught the wave and are likely missing out on the great ideas for future products from customers like myself.
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