The new Starbucks “Idea Engine”

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, Customer Service, Product Management

I walked into Starbucks Friday afternoon for a cup of tea, and came across this:

I knew what was coming…

Starbucks recently launched a new site called mystarbucksidea.com, powered by Salesforce Ideas.

I love it when I see a company (especially a large name company like Starbucks), utilizing technology to listen to and involve their customers in more of what they do.

I thought it was cool that they were populating ideas that were brought up prior to launching the site, like this one:

“Please go back to your original idea of an European coffee house and get rid of the
extraneous items like cds, stuffed animals, countless foods and all that factory
holiday junk. I love the original Starbucks better. And Howard Schultz, I love you.

- An idea from our Annual Meeting of Shareholders on March 19, 2008 in Seattle”

Jeremiah gave some good quick thoughts here, and Jim Bruene over at NetBanker added some great thoughts here as well.

Great move Starbucks, and wonderful execution on the roll out of the site and marketing campaign. Now the challenge will become being agile enough to respond and execute on the top rated ideas as soon as possible. Do it now, as early as possible. It will really pay off.

I’d love to talk to the individual at Starbucks that was responsible for making this happen.

Creating a Culture of Innovation: Setting Expectations

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, SANE Innovation

As a leader, setting the expectations of your team/employees is YOUR responsibility, and is the first step in creating a culture of innovation within your organization.

So, how do you set expectations? Communicate them!

It’s important to communicate your expectations clearly. These expectations should be both what YOU expect from your team/employees, but more importantly, what THEY should expect from you. People need to know that you are serious about working WITH them, NOT just serious about them working FOR you.

Let your team know that you want each and every one of them to know that their ideas and input are as valuable as anyone else’s – including your own. (Stress that last point.)

You should then clearly define how you plan to manage innovation and creative ideas within your organization. Do you have a formal process? (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)

You then need to lead by example by you yourself meeting and exceeding the expectations that you have set for your organization. This once again means NOT bypassing the system or process you have put in place for managing ideas and creativity. If you set specific guidelines, adhere to them. If you set goals, exceed them. (or at least meet them)