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By Chuck Frey
 I recently had an opportunity to view an online demonstration of latest enhancements to the Kindling idea management application, arranged for me by several executives from Arc90, its developer. Arc90 has made a significant commitment to improve Kindling's attractiveness to larger enterprises that use Microsoft productivity and server software. The results are quite impressive. Here's what's new and notable about Kindling:
More enterprise focused: The developers focused a lot of attention to developing more of a process focus, to enable organizations to more quickly and efficiently zero in on the most promising ideas.
More opportunities for collaboration and conversation: The developer believes that ideas evolve best through collaboration and conversation. In the latest version of Kindling, that means that any participant can propose edits to anyone's ideas. The author of the idea still has the final say, and can either accept or reject the proposed edits. This model is quite similar to the way that the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia operates.
In the latest Kindling update, even the idea approval process is an opportunity for conversation. Users designated as moderators can discuss the ideas in semi-private online discussions. In addition, the rich background discussion enabled by Kindling can becomes healthy fodder for the offline discussion and decision-making process.
To further facilitate the process of conversation, Kindling now makes it possible for users to add columns to an idea to store additional details or metadata. As the development team at Arc90 describes it, their new model of idea management goes well beyond the paradigm of "that's a cool idea - let's do that!" and instead facilitates a deeper level of discussion and analysis around key ideas.
SharePoint integration: It is now possible to view lists and ideas directly within a SharePoint site. Because Kindling utilizes the Windows server environment's unified authentication, you can access Kindling within Sharepoint without having to use a separate login. Within SharePoint, you can search for ideas, view lists of ideas and customize views, in much the same way that you can customize the columns visible in any view in SharePoint. In addition, if your company is utilizing the Kindling/SharePoint integration, you'll find that Kindling ideas are interspersed with your SharePoint search results - which is part of Arc90's strategy to help you to locate relevant information and ideas, and to easily participate in the discussions about them.
Outlook integration: A plug-in for Microsoft Outlook creates a new view that gives you the similar capabilities (see the screen shot above right). I found the Outlook integration to be especially intriguing, considering the amount of time many executives spend in this ubiquitous e-mail application. The intent of these integrations is to bring ideas "closer" to the applications that businesspeople live and work in on a daily basis.
Mobile web version of Kindling: Rather than creating a iPhone app, which is what many developers would naturally do, the development team at Arc90 opted for a broader, more univeral approach - they developed a version of Kindling that can be utilized on any mobile platform, including the iPhone, BlackBerry and others. This ensures greater participation in idea campaigns.
Using any mobile device, you can add a new idea with a single click - quite useful, because ideas may strike you at any time, and the mobile version of Kindling gives you a convenient tool to capture these impromptu brainstorms. You can also view what's going on with the ideas in the rooms which you have rights to access, and can vote on ideas. Reading, participating in discussion and voting on ideas are the core functions of Kindling, and the mobile app enables all three. Once again, it's part of Arc90's strategy to reach people on the platforms they're using for day-to-day work. Very smart!
Conclusion
Thanks to the SharePoint and Outlook integration, Kindling has evolved from a well-rounded, web-based toolset for managing ideas into an essential business tool that is tightly integrated with your day-to-day business tasks. I like Arc90's philosophy of taking Kindling to the applications in which businesspeople "live," rather than forcing them to change their behavior and login to Kindling to participate in idea campaigns. Kindling engages them in the environments where they are working - Outlook, SharePoint and mobile devices - and entices them to participate in conversations that help to build stronger ideas.
Related Web site: http://www.kindlingapp.com
5/12/2010
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