Pittsburgh, PA – May 5, 2010
Thousands of the World's most respected companies use 37Signals' BaseCamp Project Collaboration software everyday to ensure that their projects run smoothly. But where do the ideas that spark new projects originate? If the answer in your organization is "anywhere," then you need Flagpole.
Using Flagpole and Basecamp in tandem, companies can add a host of new functions to their project management landscape. Flagpole is a crowd-sourcing and Open Innovation web application that empowers anyone with an internet browser to submit ideas and suggestions to be reviewed and potentially turned into projects.
Companies that aren't managing ideas with a system like Flagpole are missing a large part of the picture when it comes to innovation. Without this view, it's nearly impossible to inspire valuable projects repeatedly and predictably.
Using Flagpole's Timed Challenges™ approach, organizations can brainstorm and collect ideas around focused goals and business problems. Users of the tool are also encouraged to cast votes and register comments, all of which help to foster a collaborative community for discussing ideas, solving problems, and jumpstarting initiatives.
Once an idea is vetted and approved using Flagpole's review methodology, the idea can then be sent to Basecamp and denoted as an "approved" project in Flagpole. From that point on, Basecamp users can continue to develop the concept using more stringent Project Management stages.
Organizations that need to get a better handle on the "front end of innovation" look to MindMatters Technologies, the provider of Flagpole. The software is the first step many companies take towards full-scale Idea and Innovation Management. It's intuitive, affordable, and easy to deploy. If different complexities arise in the future, Flagpole can be upgraded seamlessly to one of MindMatters' more feature-rich and configurable versions at anytime.
As a Basecamp customer, another compelling need to integrate Flagpole's software is protection. Safeguarding sensitive project details is critical, and the sooner this happens the better. By adding Flagpole, companies can begin to build a repository of Intellectual Property months, or even years, earlier than what is typical in most organizations. Since MindMatters' heritage is in building Intellectual Property Management systems for companies like Sony and 3M, many of these important IP concepts were incorporated into Flagpole.
"Today's fuzzy ideas flow into tomorrow's projects, which ultimately evolve into next quarter's breakthrough products. It's important to know where these concepts come from and to protect them at their genesis - that is, long before they become a project," states CEO of MindMatters, John Gabrick.
Using Flagpole for the idea front end and Basecamp for the management of projects represents an end to end methodology for handling the development of a company's great innovations.
"Companies that aren't managing ideas with a system like Flagpole are missing a large part of the picture when it comes to innovation. Without this view, it's nearly impossible to inspire valuable projects repeatedly and predictably. If an organization has Basecamp, they should absolutely investigate Flagpole right away."
To learn more, or to try Flagpole for Free, please visit:
http://www.flagpole-software.com/basecamp
Basecamp and 37Signals are registered trademarks of 37Signals, LLC.
For more information contact:
Flagpole Software 877-876-3524
Joshua Howell, Marketing
About Flagpole
Flagpole Software is an operating company of MindMatters Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of Innovation Management and Collaboration Software since 1999. MindMatters flagship enterprise offering, Innovator ™, helps large global organizations like Sony, 3M, PPG and many more, harness the value of innovation and intellectual property.
Launched earlier this year, Flagpole Software aims to make core innovation management functions affordable and available to a wide audience on the web. Flagpole's application, developed on MindMatters' time-tested platform and best practices, promotes idea sharing and crowd validation within organizations of any size.