The participant

Guide!

A short guide on submitting, commenting and voting on ideas.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. The Dashboard

3. Communities

4. Challenges

5. Submitting Ideas

6. Voting & commenting

7. Following an Idea

8. Managing your account

9. Navigation

10. How to behave online

11. How to be effective

Introduction - how the platform works

Method 1 – Challenges – Focusing on issues uppermost in our mind.

Our theme or question based Challenge process is a key part of our Community.

With this approach you can think strategically identifying where you want to innovate, creating the

space for your people to get involved. Challenges or Campaigns allow you to define a clear subject -

the business problem or opportunity - that needs to be addressed right now. Ideas and experiences

are focused and relevant to that need. Campaigns have a time frame and can target a specific

audience and both of these help to allocate the right amount of effort and energy.

Method 2 – A place for random ideas.

Our ideas 24/7 suggestion box is an example of a “Community”. It can be used to gather ideas on

any subject, anytime, by anyone. This is about inclusion and creating a space for random thoughts or

experience sharing.

Submitting an idea

You can easily submit your ideas to Challenges and Communities using our simple submission form.

You also have the option of uploading supporting information such as documents, URLs and video.

Voting

There is a simple voting system based on promoting or demoting. The former adds 1 vote, the latter

allows you to remove 1 vote. We have this “negative” voting so that an idea’s popularity can reflect

all participants’ views. Negative voting can also stimulate deeper thoughts!

Comments

Making comments - complimentary or critical - is also good because some ideas might be right later

on, or points made can spur further thinking to make them more relevant or applicable. But it is

always wise to make comments constructive, to focus on common interest or perhaps ask a question

to get a further understanding of the possibilities...

What happens to the ideas?

We review the ideas and give feedback through statuses and comments. You are kept in the loop

and may be asked for further help to develop your idea.

The Dashboard.

This is the first page that you will see after successfully logging in.

The purpose of the dashboard is to allow you to easily see what’s going on in the community. You’ll

see the live challenges and the feedback communities which are open for your participation. If you

have been invited to a private community or challenge - you will see them highlighted on the

dashboard.

Feedback Communities.

We may run multiple feedback communities which are used to gather ideas based on departments

and campaigns. We default to a "Ideas + Insights" community which can be used to submit random

ideas.

Challenges explained.

This is where we display our Challenges. We may run multiple challenges simultaneously. To take

part, click on the “View Ideas” button. If you have been invited to take part in a private challenge,

you can click on the “My Invitations” link.

After clicking on the “View Ideas” button, the challenge detail will be displayed. You can post an idea

to the challenge by clicking on the green button “Share your idea". We may also link to surveys and

discussion forums when asking for further information.

Challenges in Stages

In some cases, our challenges will be set in steps or stages, allowing different actions during each

stage.

For example, in stage 1 we may ask you to submit ideas; stage 2 we would ask for community

members to vote on the ideas shared in stage 1; stage 3 - we may ask for further comments on each

individual idea; in stage 4 we would assign a status to ideas and also provide feedback to the

community on which ideas are being progressed.

Submitting Ideas.

You can submit ideas using a simple form. You also have the option of uploading supporting

information such as documents, URLs and media. You may also select to post as anonymous. Note

that you can also elect at a later date to make your idea post attributed.

Voting and Commenting.

You can vote and comment on existing ideas. You have one vote per idea.

Following an Idea.

You can “Follow” ideas you’re interested in by clicking on the “Follow this idea” link. This will place

the idea into your “Ideas I’m following” page – which you can easily access via your personal menu.

Managing your account.

From the top bar, you can update and view your profile and decide on your settings. For example,

you may wish to turn off alerts when new ideas are submitted to the community.

Navigation.

The personal menu is designed to allow you to easily filter community ideas by popularity. It is also

where you can access ideas that you have bookmarked and ideas that you have saved to draft.

How to behave online. How should you behave online? The answer is easy: with courtesy and care! When you’re online you can easily misinterpret both what people say and HOW they say it. You can’t see the person. Or the body language or the smile or sympathetic gesture. You may imagine the worst, or read too much into a short response. An email may seem curt and offensive. People can be rude or insensitive and not know it (they can also be rude and insensitive and know it). So, you need to take a person’s style of writing in to account; you need to think harder about perception as well as communication. So, there’s a lot of “psychology” involved in this mode of communication! Here’s the best advice we can give you: Aim to bring your co-participant or colleague to his senses, not his knees! Your aim is to be logical, reasonable and consistent. You don’t need to get even if someone has been too aggressive in their criticism. The fact is for a host of reasons, many of us sometimes get quite heated about some issues. We are sometimes intolerant of other views and sometime we try to bulldoze our own view through. If we think about it, that has the opposite effect to the one we intended. It makes people switch off from us, rather than listen to us with interest. We end up making no effective contribution. Don’t feel that you have to rush in and say something. Often, counting to ten will help you discover what you really want to say, if indeed you want to say anything at all. So, the effective contribution is the polite, friendly respectful contribution, the one that acknowledges the contributions of others – even if you don’t agree with it! In fact especially if you don’t agree with it! Here are some suggestions - Consider making your contribution short. Short contributions are easier to read and more likely to make a lasting impression Here’s a good way to write a post (it can be longer than this, of course!) especially if you doubt the idea or are looking for more information. ------- Hello I found your post interesting. Let me see if I understand the main part of your argument. You think black is white? I was wondering why you took that view? Have a look at the results of a survey carried out yesterday in your town. Is Black white? 99% said No. I just want to understand the reasons for your viewpoint.

What did the writer do here? He/She:

acknowledged a person’s right to his viewpoint summarised it to show he had paid attention to it asked a question to show he genuinely wanted more information provided some evidence that the post may be wrong asked to continue the dialogue in a reasonable manner separated the person from the problem focused on interests, not on positions. (The solution to all argument or conflict lies in

exploring interests and being able to explore such common interest creatively).

How to be effective. Be clear and unambiguous Have you expressed what you really want to say? Would people be likely to misunderstand anything you have said? Be relevant The more directly relevant your contribution, the more influential it is likely to be. Making one or two points is often enough. Of course, if what you say is very good then write as you feel; quality content has a place online too. Be persuasive If you feel passionately about the issue, then say so. Vested Interest If you have a vested interest you should say so. That doesn’t make your view wrong of course – but you must back up your views by reference to objective information. Facts are friendly! Just asserting your position isn’t good enough. And remember this: an example isn’t proof. Keep your mind open as long as possible before making a judgement Delay making up your mind just in case some new information arrives. It is quite common in everyday life for us to be persuaded at the last minute! Plus normally there is more than one solution to a problem. So often there is no need to put all your argumentative eggs in one basket.

Concentrate on the issues rather than the people involved Keeping it as impersonal as possible makes for better thinking. It's easy to insult. We've all done it in the heat of the argument. It's very hard not to take criticism personally, especially on an open discussion forum. So how to react when that happens? Best to ignore it and continue to focus on the reasons why a view is asserted. Ask questions. Asking why? Or why not? Is a powerful thing to do. But be prudent since "why" is a challenging word. Asking some "how's" also makes sense. Add value If you can, say something that others may not have thought of, Perhaps phrasing it as a question? Part of your role as a participant is to stimulate and help incubate ideas. Learn from others Ultimately, everyone has a contribution to make. Most ideas and how to make them better come from people just like you!