The Monkey Shack

A lot of companies wish to innovate, but struggle to find the manpower or creativity necessary to generate great thinking. With the power of social media and an online, connected customer base, those ideas can come from anywhere. Dell recently took advantage of its large customer base and opened IdeaStorm, an online community that allows consumers to share ideas for new Dell products or services and foster a candid and robust conversation between both users and the brand.

The initiative has proven tremendously successful. At the time of this post, IdeaStorm had already received 11,019 ideas and generated 83,882 comments on this site. Dell essentially has a brainstorm and innovation community working for them 24/7. At no cost other than what it takes to maintain the site and evaluate an idea's potential, which users can vote on, causing the "best" ideas to naturally rise to the top. Dell provides status updates on submitted ideas, and comments on an ideas potential.

Perhaps just as important is that it gives Dell users a chance to interact with the brand. This is really what the power of social media is really all about. Its so much more than a Facebook fan page or a branded app for a blog or iPhone. Marketing is about relationships, and an online community like IdeaStorm provides an opportunity for both users and brand to deepen and strengthen the relationship in both directions