Innovate through crowd sourcing

Abstract

In March 2012, Virginia Commonwealth University's VP for Finance and Administration created a team of innovators called team IMPACT. The task for team IMPACT was to create a viable methodology for vetting innovative ideas and to brainstorm ideas to push through this methodology. One of the ideas that came out of this project was to implement a system by which the team could gather the ideas of the entire university community. The team began the task of procuring and implementing a crowd sourcing solution. In February of 2013, team IMPACT began piloting a program called VCU Ideas, powered by IdeaScale. Through this product, team IMPACT can capture the ideas of the university as well as allow the university community to vote on the ideas. Crowd sourcing enables team IMPACT to keep their fingers on the pulse of the university.