Social Software Hype Cycle

Gartner maintains a series of well-followed reports, called Hype Cycles. The Social Software Hype Cycle highlights the most important technologies that support rich social interactions.
Here are the five stages of the hype cycle:

• Technology Trigger: The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest. A "technology trigger" is breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event generates significant press and industry interest.
• Peak of Inflated Expectations: In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
• Trough of Disillusionment: Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
• Slope of Enlightenment: Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
• Plateau of Productivity: A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations.

Innovation Management, Prediction management, idea management, social networking et al. are some of the technologies included.

On July 24, 2009, Gartner released its Social Software Hype Cycle, 2009. The report includes quite a number of technologies under the social software umbrella

The Need of the Hour is Innovation Management Software

Boston Consulting Group calculated that leading innovators generate 430 basis points more in shareholder return than do average companies. While the strategic value of innovation excellence is clear, companies’ approach to it is not. Ad hoc, isolated efforts cause the good ideas to fall through the cracks, people with relevant knowledge to miss others’ ideas and difficulty in maintaining a healthy innovation pace. What’s needed is a common digital suggestion box that taps emergent contributions internally and externally.

The need of the hour is an innovation management platform that helps the companies to create, engage and grow innovation communities. Employees, customers and partners want a voice in companies’ innovation, and they are significant sources of ideas and perspective. So the innovation management software should also provide a dynamic, real-time environment for community interactions around ideas, surfacing the best ones through a powerful analytics engine. So choose good innovation software that would enable employee participation and customer participation.