ID8 Systems Empowers Employee and Student Idea Sharing at Stevens Institute of Technology

Hoboken, NJ, November 05, 2010 --(PR.com)-- With its 140-year history of entrepreneurship, Stevens Institute of Technology, The Innovation University (TM), is launching ideation campaigns to expedite and implement the ideas of students, faculty, and staff on how to improve the overall experience at the university.

Posters around the Stevens campus proclaim a single, simple message. The Ideas Are Coming.

ID8 Systems is providing its flagship ideation platform to run the campaigns using their original idea sharing software. One campaign asks students and faculty to provide ideas that innovatively answer the question: How can Stevens improve the student-faculty experience? An independent campaign focuses on getting faculty suggestions for how to better their working environment at Stevens.

Professors Brian Sauser and Robert Seymour are similarly employing ID8 in targeted courses both to analyze the effectiveness of online learning and to support curricula on the role of innovation in organization decisions. Later ideation campaigns will be opened to Stevens alumni and other audiences, to allow the entire university community to improve the school.

ID8 Systems is a start-up venture spun out of Professor Peter Koen's research at the university, and this is the company's first full-scale launch into the education market. Already operating successfully in corporate environments, ID8 provides an easy-to-use, Web 2.0 platform that streamlines the collaboration and innovation process.

"We live in a social, wired world," says Howard Schechter, ID8 Systems CEO and President. "We want to engage people to create ideas that solve problems and create innovations. Where better to do that than at an institution of vibrant, young people full of great ideas?"

ID8 promotes idea sharing through a virtual idea stock market, allowing any participant to launch an idea IPO or buy and trade stock in other proposals. As opposed to the typical top-down ideation campaign, this organic, bottom-up approach harvests the wisdom of crowds and empowers individuals.

"Goals for any organization are to increase collaboration and empower people to improve the operations and success of the organization," says Malcolm Kahn, Vice President of Enterprise Development and Licensing for Stevens and a supporter of ID8 Systems. Mr. Kahn believes that ID8's ability to convert an individual's great ideas into reality benefits both employers and employees.

"Empowerment is a critical aspect of employee satisfaction," says Mr. Kahn. "ID8 Systems offers a whole new approach to integrating into and assisting a person's daily work flow and getting the job done."

The ID8 interface, instantly accessible directly from the user's desktop, reduces threaded e-mail problems and information overload that stall projects and frustrate potential idea-makers. Campaign participants can track the "value" of ideas on the market with easily-understood graphs. The social networking aspect also enables instant feedback and real-time assistance for users with questions about the software.

"ID8 Systems is an idea incubator that will encourage students to think outside of the box for the benefit of the Institute," Mr. Schechter says.

Enterprise Development and Licensing at Stevens is an initiative that brings together research and entrepreneurship to bring technologies developed by academics on campus to market. Mr. Kahn is instrumental in supporting Stevens commitment to provide assistance in raising capital, marketing research products, and developing the business skills of the school's inventors, scientists, and engineers. This unique perspective on university technology commercialization is complemented by the Office of Academic Entrepreneurship, which actively fosters a culture of entrepreneurism throughout the institution.

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