“The community of RedesignMe is ideally suited for ‘out-of-the box’ thinking. At some point you can’t do this yourself anymore, because you become blind for the obvious.”, says management coach Ferry van der Vliet of F1 INCITEMENT BV who has advised IDEE-Systems on the RedesignMe Challenge.

Co-creation for entrepreneurs

IDEE Systems is one of nine companies in the SME Innovation Top 100 of 2009, who used their co-creation voucher on RedesignMe.com. With the voucher they could present their burning question to a creative community of almost 5000 innovators.
So far, very diverse Challenges have been posted. The community was challenged to create marketing plans, logo designs, gadgets design, improve or refresh products and adjust the layout of a website. In total there were 234 ideas and designs submitted of which 72 have been awarded with a total prize money of € 2250.

As a result of their Challenge, IDEE-Systems immediately went to work with a number of submitted ideas. IDEE-Systems is the inventor of the ‘ITAS’ analysis. ITAS stands for “Idee Tacho Analysis System”. The system shows how much fuel (and therefore less CO2 emissions) a truck driver can save by adjusting his driving style. Thanks to the input and ideas from the community, IDEE-Systems recently created the Green ITAS Awards. This award will be given to the transport company that achieved the biggest CO2 savings by using the ITAS analysis.

Another idea conceived by the community was to create a simulation so that businesses can quickly see what possible savings in fuel costs (liters, and Euros), maintenance and insurance they could achieve, but most of all what their contribution to a cleaner environment will be. Van der Vliet, “The simulation allows us to easily convince customers with the possibilities of the ITAS system. When they hear the numbers and amounts that we show, we usually get the response: “We’d be crazy not to use it!”

Co-creation voucher

In November 2009, the top SME entrepreneurs from the province North Brabant in The Netherlands received a prize from the province. The prize was a co-creation voucher, that could be spent on RedesignMe.com. Together with an innovation consultant this challenge was formulated, after which the RedesignMe community could get started. In the period November 2009 – May 2010 nine companies have used the voucher.

Outcome for fresh input

With two challenges still running and some soon to come online, we can confirm that co-creation is not only suitable for multinationals, but also for SME’s. By asking the right questions, the community of RedesignMe can break through “corporate blindness” and come up with ideas that the SME entrepreneurs had never thought of. Co-creation has proven to be an important component in tomorrow’s innovations.