How facebook features can help in Product development and Product Innovation

Gone are days, when once you say bye to your college friend on the college annual day and then he is out of the picture. In today’s world, wherever you are, you still can connect with your old friend and what so ever you are doing, can share with him.
Thanks to Social networking sites like facebook, twitter etc. Today’s slogan Stay Connected where ever you are.

These sites offer various features. One of the features I found useful is Tagging.
So how tagging people can help in product development and product innovation?
For this we need to know what tagging feature is all about

We can say tagging is associating a person with content, like in facebook people are generally associated with the uploaded snaps. Tagging not only tells us who is there in a particular snap. But the power of people tagging comes when associating the person to the context allows the tag to be followed to see or learn more about the person tagged.
This thing can be better explained with an example-:
One day ,my friend has mentioned in his status message on a Social networking that they were going to attend Delhi daredevils match this Saturday with two other individuals and that person tagged those two people by including their “@” codes. I recognized one of the names and I followed the link to profile and I found out that guy was the same guy whom I once met in gym and I need to talk to him regarding some supplements. In short, through that message I increased my network by two people and I also went for the match and met that guy.
How this will help in product development-:
Let’s take a quick example of Status Reports. If a status report mentions that @Engineer is working on a problem, I might read that status report and have something to offer. I could instantly click and connect with the tagged person (with some security settings in place) and offer my advice. Or, perhaps it is a year later and I am facing that same problem. I might search on the issue and find this old status report. Then, I see that @Engineer faced this problem a year ago. I could follow the link and find additional content related to the tagged individual that might help me with my problem, or connect to ask for advice.

This feature is only an example to illustrate the benefits of how social computing sites can help in Product development. There are many other things that can be included in product development Software to enhance the development process-
• Improve and extend Global Product development collaboration through social computing techniques.
• Take advantage of social computing and Web 2.0 capabilities to improve product development performance, while maintaining focus on protecting product IP and other special requirements addressed by specialized product development solutions.
• Develop a strategy for social product development that enhances value and minimizes disruption and risk, adopting a gradual, measured adoption of social computing.


*So this is how trends are changing, product development process is being improved by using concepts that are innovated by young guns like you and me and is used to generate big bucks.

I just want to say
Keep innovating; Each and Every idea is small in the beginning, once implemented and marketed properly can bring the change.

PLM Definitions from various sources and what I think about it.

Product Life cycle Management
There are many definitions available on net for Product life cycle management-
Some of them are –
· Wikipedia: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. It is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation's information technology structure. All companies need to manage communications and information with their customers (CRM-Customer Relationship Management) and their suppliers (SCM-Supply Chain Management) and the resources within the enterprise (ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning). In addition, manufacturing engineering companies must also develop, describe, manage and communicate information about their products (PDM).
· Cimdata:
o A strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions that support the collaborative creation , management ,dissemination, and use of product definition information
o Supporting the extending enterprise (customer, design and supply partners, etc.)
o Spanning from the concept to the end of a product or plant
o Integrating people, processes, business systems, and information

· Siemens PLM: At Siemens PLM Software, we view PLM as at once an information strategy, an enterprise strategy and ultimately a transformational business strategy. We see it as a comprehensive approach to innovation built on enterprise- wide access to a common repository of product information and processes.
· Dassault Systems: A business strategy that helps companies share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to retirement, across the extended enterprise. By including all actors (company departments, business partners, suppliers, OEM, and customers), PLM enables this entire network to operate as a single entity to conceptualize, design, build, and support products.

· Definition: According to me we can define PLM as an approach that can be applied to improve companies' processes based on their business model for accomplishing current product innovation requirements. PLM is all about providing support for optimal development of products; ensuring fastest time to market; lowest development and production cost and highest quality.
It encompasses PPPI model:
· Product –It provides complete support for the product
· People - products only exists through the people’s effort
· Processes – we have to follow them to give dependable and consistent results
· Information about the Product – One of the core thing with which PLM deals is data