Latest Version of OneEyeDeer (v0.8) released - lots of goodies especially for you!

Great news. After a bit of a wait we've finally rolled out the new version of OneEyeDeer and there are a bunch of great changes based on your feedback!

Release notes can be found at the bottom of this post but there are a few things I want to highlight:



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New Video

We’ve put up a new video on our landing page too!
I'd be keen to hear if you think it makes the whole OED thing make a little more sense.



New MyPad Design with "Interests"


We've rolled out a new MyPad design which should help with tracking your work and issues/solutions you're interested in.


There are now a few different tabs which will help you track your work and activity that’s happened on issue/solutions you’re interested in.

Also, under the Profile tab in the new MyPad there's a new field called interests.

Jump on and let us know things you’re interested in as we'll be releasing some new recommendation tools soon that will use that information to help us suggest issues you might like to help out with.



Feedback and Bug Reporting


We've added a new feedback and bug reporting tool to the site. You'll see the tab on the left hand side of every page.


Just click on it to let us know what's broken on the site or what can be done better.



Categories


We’ve integrated categories into the site.


They’re pretty broad but it’s a good start for helping people find the type of content they’re interest in.


You’ll see the categories on the right-hand side of the page on the OED home page and you’ll be able to add issues to categories as your posting them



Twitter and Facebook


You’ll notice a bit more Twitter and Facebook integration across the site.

• First of all you can now follow OneEyeDeer on @oneeyedeer
• You can also keep up to date with things on the official OneEyeDeer Facebook Group
• Also, under issues you’ll see new Facebook Share and Retweet tools to help you share interesting issues with your friends.

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As a last note I have to give a special shout out to the wonderful students in the University of Sydney Global Entrepreneurship and Enterprise course who have been using OneEyeDeer for an assignment this semester.

Their community is still private (and will remain so until they’ve had their assignments marked) but I can tell you that there has been some really impressive problem-solving and collaboration in that group.

I’m really looking forward to being able to release their work into the wild in the near future.

That’s it for now. Thanks again for being part of OneEyeDeer, we really appreciate it and we look forward to seeing you on the site again soon.

Kim


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OneEyeDeer v0.8 Release Notes

MyPad

• Design change
• New "sources" activity stream
• New "work" activity stream
• New profile fields including interests
• New email summary frequency options - weekly, monthly, never
• 'Delete Account' functionality built into "Profile" under MyTab

Categories

• New categories pages
• Categories when posting

Registration

• New registration process
• New sign up welcome email and first activity email

FaceBook

• New Facebook fan page - make sure you join :)
• New Facebook share button under issues

Twitter

• New retweet button under issues

Feedback and Bug Reporting

• New feedback form on every page

Solutions

• Wider solution fields for more solution text per page

Landing Page

• New landing page
• New video
• Basic explanation

Design

• Fixed browser compatibility issues
• Basic design upgrades and text changes

Private Communities

• New management options inside private communities

Companies

• Removed companies page - to come back later

Release v0.8 almost ready to go

Just a quick post to let you know v0.8 is about to drop.

There are a bunch of changes coming up that should make the site even better to use.

Exciting!

Oh, BTW, you can now catch us on Facebook and Twitter

Join our Facebook Page HERE

Follow OED on twitter HERE

Is the iPad proof that User-Led Innovation (and OneEyeDeer) is doomed?

Intersting story in the NYT today about how the iPad, and Apple products more generally I guess, are an example of how the "auteur model of innovation" (where one powerful runs the whole process) has led to exceptional results.

The author, Steve Lohr, also sites Avatar (now the highest grossing film of all time) as another example.

The vibe of the story is that in a world of crowd-sourcing/open innovation, big hits are often generated by a visionary with a plan.

To be clear, there's validity in that argument. I don't think anyone would disagree.

That having been said, it doesn't mean that user-led/open/crowd-sourced innovation is doomed.

Rather, use-led innovation (we'll focus on this one) has shown itself to be an incredibly powerful and somewhat under-utilised source of innovation. It's this under-utilisation that OneEyeDeer is trying to address by using the inherent ability of the Internet to reduce information and sharing costs.

It's that simple.

The problem user-led innovation (ULI) has is that the process is not as sexy or as flamboyant as a guy in a black polo saying "one more thing" and pulling an incredible piece of hardware out from nowhere, while the world waits in anticipation.

It's a long slow process of trial and error that is open to the world. No sudden displays of genius here. Rather, you get to see the innovation process in its full, ebbing and flowing glory. And like the tide it resembles, the truth is that user-led innovation has far more potential than a sudden storm-like event of an iPad launch, or a movie release.

That's because ULI (or the OneEyeDeer version of ULI, at least) aims to connect people from varying background with varying skills, knowledge and experience. From there they can continue to connect or they can branch off and take their pre-existing skills, and new-found knowledge, and work on even more issues.

What's more, we aim to take that open knowledge and break it down into bits that are re-usable. The ability to get scale from your, and my, effort cannot be underestimated and has the potential, whether through OneEyeDeer, or some other competitor down the track, to revolutionise innovation as we know it.

That's really at the heart of why we're so passionate about OneEyeDeer. It's because the process feeds back into the community and helps the community itself grow.

So, is the iPad proof that OneEyeDeer is doomed to fail?

I don't think so.

Instead I think it's proof that there are many different ways to "innovate". While many of us will never have the capacity, or chance, to be a Steve Jobs, we all have the opportunity to be part of OneEyeDeer.

And the truth is that, despite the hype, user-led innovation (and OneEyeDeer) has the potential to have a far greater impact on the lives of more people than an iPad or movie ever will.

Here's hoping it gets the chance it deserves.