One of the speakers at Peter Kaufman's Intelligent Television conference in Boston in January -- wish I could remember who it was -- said that most innovations, if not all innovations, are created by users. It stands to reason -- you don't know how much better a thing needs to be until you use it and it lets you down. Companies sometimes appropriate them later, and pretend to have invented them.
So, McDonald's offers this friendly message on their website: "Thank you for your interest to share an idea for a product or service that you believe would be beneficial to McDonald's. Please know, however, that it is McDonald's company's policy not to consider unsolicited ideas from anyone other than our corporate employees, franchise owners and dedicated suppliers. " (thanks to Pete Blackshaw for the heads-up on this!)
Of course, McDonalds' compared the potential financial upside of getting their next big idea against the financial downside of 1) Going through all those unsolicited emails and 2) Getting sued for stealing someone's idea. Unfortunately, having been burned before, they felt their best interests lay in warding off the lawsuits.
Wouldn't it be nice if they recognized that creating a relationship with your customer means give and take: you give them food and a smile, you take their money and their advice. Relationships are based on conversations, where you get to talk while they listen... but you have to listen while they talk. What about a waiver saying "we're happy to take your ideas but don't expect compensation for them"? How hard is that?
It just blows my mind. Companies are throwing themselves into a panic about being unable to force consumers to listen to their messages. McDonald's is probably paying a bunch of different agencies millions of dollars to help them better "engage" and "build relationships with" their customers! (Here's sample language from a 2003 press release: "...doing these kinds of relationship building initiatives...to make us more relevant")
Right this minute, they are probably all running around saying "two-way communications!" to each other and giving each other high fives. And yet they Just. Don't. Get. It.
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