Require LabVIEW R&D response to any idea over N kudos

[Charles_CLA]

NI's response to the ideas thus far appears far too sporadic. For example if you check out the top LabVIEW ideas (http://forums.ni.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideaexchangepage/blog-id/labviewideas/tab/most-kudoed) 7 of the top 10 ideas are still listed as new! Adding insult to injury the average age of these ideas to date is 1,017 days! It is ok to decline ideas but please provide us some indication that this is something you take seriously. It would appear that NI is cherry picking the easiest half dozen or so items from the list so you have a marketing gimmick to list on the LabVIEW release notes. I propose that a threshold is set and made public so that if an idea reaches a certain amount of kudos, R&D must address it, even if that means declining it.

[crossrulz]

And to add to it, the ones at the top seem like they should be simple ones.  It can't be that hard to add an error in and error out to the Wait (ms).

[vitoi]

Great idea. It's sad that this even has to be considered as an idea as common courtesy would dictate that if customers are willing to spend quite a bit of time putting together an idea and the idea gets enough kudos and/or comments then it would deserve a well considered and thorough response.

As a suggestion:

1) <10 kudos, no need to worry about it (although a response, even if the idea is left open, would be nice)

2) <100 kudos, a suitable response

3) >100 kudos, a detailed response that provides a thorugh analysis of the idea. NI, don't fob it off; in the end your customer satisfaction determines your profits.

By the way, it's OK to say great idea but it will be bad for profits. Even if these words are not used, we can read between the lines.

I would also suggest that any idea that is decliend should state the reason it has ben declined. For instance, http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Remote-Access-to-LabVIEW-using-HTML5/idi-p/1944781 looks like a great idea. It got 20 kudos in under 1 month and was declines (which is OK), but without any reason.

[fabric]

And in addition... I'd love to see an annual contest or prize draw where the winner gets to choose a popular idea from the exchange (>100 kudos, non-declined) to be fast tracked into beta 🙂

[vitoi]

fabric, rather than leave the popular idea for fast tracking into beta to a lottery, why not put all the ideas with a kudos greater than 100 up as a poll question and the idea with the highest votes over a period of, say 2 weeks, gets fast tracked into beta. For fast tracked into beta, let's have 5% of the R&D staff working on the "people's choice". 5% of NI's R&D staff does not sound like much, but it translated to over 100 R&D staff. You can get a lot done with 100 R&D staff.

Once the idea is in beta, another "people's choice" poll is conducted. This means that if a simple idea is the "people's choice" it gets knocked over quickly and another idea gets a chance. If the "peoples choice" is a big project then we can wait since presumably it will be something significant and worth waiting for.

Maybe the "peoples choice" poll should have a higher threshold of 200 kudos. There are 59 ideas with 200 or more kudos. Of these 20 have been implemented (beta or complete), so that leaves 39 ideas for the inaugural "people's choice" poll. That sounds manageable.

In summary, take the 39 non-implemented ideas with a kudos of over 200, run a "people's choice" poll that is open for 2 weeks and take the idea with the highest vote for deployment by 100 R&D staff. Repeat once the idea is in beta. keep us posted on progress.

I think we'll get more smiles on our faces from the 5% of R&D staff working on the "people's choice" project than we'll get from the 95% working on the "marketing's choice" projects.

[fabric]

vitoi: Good suggestions!

The important idea is that the user-base gets some choice (- however small!) as to what gets implemented. That makes us feel good, and gives us ongoing faith in the Idea Exchange.

And to prevent impossible ideas from being chosen, the original post from Charles_CLA is perfect: That NI is more proactive with status updates and "viability feedback" for popular ideas.

[vitoi]

I liked the idea of having a "people's choice" so much, I posted a new idea http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/People-s-Choice-LabVIEW-Idea-Implementation/idi-p/2229... 

[Norbert_B]

While i find this idea (and vitoi's representation of it) quite appealing, i also see the point why not all top-kudoed ideas are implemented (and eventually never will be).

Taken that every idea has a valid background and is reasonable, NI has still to evaluate many things before commiting on a specific idea.

First, NI is following a vision with LV and the complete tool chain. So ideally, each step of this tool chain profits from new/modified features without hurting existing environments. While i have to admit that we are not in this "perfect world" (each step profits without negative impact for applications getting updated), i feel that NI is going down the right track to get close. Some ideas would change existing behavior so significantly, that, even with high volume of feedback (kudos and comments), ideas are not going to be implemented.

Second, there are many, many different suggestions. A detailed analysis could indicate overlappings, but contradictions as well. So which idea is better? This is a significant effort to break down all those magnificent ideas and hook them up correctly. Getting more staff on this would not make the task itself easier.

Third, NI has to evaluate the effort to implement a feature vs. the expected gain from it. Ask 20 developer, you might get 25 opinions. I admit, that NI could improve in this point, but NI isn't doing bad here.

I understand that NI still can improve (a lot?) regarding reacting on feedback (esp. updating idea stati), but overall, i find it is way better than four of five years ago.

And weighting ideas is already done by providing kudos. So why should there be another, more complex (perharps more constricted) way to weight ideas from a customers point of view?

Norbert

[Charles_CLA]

I definitely agree that this is better than what we had before. I also agree that not necessarily all top ideas are feasible (whether it be technical or financial). All I am asking is that NI respond to the top ideas.

[vitoi]

Norbert_B, I totally agree that any ideas that are in conflict with the LabVIEW way should be excluded from the "people's choice". The last thing we want is a programming language that looks like the look and feel was developed by a committee.

The main things I see users screaming for are connectivity and more targets. For connectivity we have requests for standard web browsers to act as clients using HTML5 and such (with no client side plugins). For targets we have requests for LabVIEW code to run on mobile devices such as tablets and phones, microcontrollers such as Raspberry Pie and Arduino Due and inexpensive OEM-friendly FPGA boards. None of these take the look and feel of LabVIEW in a conflicting direction, they just expands the connectivity and applicability of LabVIEW.

Just like academics need to publish or perish, I think LabVIEW needs to extend its reach both in connectivity and targets or perish. (Actually, NI had this same philosophy 10 years ago with LabVIEW Everywhere, but it never happened. Maybe there will be a renaissance soon.)

[Jeffrey_Zola]

I like this idea. NI entrusts a group of its users (the participants here!) to serve as technical support for its product and, in effect, a sales & marketing body. The company should return the favor by allowing those users some input regarding the development of the product!

I also understand that NI may not be able to implement a suggestion that passes a threshold of a count of forum members that give it a thumbs-up. But I do not see why we cannot expect a response from someone at NI to show why the idea may not fit into the company's business plan, etc.

Just my two cents....  Jeff