Brightidea Launches Memo, the World’s First Purpose-built Software Solution to Drive Longform Narrative Writing for Business

October 19, 2022 by Business Wire

Inspired by Amazon’s Working Backwards methodology, the solution helps companies better tackle and prepare for large strategic projects and business initiatives requiring significant innovation and investment.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 21, 2021 – Businesses, in all industries, struggle to not only activate on a raw idea that sits outside a business as usual planning cycle but they struggle to weed through the complexities of concepts, understanding which ideas will truly drive the business — understanding which projects are best for the business to focus on at this juncture and which ideas have will have the most impact for the business and for customers. With scarce resources to invest, business leaders find the margins for error are razor thin and a slight miscalculation can be fatal.

Longform narrative writing, which has been popularized by Amazon and Jeff Bezos, helps craft a raw idea into a well defined proposal for business circulation and resourcing. This methodology, known as Working Backwards, which is referenced by Jeff Bezos in Amazon’s 2015 shareholder letter, has been proven time and again as the best way to fully develop an idea that is capable of wholesale business transformation that can deliver game changing returns. Amazon’s “invention machine” has leveraged this process, enabling the company to innovate consistently for decades, and transform from an online bookstore into one of the world’s most dominant and disrupting innovators.

“Too often the best ideas don’t win. They don’t win because personalities, best presenters, seniority, and other factors shine brighter than the idea. Writing concepts as narratives helps to not only develop an idea more fully, but assists in having better debates and decisions focused on the quality of the idea,” reflected Matt Greeley, CEO of Brightidea. “Writing is half the challenge. The other half is collaboration around the idea. Brightidea brings these together.”

Brightidea, the global leader in idea and innovation management software, is excited to launch the world’s first purpose-built software solution, known as Brightidea Memo, to support longform narrative innovation processes like those pioneered by Amazon.

The solution allows users to begin the process with a simple idea or team objective, based on annual planning, quarterly planning, or ad hoc basis. From that idea, based on the industry, category, and timeline, the system will guide the user through the process of constructing a strategic business case via longform narrative writing. The software provides the templates, tools, research guidelines, evaluation capabilities, and more to turn around and present the concept to organizational leaders for consideration, evaluation and approval.

“Our world grows more complex every day. Teams need greater clarity as they allocate scarce resources to strategic projects,” said Matt Greeley, CEO, Brightidea, Inc., “Brightidea Memo helps teams introduce narrative writing to think through their big ideas. With a limited time, introductory price of $99 per team site, this a no-brainer for teams to sign up and get started.”

Brightidea Memo acts as an enhancement to the idea management and innovation management processes that Brightidea, which is currently G2’s #1 ranked idea management software, has pioneered over the last two decades. Brightidea Memo sits alongside and is well integrated with existing features within the Brightidea Platform.

The following features make Brightidea Memo the fastest and easiest way to establish a longform narrative Memo Program for your team via a cloud-based software solution:

• Collaborative, real-time writing via native document editing tool
• AI writing assistant to help memo teams start writing quickly
• Templates to guide and inject expertise to get teams started
• Peer reviewing and scorecarding features that collect feedback and data
• Memo development workflow and statuses to keep your program on track
• Integrations with other document creation software, like Google Drive and OneDrive, as well as popular project management systems like JIRA and Asana
• Dynamic feed surfacing the top memos based on custom meritology algorithms
• Interconnectivity into the additional Brightidea Products
• Dashboards and reporting to track business impact, employee engagement, and much more
• Expert coaching to navigate through the boot-up, management, and rollout of the program

“I’ve built innovation processes at dozens of clients and the heart of gaining clarity and making great decisions is leveraging memo writing and active debate. I’ve been looking for an innovation management collaboration technology to integrate this narrative writing system. Brightidea has nailed it!” stated John Rossman, author of The Amazon Way, and former Amazon executive.

Brightidea Memo will be available immediately for trial and purchase — with the first 50 customers receiving special promotional pricing. New and existing customers also have the ability to sign up for a 30 day free trial — focused on ensuring you realize the value of your first memo. Read more about Brightidea Memo in the release blog here.

About Brightidea, Inc.

At Brightidea, we’re passionate about innovation. We believe it is the lifeblood of progress, advancing the human condition and improving the world around us. To that end, we’ve set out to accelerate the success of innovation by empowering those behind it with advanced software to facilitate and streamline the innovation process – and the collaboration it thrives on.

Media Contact
Justin Parnell, VP Marketing
Brightidea, Inc.
press@brightidea.com