Let the community help!

I came across this interesting post today:
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/266523108/design-lgs-touchscreen-phone-ui-theme-win-14000

Summary: LG has decided to hold an open contest to create their next touchscreen UI. $14000 is offered as the winning prize.

Thoughts:
Over the years, many companies, large ones especially, think that they've got it all. Instead of listening to their customers and offering their customers a chance to be involved, they produce a design internally, run it through some focus groups, and then send it out.

While this may work some, or even most, of the time, sometimes a company just can't get it right. And other times, you just can't please everyone.

For instance, I like elements of my interface to be shiny, but informative. I like round corners, smooth lines, gradients, and pretty widgets. However, I like items on my screen to take up real estate informatively, that is, they give information back to me.

For others, the interface is a place of conformity. They never consider how the interface can be changed to create a more pleasing place to them. They attack the interface every time they use it, because it doesn't make sense to them. They feel as if they are "technologically illiterate" because the interface does not make sense to them.

And yet, companies continue to disabuse users of making the interface their home. They try and create an interface that is everything to everyone. This obviously does not work well. For the longest time, the computer was thought of as a single desktop. Now, we have ultraportables with small screens, large media pc-tv hybrids, desktops, laptops, etc. Grandma uses it. I use it. My kid sister uses it. My friend's young children use it.

And they are all expected to use the same interface, whether its the standard OS X, standard Windows, or some variant of Linux. To change more than the interface colors on OS X and Windows, you need to download and install special software that provides system level hacks to do this. Linux has the opposite issue... too many interface choices, and not enough organization on the themes available for each of them.

What would it hurt a company to recognize that consumers that are emotionally attached to their product might have a good idea? To setup a collaborative process (such as LG's) with the community that might result in a good idea. This could be as simple as recognizing good work and folding it into your product (with appropriate renumeration) or setting up an official contest to inject new ideas into your product.

As the reach of technology expands, companies will have to realize that they no longer control the entire product line and usage of it. The company that gets their users emotionally vested in their product will develop long term customers, of the same loyalty as the famed Apple ilk. This should be the goal of all companies.

The role of community manager will become more and more important. We live in an increasingly user created world. We create videos, blogs, posts, etc. We want to feel a connection to the technology we use, not to be handed something and told, "Use this!" Of course, managing and coordinating all this information will take a special skill set as well.

The additional resources available to all of us now is incredible. Many features, whether in the programming world, art world, music world, or wherever that were only available to professionals with expensive software packages can now be done by an amateur with low-cost (under $150) or free software. The expanding reach of this allows previously unreproducible ideas to enter the system.

The key for any company is: How do we make use of these ideas?

The company that latches onto that idea and injects it into its product stream may very well create a whole new breed of fans. As well as money. Lots of it.