LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Having had success with its subsidiary FirstBuild, a co-creation community that helped the appliance company develop groundbreaking products in a greatly reduced timeframe, GE Appliances plans to disrupt the corporate environment with its new start up Giddy, an online community which allows businesses to co-create with passionate people as they develop new products or refine existing ones.
“Companies are continuing to evolve the way they approach innovation and are more willing to go outside their four walls to generate good ideas,” said Giddy CEO Taylor Dawson. “We’re giving businesses access to fresh thinking while providing opportunities for people to do what they love and gain experience.”
“Giddy is a totally unique enterprise for GE Appliances. We are clearly stepping outside our traditional business model by selling ‘how’ products can be made versus ‘what’ we make,” said Rick Hasselbeck, chief commercial officer, GE Appliances. “The success and growth of the FirstBuild innovation model has given us a great platform from which to launch Giddy.”
FirstBuild now includes a founding location in Louisville, Kentucky, focused on designing, building and selling products for the FirstBuild brand as well as innovations for GE Appliances; a new location in Shanghai, China, which opened in 2017 and focuses on electronics, software and hardware projects; and a future location in India, scheduled to open in 2018 with a focus on IoT and connected technologies.
All three FirstBuild locations will collaborate and access a global online community managed by Giddy. Giddy will, in turn, continue to grow the community FirstBuild has built over the past 3.5 years and leverage it to assist all of its clients.
An intuitive, easy-to-use mobile platform, Giddy allows businesses to post challenges for the community to solve, engaging their own employees alongside the community if they so choose. Its first major challenge will launch at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where community members can help define friction points in modern home life, then propose a solution in the form of a product sketch or design. More challenge details are available on the Giddy mobile app at giddy.io/dowhatyoulove.
The Giddy team will help businesses coordinate their challenges and provide guidance along the way until there is an idea or framework for a product that can be taken to production by the business.
While businesses will pay a fee to use Giddy, members of the creative community can join for free. Once registered, members can then view all the existing challenges available and work on those that match their expertise. Giddy leverages natural language for easy participation, multimedia for submissions and an online voting system to gather community feedback.
“Yes, the technology is great, but the value is in Giddy’s creative community from artists to engineers and makers,” said Dawson. “We saw the power of community and open innovation at FirstBuild. If it worked that well for GE Appliances, we’re confident other companies can benefit from a similar approach.”
In addition to helping other companies with their product development, Giddy will manage the online communities for GE Appliances’ growing FirstBuild business.
About Giddy
Giddy, a GE Appliances start up, is an online community that connects passionate people with purposeful projects. Businesses can use Giddy to create new products or refine existing ones by tapping into an online creative community comprised of people from varying disciplines. To become a part of the creative community, download Giddy in the iTunes or Google Play store. For more info on how your business could leverage Giddy, visit: www.giddy.io.
