There are benefits to a ‘bank’ of ideas that can be cross-referenced and searched across as and when needed. As is the case with NGCIdeas.com – a programming submissions portal – that allows film makers and producers to upload their idea, with the hope that the National Geographic Channel will pick it up and go with it. But digging deeper, how can a knowledge management system of this kind be extended to be integral to your business?
We helped National Geographic Channel launch NGCIdeas.com almost eight years ago, with the intention of reducing the paper trail and, more importantly, reduce the headache of managing the hundreds of programming ideas the channel receives every month. Anyone with an idea (you don’t have to be a filmmaker/producer), can submit to the channel. Registration takes five minutes, after which you can submit your idea by filling in the form and attaching the relevant documentation.
The ideas submitted vary across the board (my favourite was ’47 Uses of a Dead Sheep’), and the channel gets hundreds of registrations per month. It’s fair to say the total ideas submitted equate to over 2 years of programming running back to back – although the channel will pick the best of the bunch, and also form part of their development priorities at that time. And with the introduction of an ‘Acquisitions Portal’, being rolled out later this year, filmmakers will be able to submit completed films too.
NGCIdeas.com is not just some form of document management. It’s a myriad of systems – a knowledge management tool, collaboration tool, and a reporting system to name but a few. The ideas, even ones that are put on the back burner, can be resurrected as and when needed by the channel – the tool plays a vital part in the business, and is used across the organisation.
Going back to my earlier question on how this tool can be extended to be integral to the business. Well NGCIdeas.com can take an idea from inception right through to greenlight – that is pretty good going. All relevant information regarding financials, territory agreements and licensing can be stored in the system, and that’s where it stops. The vision is to develop NGCIdeas.com into an end-to-end system so an idea can come in, go through the rigours of the system, then right through to pushing a button will then send it to the broadcasting system – that would be something! We are working closely with the National Geographic Channel on developing this very system.
It’s rewarding to see that everything broadcasted on the channel more or less started off life in NGCIdeas.com. The real work is always the idea, and I guess even though we want to make a paperless system the true inspiration of an idea needs to be captured quickly and scribbled down, usually on the back of a napkin or scrap piece of paper. Hopefully for the budding filmmaker this will be the only piece of paper they will ever use.
