Home of the Future

In 2010, we ran a pilot project, Power to the People, that engaged with over 1,000 E.ON customers. Last summer, we opened a new challenge focused on a particular business area, electric vehicles. Over 6 weeks, we worked with 1,600 customers who shared, developed and voted on over 700 ideas. The winning idea is now in development at E.ON.

Working with our technology partner, Chaordix we’ve developed an online platform for customers and employees to come together, share ideas and develop them into investable propositions. We nurture and manage and moderate the community, and harness the collective intelligence of users to rate ideas, and find those most likely to form the seeds of profitable, pioneering innovations.

We also work with SMEs and independent innovators through a private submissions route that allows them to share commercial ideas with us whilst retaining control of their IP.

Once the challenges are complete, we select the best ideas and work with E.ON’s innovation, customer insight and technical feasibility teams to develop these into commercial propositions.

On Sunday 12 February, we’re now rolling out the platform to an even bigger audience, as we launch Home of the Future, a set of 5 new innovation challenges tied in with Channel 4’s TV series of the same name, where a family from Sheffield have their lives transformed by cutting-edge technology, giving them a taste of how we all might be living the future.

We’re looking forward to working with an even bigger group of collaborators, ands we’d love you to join us too. Watch the show on Sunday night at 7pm, and then meet us online at www.eon-innovation.com.

See you there!

Andrew Sleigh