iNotes

It was Friday, 24th March - 5:30 PM, people in my Unit (Services IT, MS) started to gather for the 'Idea of the Quarter' event. The theme of it is, you can propose any Idea like
"a Process, Architecture, Customer engagement model Or something as simple as a cool Idea for a Team Event - You are the Winner if your idea tops the three "

My idea was 'iNotes' - a concept aimed to reinvent the habit of taking notes (from web).I was sure it to be the top 5 ideas when i gone through the other's. The judges (head of the unit & some PM's) opened the talk saying all the 36 ideas where worth winning a prize and pointed that ideas need not be a original one, it can also be a good one borrowed from other's. Something struck me ...

Newsletter, Keeping-body-fit are some of the ideas he considered good which had exactly the opposite thoughts in me. Other judges too had listed some ideas similar to those. I thought i have made my idea sub-standard by presenting it here.

There were some funny ideas too, like the one which proposed to build a campus on top of Cricket Ground

Obviously Mine was missing from their list and the worst part is that it didn't get noted at all. I was little disapponted but consoled myself saying that my idea was no way related to the unit.

Then came the ultimate twist. When the unit head counted the audience poll by asking 'Is there any idea that you would suggest?'. I heard a firm voice saying 'iNotes is one of the idea having different concept and is out of blues, you need to hear it'.

I don't know who said this until he came forward and called me to explain it. He was my colleague - Santosh Menon to whom i had explained the idea that morning.

Imagine the feelings that somebody pulls you all of a sudden to a stage surrounded by 50 people. My heartbeat raced like the Renault's F1 car and somehow I made to the center and explained my concept. There were some hot discussions popped up on 'how urs is diff from MS notes'. One core employee supported my idea and added that a similar idea was being worked as an internal product in a very famous multimedia company and would reach the market soon...

They later took up my idea into one of the top 5 contestants and gone for audience poll for the first 3 prizes. No surprise that I won second prize with around 34 votes next to a Project mgmt idea that won around 38 votes.

Thanks to Santosh Menon who brought out my idea to light and made me to win the Prize.
Kudos for his courage (which i needed though...)