Client Interview - Tim Sussman, SVP: Head of Global Public Sector at IdeaScale

"Scale or Be Left Behind"

IdeaScale software empowers governments and organisations to brainstorm ideas, gather real-time feedback, and identify innovative solutions. The platform equips clients with moderation tools to effectively prioritise and analyse collected comments and suggestions.

What are the barriers to government innovation? How can my organisation leverage crowdsourcing and open innovation to problem-solve and plan for the future? These are a few of the big-picture challenges that IdeaScale prepares, and empowers, clients to answer.

IdeaScale provides every client a Customer Success Manager, and offers additional 24/7 client support for ongoing assistance.

One Of Your Offerings Is Solutions For Government - Please Share With us Some of Your Flagship Public Sector Projects

We got our start in 2009 when President Obama signed a memorandum of transparency and open government in the United States, urging government agencies to better engage citizens. At that time, dozens of government agencies implemented IdeaScale to facilitate interaction between the agency and its own employees, citizens, and key stakeholders. This was the catalyst for IdeaScale's journey in partnering with government agencies to foster collaboration and innovation from within.

A favourite project of mine is IdeaScale partnering with the City of Atlanta. They launched a city-wide employee idea competition, designed to solicit feasible solutions on how the City can reduce waste, cut red tape, and save money on operations. Not only was the competition turnout impressive– they received hundreds of ideas and improved morale across the workforce– the top three ideas alone amounted to a potential cost savings of $7.1 Million annually. Those ideas included a new inmate cleaning programme from the Department of Corrections, a pay-as-you-throw waste management programme, and e-records for all City communications.

Another meaningful project is the U.S. Coast Guard's innovation crowdsourcing platform through IdeaScale, called “CG_Ideas@ Work”. The platform provides a means for members of all ranks to communicate their challenges, share best practices, and propose creative ideas and solutions directly to Coast Guard leadership. Innovation can excel without the traditional barriers of rate, rank, community, or geography. One idea from a female crew member resulted in female urination devices being installed on every CG vessel, a $15 Amazon fix, that prevented health and readiness issues of female members. It was amazing to see an impactful idea be not only heard by leadership, but quickly implemented.

Does The Name IdeaScale Imply That You Have Long Term Relationships With Your Clients - You are Part of Their Scaling Journey?

Actually yes - and that journey is constantly evolving as government agencies continue to undergo a transformation to evolve their programs, modernise IT and cybersecurity practices, innovate their products and services, and enhance risk management as part of their strategic plans. It is truly a mutual partnership built on trust.

As we have gained a better understanding of the needs of our government clients, we are able to give them a customised approach and help them through the often complicated innovation process. This is especially important in this new world of virtual / hybridwork. Fostering innovation for the government allows each organisation to adapt to shifting customer and employee needs and quickly identify new opportunities or improvement areas. Scale or be left behind.

What Does Your Role As Senior Vice President, Head of Global Public Sector Entail?

I am lucky. I get to work with an amazing team across the world and a strong local presence in Cape Town, South Africa. We have a special comradery and share a common goal - to help our clients empower their most valuable assets - their people. I try my best to lead by example everyday, an attribute I think all great leaders should have.

My role entails driving global business expansion efforts, driving profitable sales growth and retention across a diverse customer set with broad capabilities of SaaS, IT, engineering, and managed services, strategy, program execution and P&L management.

What Excites You About What You Do?

The tech and the people! You know in the early days, government agencies just wanted ideas. But that’s too vague. What are the outcomes? How do you collaboratively transform that input into actionable project plans? We wound up building innovation features that allow clients to take scalable actions on those ideas – i.e. connecting them to other concepts, senior leaders, funding and more.

Organisations can then develop these larger concepts into new policies and services or new cost-savings and employee engagement measures that will shape the future It means that a good idea can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time.

How Does The Pace of Change in Technology Impact Your Business?

We’ve already done a lot with natural language processing (NLP), and mixing machine learning with the crowd, there are some beautiful results. Internally, we’ve adopted AI and other technologies across the company to improve our productivity as a team (in 2024 alone, productivity is up >25% thanks to new technology adoption).

In Your Opinion What Makes IdeaScale Stand Out From Your Competitors?

Our customer service. We have clients consistently sharing that our customer service is second to none. Most companies don’t have that. It makes all the difference in the world - going above and beyond the call of duty to problem solve and be responsive - even if you don’t have the exact answer they are looking for in that moment. We provide every client a Customer Success Manager, and offer additional 24/7 client support for ongoing assistance.

What Are You Currently Reading and Would You Recommend It/Them To Friends and Colleagues?

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday, and Creating Innovation Navigators: Achieving Mission Through Innovation by Sabra Horne. Highly recommend both!

What Is On The Horizon That You Are Most Looking Forward To?

We all know that AI has arrived and is here to stay. In the U.S., President Biden recently announced new rules mandating each federal agency to appoint a chief AI officer, a role that focuses on promoting AI innovation (and also watching for its dangers). Despite the public sector’s understandably cautious approach, AI is well-positioned and has potential to significantly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government workers.

Do You Have a Message For Our Readers?

Yes, innovation and change in the public sector can seem like a daunting or impossible task. Start with your WHY and small actions. Then get to the “what” and “who” (90% of people miss this). One small step. One new problem is solved every day. Innovation happens piecemeal, not massively, until it becomes part of our function.

Find out more about IdeaScale's Software solutions here: https://ideascale.com/?utm_campaign=Public%20Sector%20Leaders&utm_source=PSLPublication