Patent ID: 6961756

Claim:
An apparatus for receiving and processing suggestions for a company, comprising: a central portal for receiving a new suggestion from a submitting party on behalf of a receiving party; a plurality of innovation zones within said receiving party to which said new suggestion can be routed, wherein said innovation zones comprise any of: a point of entry for employees within a specific business unit in a larger entity for submission of suggestions related to said business unit; a point of entry for motivated submitters with an idea about how to change a business practice of said company; a central point of entry for ideas and suggestions; a point of entry for ideas on improving a specific aspect of said company; and a point of entry for third party submissions; a routing mechanism for routing said new suggestion to one or more of said innovation zones in response to an interaction with said submitting party; at least one central database into which said new suggestion is categorized based upon key words; a viewing mechanism allowing for peer viewing and comment before a final decision is made regarding the new suggestion; a response module that automatically sends an acknowledgement to said submitting party when the new suggestion is submitted by said submitting party, wherein said acknowledgement comprises any of a Web based response and an email message; a search mechanism that automatically searches for previously-submitted suggestions that are potentially related to the new suggestion and displays the results of the search to the submitting party; a selection mechanism allowing the submitting party to select any of the displayed previously-submitted suggestions that the submitting party determines to be similar to the new suggestion; a linking module that links said new suggestion to any of the displayed previously-submitted suggestions that are selected by the submitting party, whereby the selected previously-submitted suggestions will be cross-referenced with the new suggestion; an acknowledgement module for automatic emailing of specific types of suggestions to specific areas of responsibility within said company; a status module that tracks progression of a suggestion through a review, comment, and approval process; and a statistics module that reports cumulative submissions in a predetermined format; wherein said routing mechanism comprises a page based dialog; and wherein said central portal comprises a Web page.