 FAQ for Matchpeg BrainstormingFrequently asked questions about Matchpeg Brainstorming. Please contact us if you have a question not listed here.Questions
Answers
All Matchpeg's products are entirely browser-based. The only software you need is your web browser. Nothing gets installed on your computer. We recommend Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Camino. Matchpeg's products will normally work without you needing to make any changes to your browser settings. The software requires Javascript to be turned on, and needs to be able to use session cookies. Matchpeg's products should work seamlessly through corporate and personal firewalls. If you are unable to access Matchpeg, but you can get to other websites, please check that your IT department is not operating a "whitelist" of permitted sites. No. Like instant messaging applications, Matchpeg Brainstorming lets people communicate over the internet from anywhere in the world. The system can be used either to run a session with a time-limit, usually with all participants logged in and contributing at once, or to run an open-ended discussion board. Many customers of Matchpeg Brainstorming use the system even when everyone is gathered in the same room. The system provides a number of benefits compared to a traditional brainstorming session: an automatic transcript, the ranking stage with its automatic calculation of the best ideas, reports on participant activity, options such as anonymity, and an automatic time limit. Many customers also find that sessions are simply more focused when participants are typing into a computer system rather than trying to talk over each other. Firstly, Matchpeg Brainstorming has a unique ranking stage where everyone gives a score to each idea. This allows the system to calculate the best, most popular ideas from the session. The structured nature of Matchpeg Brainstorming also makes it possible to provide an automatic transcript plus several other types of report such as participant activity. You can, of course, use the system any way you want (with all the advantages over instant messaging and e-mail described above). However, many customers use Matchpeg Brainstorming in a different way to instant messaging: participants do take notice of what other people are writing, and use it to stimulate their own flow of ideas, but they don't engage in conversations during the brainstorming. The session's organiser chooses which reports to make publicly available. By default, only the organiser can see the participant activity report containing the Narcissism and Generosity ratings. Only the participants in a session have access to its transcript and reports (and the organiser controls which reports other participants have access to - see above). The results of a session can be shared with other people by giving them copies of the PDF version of the system's reports. No. Matchpeg Brainstorming only lets you give each idea a score between 1 and 5. If people are allowed the option of ranking ideas between 1 and 10 rather than 1 and 5, they usually waste time agonising over exactly what score to give each idea. And there isn't usually any extra "precision" in the scoring: the larger the permitted the range, the more people tend to hand out scores in the middle of the range. Yes. You can create a meeting from a brainstorming session, using a wizard which automatically copies over suggestions from the brainstorming session as agenda items for the meeting. You choose whether to copy all suggestions, or only those which were given a particular minimum score. Yes. All the system's reports are available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) form as well as web pages. In addition, the list of suggestions in the session, including scores, can be downloaded in RTF format (for use in Microsoft Word), CSV format (for use in Microsoft Excel), or RSS format (machine-readable). Not directly - it would interrupt the flow of the brainstorming session if you had to wait for a document to be uploaded over the internet. However, you can insert hyperlinks, either to pages on the internet, or to files on your local network. This provides a simple and much faster way of sharing documents with colleagues. Of course! All data for all brainstorming sessions that are recorded against your firm's account get stored automatically irrespective of whether they are created during the trial period or as a Pay As You Go user or as a Subscriber. You don't lose any data when your free trial ends and you decide to become a Matchpeg customer. At the moment, all data is retained indefinitely until you ask for a session to be deleted. However, Matchpeg's terms and conditions allow us to remove records created by pay-as-you-go customers 30 days after they are created. This is not currently enforced, but may be in future. No. All our pay-as-you-go packs and subscriptions allow you to use any of Matchpeg's products. Your payment is converted into units which can then be used on whichever product or products you want. Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade at any time without penalty. The only difference between the subscriptions is the cost associated with using each product. Therefore if you downgrade you may find that the cost of using each product increases slightly, whereas when you upgrade the costs reduce. Absolutely not. We do not give third parties access to your personal details or any of the data you create. |
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