The State of Michigan is known for its lakes, natural beauty and its friendly people, of which it employs more than 50,000. In 2010, gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder laid out a ten point plan for how his team would reinvent Michigan. In order to deliver on that promise, the State of Michigan launched its Bureaucracy Busters program, which is a statewide initiative for leveraging employee ideas and innovations. Learn how The State of Michigan moved the project through a series of stages, exceeded industry averages for initial adoption, and improved efficiency and increased employee engagement at all levels

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THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
GOVERNMENT CASE STUDY
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IDEASCALE

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The State of Michigan is known for its lakes, natural beauty and its friendly people, of which it
employs more than 50,000.1 In 2010, gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder laid out a ten point
plan2 for how his team would reinvent Michigan by addressing a number of issues from the
environment to education. One of those initiatives also included a revamp of open government:
one that was transparent, participatory, and always growing.
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Following an internal study, the Ideascale tool was implemented in order to address identified
engagement problems among frontline staff and leadership. The goal was to allow all levels of
employees to communicate with leadership while also facilitating collaboration and discussion
between all employees.
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In order to deliver on that promise, the State of Michigan launched its Bureaucracy Busters
program. Bureaucracy Busters runs on IdeaScale technology and is a statewide initiative for
leveraging employee ideas and innovations in areas of employee engagement, customer service,
cost savings, and more.
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The project has cycled through a series of stages:
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Promotion: share and promote the community at all levels of government through emails, word of
mouth and press releases.
Collection: gather ideas on a number of different subjects from employees at every level.
Review: suggestions go through a round of evaluation in which the most promising ideas are
flagged and primed for implementation by a select committee.
Recognition: the leading feasible ideas enter development and idea authors are honored through a
meeting with the Lt. Governor, Pure Michigan gift baskets, and another lunch with both the
Governor and Lt. Governor.
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To date, the State of Michigan has reported:
" • over 1,945 ideas posted with 8,527 comments shared and more than 134,000 votes cast
by over 10,000 users. That reflects a 20% initial rate of adoption.
• numerous winning ideas that have been shared with employees and the public at large.
• A plan that will improve login efficiency by at least 50% by minimizing the number of
required employee passwords.
2IdeaScale Case Studies
The State of Michigan
Reinventing a State
1 Department of Management and Budget. “Planning for Our Future: 2009 State of Michigan Strategic Workforce Plan.”
Michigan.gov. December 2009. Accessed 23 April 2013 http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdcs/
SOMWorkforcePlan2009_297950_7.pdf
2 Whittemore, Becky. “Ricky Snyder’s ’10-Point Plan to Reinvent Michigan.’” Yahoo! Voices. 26 February 2010. Accessed 23
April 2013 http://voices.yahoo.com/rick-snyders-10-point-plan-reinvent-michigan-5551187.html?cat=8

3. • A new hiring notification system that will inform applicants of whether or not they will receive
an interview could impact as many as 450,000 applicants to the State of Michigan each
year.
• An optimized marketing campaign tactic they expect will result in greater tourism interest
to featured destinations within all Michigan advertising.
• A proliferation of employee engagement projects at all levels (including live town hall
meetings, increased leadership communication, and beyond).
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Additional phases of the Bureaucracy Busters program will invite state employees to vote on one of
several problems they want to solve together. Once selected, they can offer ideas for solving that
problem on the Bureaucracy Busters website.
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“Our experience with IdeaScale staff and the overall platform has been tremendous,” said Nikki
Sunstrum, Social Engagement Coordinator for the State of Michigan, “We highly recommend and
support implementation of crowdsourcing communities wherever collaborative communication is
beneficial to the goals and business objectives of an organization.”
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To learn more about the State of Michigan, visit their website.