Startup co-founder Pollenizer is no stranger to new concepts, but Wooboard represents the first project where the idea came from within the Pollenizer team.

“We had this thing for the first time this year called ‘2 days to release’, where all of us went to a beach house and we all had four startup ideas we worked on in teams. In the end we decided this would be one of the ideas we’d develop. It was the first one we had done in that way,” says Bronwen Clune, Customer Development Manager at Pollenizer.

Keeping track of praise

“We use Yammer internally a lot. We’re a company where most of us here have a passion for start ups. We want to learn, we want to innovate. We use Yammer to give praise to each other, but we also found that there was no way of visually collecting that. You were recognised for things, but then it kind of disappeared. So Mick [Liubinskas, Pollenizer co-founder] came up with the idea of a place where you could go and it’s just about giving recognition and we do it in a fun way and that’s all it does.”

Wooboard allows team members to give each other ‘woos’ for jobs well done, provides tallies and can be set up to encourage goal attainment. Each participant advances through levels. It’s a simple, fun way to congratulate colleagues. Pollenizer considered including ‘boos’ to even out the playing field, but the majority of users rejected the idea as too negative.

As every ‘woo’ comes with a reason, a team or individual’s strength in certain areas will be able to be tracked. “You will eventually be able to look at the ‘Woo’s’ that you have been given broken down in skill sets,” says Clune, “So I might get ‘Woo’s’ for great customer development or great design, so you click through design and see who gets recognition for those things.”

Cultivating positive culture

Wooboard is intended as a tool to improve team culture. “Our basic premise is that getting recognition at work increases morale and productivity in our people,” says Clune. “It’s about trying to create that culture of giving recognition to people around you. The really important differentiating factor around Wooboard is it’s not recognition from their boss, because often they’re too busy, it’s peer-to-peer recognition. It’s me giving recognition to my team, other people giving recognition to me. It’s also a way for someone in management to look at and see who is being valued in the team.”

100 organisations already woo’d

Although Wooboard is still in beta, 100 organisations have signed up to trial the product. The base offering is free, or a premium registration allows for company logos to be added. As a limited offer, a lifetime membership of $100 for up to 25 users is available.

A few families have even come aboard Wooboard, with ‘woos’ taking the place of gold stars, “Kids love it,” says Clune. “They give each other Woo’s and stuff like that. It has a lot of applications and I think it could be used in a number of ways.”

Share your ‘woo’s

Long term, Clune hopes that ‘Woos’ will become part of the vernacular outside the Pollenizer office. “Eventually we’re hoping it’s something you can put in your LinkedIn profile with your level and what you’ve got Woo’s for, because it’s showing what your team recognises you for. We think that’s hugely valuable to a whole team but also to an individual, because it’s not just your boss saying, ‘Hey, good job,’ but it’s other people recognising it.”

www.wooboard.com

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Twitter role:

Featured: Bronwen Clune: @bronwen, Pollenizer: @pollenizer, Mick Liubinskas: @liubinskas, Wooboard: @wooboard

Article by: Lou Pardi: @loupardi, @smkapac