If you run a business, it would be nice to offer your employees, customers or vendors a convenient system for submitting ideas to improve the company, your products and your services. Better yet, it would be ideal to allow others to vote and comment on the ideas submitted, in order to gauge which ones are most popular. In addition to your business, perhaps you belong to a non-profit group, church or other organization that could benefit from a system for sharing ideas, ranking suggestions, approving the best ideas and putting them into action. Or you might be running an event and need a way to gather the resulting sparks that could lead to a bonfire of creativity.

This concept is not new—think about the old “Suggestion Box” sitting on the counter next to the cash register—but it’s been vastly improved thanks to the web. Big companies like Starbucks are getting tremendous value and buzz by enabling their customers to submit, comment and vote on ideas, through their MyStarbucks Idea site.

Fortunately, it is very easy and affordable to start your own idea management site. There are now hosted applications that can have you up and running in minutes.

I have been testing one site called Kindling. They were kind enough to set me up with a 30-day trial of their professional edition.

It’s a neat system, providing MyStarbucks-like functionality without having to hire a programmer and break the bank. Kindling’s Standard Edition is $49/month for up to 40 users, while their Pro Edition is $99/month for up to 100 users with additional features (like secure SSL, unlimited file attachments and usage reports and analytics). They also offer a Enterprise Edition for over 100 users (price not listed on their site.)

With the pro account, I was able to add a few test suggestions and rate them easily. I “volunteered” to take one of the tasks on, which assigned it to me. If I were using this in a bigger organization, I could set up email alerts, run reports on the most popular suggestions, view statistics, approve and assign ideas and more.

There are other similar products worth comparing (see a previous Kindling review by TechCrunch). Price would be one of my main considerations, and I wish Kindling had a lower pricing option (maybe $17-$27/month) for up to 10 users. At their current lowest price, I would want to be as close as possible to the 40 user limit to justify using it.

To sum up, Kindling is great way to quickly and efficiently gather, manage, rate and assign ideas.

Photo credit: Hashir