Your data is in good hands with feedbackr

On February 1st is “Change your Password” day, so we explain the key facts about computer security and how we protect your data in accordance with the in May 2018 implemented GDPR policy at feedbackr.

The primary aim of this day is to make Internet users aware of the need to use passwords that are as secure as possible and to change them regularly. It should now be widely known that a secure password should contain at least 10 characters – the more the better, including uppercase and lowercase letters, special characters and numbers. Under no circumstances should easily derivable information such as a date of birth or the names of your loved ones serve as a password! It can also be helpful to be creative when choosing a password. For example, think of a sentence and form your password from the initial letters. In principle, the longer the password, the more secure. And please don’t use the same password for every service. Why don’t you try a password manager? The password manager will take care of your secure passwords, so that you don’t have to remember everything (e.g. Lastpass, 1Password).

The GDPR

At feedbackr, we take your data and its processing very seriously and have therefore implemented all necessary steps to ensure compliance with the GDPR in time. Last year, we put a lot of time into logging and customizing our processes, so we can make it even more transparent for you.

We do not store any more personal information than is necessary for the use of feedbackr. We guarantee the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your data. We have established procedures to ensure the perception of data subject rights, the deletion of data and the response to data breaches. In addition, according to Article 25 of the GDPR, we already follow the protection of personal data in the development or selection of hardware, software and privacy-friendly presettings. To the other security measures, which were implemented with us even before the GDPR, belongs in particular the encrypted transmission of data between your browser and our server. The service providers selected by us have been checked for compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation. The content of our privacy policy has become broader, as we endeavour to communicate as transparently as possible.

In our privacy policy you will find all the information you need.

We are delighted that feedbackr offers you a secure way for quick and easy interaction such as polls and discussion forums! In our blog posts you will find concrete and easy to implement use cases.

Thanks for this great year!

When we look back on 2018, we get almost dizzy! With the introduction of our three product lines (education, business and event), we are able to address the needs of our customers even more precisely.

feedbackr is continuously developing based on feedback from our customers: Since this year you can insert images, formulas and program codes into questions, use free text questions and Q & A, moderate incoming free text questions and upvote them. Our feedbackr presenter allows you to easily switch between your presentation and feedbackr results from any device. Our blog post series on typical use cases shows how feedbackr can be used in teaching.

New features

 insert images, formulas and program codes into questions
free text questions and Q&A
moderate incoming free text questions
feedbackr presenter

During the year, due to strong demand, we introduced our campus licenses for educational institutions that are successfully used in schools and universities. Meanwhile, feedbackr is already being used at over 500 educational institutions worldwide.

feedbackr in use

Interactive event formats become easily to handle with feedbackr: In our hometown of Graz, we primarily support events of the start-up scene, but the Wirtschaftskammer, the City of Graz and the Styrian Business Development Agency SFG are also happy to use our feedback tool. But feedbackr is not only used in Graz: We are particularly proud of our successful work at this year’s Screenforce Days in the MMC Studios Cologne with over 2,500 participants.

In our blog posts we tracked the needs of digital natives, how valuable feedback and feedforward are and how feedbackr can be used for change management processes.

Our team has been occasionally working remotely from Bali, Singapore and Berlin this year, at times, to visit customers and to expand our network and bring a breath of fresh air into our ideas. Christian Perner joined our team in August, working intensely on feedbackr’s new corporate design.

In any case, it has been great fun to work for our customers and feedbackr! Many thanks to all who made 2018 so successful! We are looking forward to the challenges and developments next year!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Karin, Christian and the feedbackr team

PS: Of course, we also implemented the GDPR Directive.

 

Smooth interaction with digital natives made easy with feedbackr

The generation of digital natives (starting with the birth year 1980) grew up digitally from an early age and already makes a big part of the employees. Affected by the possibilities of new communication, they act differently in many areas than the age groups before: Well connected and in constant exchange, they expect fast communication channels, flat hierarchies and discussions at eye level.

Different terms such as Generation Busy, Generation Flex, iGeneration or Generation Emoji and the associated attributions want to capture the spirit of this group, which is not really possible due to the complexity and overlaps. But the most obvious is: digital natives are curious and knowledge should be easy to find and ideally online. They are quickly bored and always looking for the next experience. Digital natives are fundamentally more skeptical of authoritarian behavior and question many of the views about the value of work, success, and material possessions. Because of their education, they often have a tremendous sense of self, and as young adults, they expect to be respected and heard. Above all, they like to think and create together!

Closely linked to the concept of digital natives is the so-called experience economy. It is no longer about pure consumption, but about collecting enriching experiences and unforgettable moments. Experience values of events and encounters are becoming increasingly important.

feedbackr brings people and opinions together in real time, supports knowledge generation and targeted matchmaking – in short: feedbackr allows thinking together in larger groups. This blog post outlines how you can inspire digital natives in your respective field of activity.

Digital natives and education

How do you get the attention of a generation that checks their smartphone on average every seven minutes? Exactly! At least for a permitted time, the smartphone is integrated into the teaching.

Interaction in the sense of digital natives is easily possible with feedbackr: Digital natives want to be perceived individually and integrated into the design process, including courses – feedbackr gives everyone in larger groups a visible voice and makes it easy and fast to interact at different levels. That’s what makes teaching fun and works for digital natives! feedbackr enriches group discussions and eases the lesson as well as the repetition and consolidation of the material and paves the way for new approaches to brainstorming and the generation of ideas.

Incidentally, with our campus license, it is possible for all employees to use an extended functional catalog and to create questions for the students in the design of the educational institution.

Digital natives and events

Modern events should be interactive, memorable and create lasting contacts. For a long time now, the trend has been away from the frontal lecture to interactive communication, which makes the participants so-called prosumers, i.e. people who both receive and contribute. feedbackr supports communication within large groups with various functions such as free text questions, Q & A or moderation function. This not only enriches events, but actively controls and jointly shapes them. The knowledge of all becomes visible and divisible.

As people tend to go to events because they want to meet the people who provide them with the information and contacts they need right now, we are developing a special matchmaking feature.

At events, feedbackr creates a special kind of shared experience that connects people in a sustainable way, thanks to the variety of possible applications.

Digital natives and work

The generation of digital natives challenges employers: Well educated and mobile, there are countless possibilities open to them. Therefore, they only remain faithful to a company that understands how they tick and offers them enough variety and development potential. Digital natives want to be involved in co-determination and to express personal opinion – Here, feedbackr can provide quick and, above all, anonymous feedback. Their individuality should be valued and they want to work self-determined and especially flexible. They take advantage of all the benefits of digital media and wish to be supported here by entrepreneurs trainings. Again, feedbackr can be used efficiently, effectively and profitably in these cases.

Companies offer regular employee appraisals, in which they find out which improvement potentials there are. feedbackr is perfect for giving feedforward, as well as for change management processes.

To motivate employees, short-term successes should also be made visible – for this purpose successful sub-steps can be collected via feedbackr and evaluated by the others. As a playful variant, projects and achievements could be raised in a kind of competition and employees rewarded for their successful implementation.

Conclusion:
feedbackr is the ideal tool to give anonymous and user-friendly feedback during or after presentations, lectures or meetings, or to ask questions in case of ambiguity. For every generation, including digital natives.

And, are you already prepared for the numerous needs of digital natives?

 

Change Management – Knowing what your employees want leads to long-term success

Companies want to be able to survive in the face of permanent economic change and to be perceived as an attractive employer. However, to do this it is necessary to know how internal processes run, which topics employees are dealing with and which strategies should be implemented next.

feedbackr offers valuable support in gaining insight as well as in the different processes in change management.

Don´t be afraid of change

Experience has shown that employees are skeptical of changes made by their executives because they were not involved in the decision-making process or in potential courses of action. Often change management processes fail precisely at these resistances. It would be better and more efficient in the long term to work out and implement solutions and goals together.

Here feedbackr can be used as an evaluation tool: Using multiple-choice questions and free-text questions, problems and areas of tension are easily, quickly and anonymously made visible. This provides valuable feedback and information that identifies work processes and staff disagreements as well as their potential for change. By involving all stakeholders, their opinions and moods in the change management process, it can be ensured that everyone pulls together.

Phases in change processes

There are many different things that make employees dissatisfied in the long term: Often it is only small things like a badly placed desk or colleagues in an open-plan office who are too noisy on the phone, sometimes serious shortcomings such as insufficient appreciation of activities or basic misunderstandings about the results of the work process. It is essential for managers to know about the sensitivities of each individual, but often difficulties are not openly addressed for various reasons. With feedbackr, these problem areas can be identified anonymously and quickly and thus made visible. feedbackr clarifies what should be improved from the point of view of each individual and for what purpose. Employees feel taken seriously by this and are more open to change processes and more active in their implementation.

Solutions and goals should be developed together. feedbackr supports here with the function of the free text question for efficient brainstormings and evaluating ideas as well as improvement processes. With the individual answering of free text questions in addition to honest feedback also moods or opinions can be obtained, ideas generated and polls are carried out. With the Answer Ranking function, employees can additionally vote for answers of others and thus prioritize the individual topics. The possibilities of application of feedbackr allow a wide range of honest and uninfluenced answers.

Implement changes long term and successfully

Even after implementing the jointly found solutions, feedbackr acts as an evaluation tool: It can be constantly monitored whether the implementation takes place as planned or whether decisions still need to be made. The management of change is an iterative feedback process from feedback on the different phases of change.
In the long run, the self-identification of each individual with change processes is important, and the benefits of change should be clearly communicated to everyone. Joint visions of the future and overall goals can also be developed via feedbackr. After each achieved goal, feedbackr can be used to evaluate what could be successfully implemented and where the concepts diverge from reality.

To motivate employees, short-term successes should also be made visible. For this purpose successful partial steps can be collected via feedbackr and evaluated by the others. As a playful variant, projects and achievements could be ranked in a kind of competition and employees rewarded for their successful implementation.

feedbackr is and remains a proven tool for employee surveys and decision-making, such as when thinking about team-building activities, or for original ideas on anniversaries or awards for deserving employees.

Do you have any other ideas on how to use feedbackr in your company? We’re looking forward to your suggestions and ideas!

Feedback is important – so is Feedforward!

How to use feedbackr as a practical tool for anonymous feedback and collaborative brainstorming has been presented several times in our blog post series. But you might use it for feedforward as well!

Feedforward (based on Marshall Goldsmith) means that instead of past feedback, suggestions for future behaviors are sought from employees. Successful companies evaluate past processes, but do not despair of made mistakes, instead they optimize processes, formulate concrete goals for the future and thus increase efficiency. Feedforward demonstrates the potential that exists in each individual, enables options for action and alternatives to improve activities and contributes to a positive organizational climate.

Incidentally, Marshall Goldsmith characterizes feedforward as follows:
Feedforward is especially suited to successful people.

We’d love to support your success!

That’s how feedbackr specifically supports you in giving feedforward

Individual employees name a topic that they consider to be in need of improvement and formulate a clear question for themselves, for example: “How can I present our product (even) better at trade fairs?” In a second step this question is posed to a group, who then uses the free text function of feedbackr to give suggestions for improvement in a quick, easy and above all anonymous way. The contributions are collected and automatically ranked if mentioned multiple. In addition, the others can up-vote the given answers to clarify recommendations, which can then be implemented concretely. Consequently, the individual field of activity expands, which strengthens the entire team and thus the company. By the way, the same rules of considerate cooperation apply to feedforward as to giving and receiving constructive feedback: It should be designed as concrete, analytical and solution-oriented as possible.

Furthermore, it’s possible evaluate on occasion activities by asking the employees for suggestions for improvement. But feedbackr is also a valuable companion in company and / or product development. You can easily get feedback and -forward at any time. Especially in the change management process, it is important to actively involve your employees.

Incidentally, you already know the blog posts about our latest developments like inserting images into feedbackr or using free text questions as well as Q&A?

Now available in feedbackr: formulas, pictures, code examples and much more

Especially teachers have repeatedly expressed the wish that formulas or similar can be visualized in feedbackr. We are very pleased to meet this requirement: From now on formulas, pictures,code, tables, links, emojis, … can be used in questions. The representation of symbols and other characters is now no longer a problem.

With simple commands it is now possible for you to format text in feedbackr as desired and to present additional visual material to your audience.

This feature is available in feedbackr education advanced, in feedbackr business advanced and higher, in feedbackr event and in our campus license.

If you have any questions, please contact us at any time!

30th of April: Honesty Day

As much honesty is combined with values like authenticity, integrity and integrity, the implementation of honest feedback is difficult in practice – too great is the danger that the other person will be left hurt or annoyed, no matter how constructively the criticism was intended.

feedbackr, our audience response system was born out of the idea of being able to give feedback to others simply, quickly and anonymously – valuable feedback that can help everyone to improve their skills. With the function of the free text questions, you can not only receive honest feedback but also obtain moods or opinions, generate ideas and conduct votes. Over the entire course your audience can share questions and feedback about your presentation, lecture or event. This timely recording of comments gives you a valuable collection of feedback to help you customize and optimize your event.

The Answer Ranking feature allows your audience to cast additional votes for others’ responses. This allows you, for example, to implement a priority ranking. In addition, voting by feedbackr has no group dynamic effects, as you can determine when the results will be visible to all participants. This allows a wide range of honest and uninfluenced answers. feedbackr enables the objective presentation and further processing of subjective opinions.

Ideally, constructive criticism is as concrete as possible, analytical and solution-oriented – feedbackr accomplishes all of this: Use cases can be evaluated immediately and anonymously, details can be selected, and suggestions for improvement can be made to solve a problem.
Be it anonymous honest feedback or answers to tricky questions – feedbackr allows you to do that in any kind of event! Try it out for yourself!

New Feature: Live Export – available in feedbackr events

Do you want to compare results of different questions against each other or determine a winner in a competition during your event? Now you can do this even better! We have added the new feature “Live Export” for you.

Now you are able to download the results from your poll directly in a Google Sheet to process them further on. For example you can create awesome statistic presentations to demonstrate the outcome of your polls to your audience. Or you can set up a document where you can compare the data to your last poll with the current, to watch changes.

The feedbackr team already used the new feature live export for a jury voting at the Fifteen Seconds Festival and the Gründungsgarage. The jury and the audience voted for their favorite presentation/pitch at the event. Directly after the event the winner could be determined within seconds, out of all the given votings. So Live Export is good functioning for rankings. There are many more possibilities to use Live Export! The feature is available in feedbackr events.

How to export your first session you can read here.

feedbackr events in use at Austrian Innovation Forum

How to use single and multiple choice questions

Have you ever wondered how you can utilize single and multiple choice question? There are more possibilities than you might suspect. We have curated a few possible areas of application for you.

 

We are all familiar with single and multiple choice questions. Many of us think that there are only a few ways to use those question types for example in surveys, but in fact there are many more. feedbackr offers single and multiple choice questions and that’s the reason why we want to show you some use cases for lecturing, events and corporations.

Single and multiple choice questions for lecturing

You are a lector at school or university? You want to know if your students understood the subject matter from your last lesson? Why don’t you use feedbackr single choice questions to find out if your students remembered the subject matter from the previous class? This will motivate all students to cast a vote. Even the shy ones who often do not dare to ask questions. In the end you can show the results and you get feedback if your tuition was good or you have to repeat some subjects.

Another possibility is to check the knowledge of your students in advance by asking single or multiple choice questions. Adapt your lecture according to the results. For sure all this suggestions also can be used for workshops.

In schools this tool also can be used too. Especially students benefit from feedback of their peers. For example an unit or a presentation can be assessed anonymous by classmates, in order to improve their performance. So why don’t you let your students evaluate each other?

feedbackr also provides you with a feature to highlight the correct answers. Let’s say, you do some knowledge verification in the end of your lesson. You can highlight the correct answers for example for knowledge verification. So the students get feedback which chapter they still need to refresh or study.

Single and multiple choice questions for events

Single and multiple choice questions can also be very helpful for events. Why don’t try something new, let your audience decide on which topic you should talk about. List your topics you want to speak about and let your audience vote which they are interested in the most.

You can also use single choice questions to get feedback from your audience after your speech. Let the audience vote if they enjoyed and increased their knowledge on the certain topic. This is a good feedback for you as well, so you know if you have to improve and change the structure of your presentation or speech for your next event. Or get information about the composition of our audience – Who visits your event? Why are they visiting? In which department they are working? With this knowledge you can assume to your audience and steer the event.

For panel discussions single and multiple choice questions are very suitable. Different questions can be defined in advance and your audience can choose which questions they want to be discussed. With feedbackr you can also show the results in real time – so if your vote is still going on, your audience can see the current results and can influence them. This makes the whole vote even more exciting.

Single and multiple choice questions for corporations

If you are head or department leader of a company feedbackr can make your daily work way more easier. The use of multiple or single choice questions can be used in many fields of your company. For example in meetings – do you remember those meetings which seemed to never come to an end!? Have you ever thought to use feedbackr for decision making? Use single and multiple choice questions to optimize your meetings and give every participant at the meeting the chance to express their opinion anonymously. You will see that, your meetings will be way more productive and the decision making will be accelerated – so you have more time to discuss other important issues.

Single and multiple choice questions can be very useful in lunch breaks as well. Where should your department order for lunch!? At the italian, chinese or greek restaurant? You never know – so ask!

As you can see there are many ways to use single and multiple choice questions. This was a short overview of some possible use cases. Single and multiple Choice questions can also be used to ‘break the ice’ with your audience. Learn more about this topic here. If you know any other fields for the usage of single or multiple choice questions, we would love to read in the comments below.

4 event ideas for feedbackr (and some tips on when to use it)

The sort of event you are planning leads to several subsequent decisions. In this article, we have focused on one key question: Does it make sense for you to use feedbackr? Find 4 example events which profit from the application of feedbackr, as well as a short guideline to help you decide. Read more