Jeff Jarvis wrote a terrific article in BusinessWeek on Ideas titled, 'Hey, Starbucks, How About Coffee Cubes?' It is worth reading the full article but here are some great quotes that jumped out.

Schultz intends to use Ideas to change his company—to instill what he calls "a seeing culture." Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks' chief technology officer, who oversees MyStarbucksIdea, adds: "It was also to open up a dialogue with customers and build up this muscle inside our company." He says Starbucks "stood on the shoulders" of Dell's experience—Dell himself shared his lessons with Schultz.

You could say this is nothing but a fancy suggestion box. Benioff argues no. "The dead-end suggestion box and the auto reply are symbols of corporate indifference and are no longer tolerated," he says. In this age of nonstop, immediate communication in blogs, wikis, Twitter, and YouTube, he says, "your customers are having a conversation about your products and practices. The question every company has to ask is: 'Do I want to be part of this conversation? Do I want to learn from it? Am I willing to innovate on the basis of it?'

Jeff also published an extended version of the BusinessWeek Article on his blog, BuzzMachine.