1. Collaboration

Research has shown that what we almost universally do in meetings seems right, but actually doesn't work very well.  To be specific, human nature intervenes.  Namely, we all want to tell our story and tend to repeat pet agendas over and over, making the proceedings inefficient and closing off paths to innovation.

 

On the other hand, highly productive groups tend to be similar, to have similar characteristics.  As Tolstoy said, "All happy families resemble one another".  This Solution provides a platform - via the Internet - for enabling these happy characteristics to form much more easily:

 

• Autonomy:  Junior participants often feel awkward about voicing "wild ideas".  By (optionally) contributing anonymously, everyone can work together on a level playing field.

• Low "blocking":  a low noise "talk stream" that can be entered without a lot of striving to be heard.  The self-pruning that goes on in IdeaTree naturally leads people into knowledge of others' perspectives since it's to their advantage to know what's already been said in order to place new contributiions at meaningful places in the visual map.

• Diversity:  You can select a collaboration team from the entire roster of IdeaTree users, then give individual members access on a map-by-map basis, building cross-disciplinary and ever-changing project teams.

 

2. Fund Raising for Organizations

This Solution provides a revenue stream - via 20% monthly payments for referrals - to organizations using the IdeaTree service.  (for specifics, see "What To Do", below)

 

IdeaTree is a flow chart for ideas, a visual wiki, a concept mapper.  It enables project teams to collaborate and brainstorm far more effectively and efficiently.  It also implements a revenue sharing plan to help organizations which use it to also benefit financially.

 

Think of back-of-the-napkin brainstorming, shared worldwide. Arrange your ideas on a global tabletop in the form of websites, audio, spreadsheets and visually show how they relate.  

 

IdeaTree sits at the convergence of concept mapping, blogging, and social bookmarking. Being web-based, no installation is necessary.

 

You will find IdeaTree very familiar if you've used the Network Preview maps on WiserEarth.

 

 

In a Nutshell

• Visually explore your group knowledge using Web 2.0 technology.
• Bypass meeting time-wasters - personal agendas, inhibitions, and one-at-a-time speaking

 With IdeaTree, everyone has access to the knowledge map at any time, day or night. You don't have to rely on a "scribe" to enter your information. No vying for attention, no trying to get someone else to accurately portray your idea.

 

It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas. - Einstein

 

 

 

Results

IdeaTree.us is an online implementation of "brainwriting", an eminently simple,  "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" process developed by Dr. Paul Paulus* after observing over 1,000 brainstorming groups.  Brainwriting has demonstrated a 40% increase in number of ideas generated in brainstorming sessions.

More Brainwriting Information

 

 

Going Further...

• Research shows that humans, even experts, are no better than chance at selecting the best idea from a pile of ideas!
• However, when a group has no politics and little vested interest, it is consistently smarter than the smartest person in the group.
• Bypassing stress and psychological inhibitors, we set the stage for happy accidents and discovery (think penicillin).

Here's a suggested solution that summarizes a lot of what's known about group decision-making, and how smart the unconscious really is, in just two pages.

 

*(Dr. Paulus is Dean of Sciences at the University of Texas at Arlington and not formally associated with IdeaTree)

An internet connection is required.

 

IdeaTree does not replace face-to-face meetings.  Human contact is still important, we just want to ameliorate some of the more counterproductive aspects while giving everyone a voice.

 

 

Areas of Use

Whenever knowledge is shared among a group of people or scattered across organizations we have fertile ground for brainstorming with IdeaTree:

 

• Business: create structure around information, eliminate redundant emails and attachments
• Education: enable truly egalitarian discussion and facilitate critical thinking
• Non-profits: coordinate volunteers and staff to move smoothly toward project completion while documenting the process

 

Specific Uses

• "Signposting" - creating diagrams that display links to documents that are a part of a management system (such as quality or environmental systems)
• Prioritizing issues for team management
• Visual project reporting
• Medical case management
• Meeting minutes
• Managing committee roles and out-of-committee networks
• Document management
• Designing investment strategies
• Documenting software requirements
• Software development and modeling
• Writing reports
• Knowledge elicitation
• Creating indexes to documents
• Comparative analysis
• Legal hearings and motions
• Business planning and contract management
• Negotiation planning
• TOC (Theory of Constraints) thinking processes

List courtesy of Mind Mapping Software Survey, Chuck Frey, http://www.innovationtools.com/survey/212WHS/Mind_mapping_survey_results.pdf

Go to www.ideatree.us and sign up.

 

To receive revenue for referrals:

1. Join the Cash-back Program by checking a box in your Profile.  There is no charge.
2. Refer IdeaTree to friends or members of your organization.
3. When they register, ask them to enter you as having referred them.
4. You'll receive a payment via PayPal every month that your referrals total more than $25 US.

Site licenses and educational discounts are also available.

Email attachments can quickly become unmanageable:  too numerous, hard to categorize, not visual, etc.

 

A central repository of everything pertaining to a small project - like this Solution - is much more efficient.

 

In order for this to be effective, people must prefer the central site over email.

 

How to form that habit?  Project leaders should make it clear that the central gathering point is where the action is.  Some suggestions:

• meetings are for creating things and making decisions, not for presenting background information.  Don't know the background?  Consult the website before the meeting.  The leaders should enforce this M.O.  The central collaborative website becomes the place to go to be in the know.
• Project leaders respond to posts to the central site rather than to email.
• Project leaders communicate with group members via the central site.

A computer with an Internet connection.

 

An iPhone and Blackberry version of IdeaTree is under construction.

 

 

 IdeaTree

Measure the number of formal meetings over time.  Formal meetings should be reduced given the same amount of results produced.  This is not to say that short informal meetings (chance meetings in the hall are great for innovation) won't actually increase as time previously used for stuffy formal meetings is freed up.

 

When used specifically for brainstorming, measure the number of ideas produced (after familiarizing yourself with best practices, such as number of breaks, working face-to-face vs. privately, etc.)

 

The Fundraising Aspect

As for fundraising, you'll get a payment, or not, every month, which speaks for itself.

 

 

The Best Ideas Happen In The Shower

Brainstorming Practices

 

 

A Perfect Brainstorm, Inc. Magazine

 

Brainstorming Best Practices

 

Brainstorming methods review

 

 

 

Benefits of Concept Mapping

Enabling shared understanding...the balance of power, and client involvement

 

Over 150 studies on concept mapping have been reported since the late 1970s.

 

Executive fast track to mind mapping

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We view hypertext and conceptual maps as a way to create and integrate knowledge, not just to retrieve it. We also feel it is the group, collectively, that must be able to tailor and evolve the conceptual map being used..." [2]

 

"...There has been little work to date to develop models of the group problem solving process that are based upon parallel and asynchronous activities by the individuals within the group. There is need for a model which integrates the individual problem solving process with the group process...the view that we believe is the most promising is an objective for "Collaborative Expert Systems," where the experts are provided a knowledge structure...that allows them to dynamically contribute their knowledge to the system and to modify and evolve the system, over time." [3]

 

 

"...the primary barrier to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge and expertise. Discoverers see more clearly what can be done because they have less knowledge about the way things are supposed to work and are not trapped by the limits of their times." [4]

 

 

[1]James BurkeThe Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible-and Other Journeys through Knowledge

 

[2] Turoff, Hiltz, Bieber, Rana, Collaborative Discourse Structures in Computer Mediated Group Communications, published at http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue4/turoff.html

 

[3]Turoff and Hiltz, Computer Based Delphi Processes, invited chapter in Gazing Into the Oracle: The Delphi Method and Its Application to Social Policy and Public Health, Michael Adler and Erio Ziglio, editors, London, Kingsley Publishers

 

[4] Michael Useem paraphrasing Daniel Boorstin's book The Discoverers (Random House, 1985) in Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits. Edited by Michael Useem, Jerry Useem, and Paul Asel, published by Crown Publishing Group (2003).