Summer+2009+Section+09-PJ+Week+13

 **Participation -**


 * Tapping Employee Ideas** - This topic seemed to reach several people as there were a great many comments on it. One item that stuck out was that someone who could argue well or possibly articulate themselves better is more likely to have their voice heard. Granted, this may not always be the best "voice" to hear. Oftentimes people are pigeon-holed early on in their careers and become either "workers" or "leaders." In my experience, the workers are sometimes more intelligent than the leaders but are so timid or so comfortable in their role that they settle for what they have. It is similar to someone raising their voice in an attempt to win an argument - there is usually not much intelligence behind the words but by being louder, the point is quite literally heard. I think we have seen all this in class this semester, interestingly enough, no matter how small a group the dynamic unfolds.

These are lessons that everyone needs to learn from! Listen first, talk second and practice humility.

The idea of Blog's for use in institutional communications with employees was interesting. The idea of an "open blog" for employee communications presents great potential for establishing transparency in management actions. It also has the potential for creating efficiencies in communications, providing a means to limit the asking and answering of repeat questions by directing people out to the blog. However, it does have a downside in that employers may find it difficult to control the message against the backdrop of some who may be unreasonable in their approach. In that sense, not allowing anonymous posts may be the solution in that employees would be careful about publically engaging in dialogue that isn't constructive.

The above may be a result of fear on the part of employers, having to deal with messaging and the impulse to control it. At what point, whether internal or external, does it defeat the purpose of asking for input when it ends up being censored anyway? My workplace has a huge volunteer force, and when asking for input we all cringe waiting to hear from those we //know// will speak up, because they always do. Often times, what they have to say is only destructive and discourages others from contributing feedback or ideas. But if you censor them, how do a) justify censoring only them and b) encourage others to give input when they've been trained not to do so?

//Google Trends// This market metric seems like a very reliable tool, not so much for the sake of prediction (someone could be searching on Google for information about a candidate they don't intend to vote for in an election), but in terms of analyzing presence/performance on the internet and brand awareness. I would be interested to know how others use this tool, if at all, in their workplace. How do you put this tool to work for you?

One could see that collaborative thinking may become necessary as the collective inventory of knowledge of society is becoming too vast for any one person to hold all perspectives. Even within specializations in the academic world, the knowledge within one field or area of expertise can be so vast that collaborative research across a broad group of people becomes necessary to develop new ideas and knowledge.



Team Known unknowns wanted to keep the Ideaz War and add the stock market approach as well using Royalty points. The Ideaz war would continue with some minor changes. The second and third place ideas would be moved to the following months' ideaz war. This way if there was a great idea that came in second it would have another chance to win the next month. We did not want a great idea to be lost because it came it second to a greater idea. The idea was to encourage the typical user to contribute their ideas, particularly stearing away from the Business type users. This would enable users to apply a more creative approach to their ideas, not just the ones that would make money. Team Known Unknowns would also take into account the value of creating glory for users, showing each user how valuable their ideas are by using the stock market and Royalty points approach. The idea of Royalty points will also allow for a competitive approach to investment without an actual stock market style supply and demand daily price fluctuations and the institutional overhead that goes along with it.

"Bust a cap in his ass"

Team Top Gun took the approach that real money ought to be used in order to bring out real developers who would like to have a real claim in the process. The hope is that the level of quality would improve and that as the applications output grew, the entire community would be involved. We felt that the use of money would bring people into the process that had serious ideas and help identify the best of those ideas. It would give the site lasting power that would not be easily other taken by another site that was currently in style or trendy. Money is the best incentive to use because each stakeholder can individual choose how to use it. Glory Points or some other incentive is difficult to create because you have to accurately choose what motivates people. By using the correct motivation of money it will allow for the best ideas to rise to the top and therefore be the best ones for the company.

Team A recommend following the Derivative Based 3rd option with fake money as well as an update to the IdeaWarz concept where high-scoring suggestions would get another chance at success, even if they did not recieve the most votes in any single month. Whether or not a drought or onslaught of ideas is anticipated, the voting will establish a winning idea that is true, as no points shall accrue for any rollover project. This concept provides a win-win proposition for the company and its multiple levels of participatory audiences: hackers can enjoy the emotional benefit of having provided a winning project and armchair tech and stock analysts can be rewarded for making accurate predictions contingent on a project's success. Cambrian House gets a boost in free intellectual property to develop and exploit. Our group, as usual, attacked an unconventional approach that used a duel strategy that utilized a refined version of the options/solutions provided, and some thought provoking ideas of our own. We liked the idea of a parallel market monitoring, but in conjuction with the idea wars. We didn't feel trashing all the ideas was warranted. Some times second and even third place ideas may be refined and eventually prove viable and worthy of concidersation. Loosing those ideas each round would be a waste of intellectual capital.

Doesn't Mark look great in this photo? Can I get a "What!"? (Obviously thinking about "BLING!")

As a team we thought that thought #2 was the best idea. We thought that with fake money and a cap on how much you could earn, could keep the focus on the ideas while encouraging participation. (Also, developing a crowd sourcing machine similar to the one we diagrammed is essential for long-term success.) Another option that we had contemplated was making and odds system to corespond with the different projects. Projects with a higher likelyhood of making it to market would get higher odds give users the platform to "bet" essentially on which products they either introduced or thought had the best chance of making it to market.