Massidea.org: a greener way to innovate

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the very early phase of the innovation process typically named the fuzzy front end (later FFE) of innovation. We challenge our current understanding of innovation practices at the individual but also at the system level by presenting the novel massinnovation concept. Massinnovation may be defined as: When a wide range of people and their different but complementary insights are brought together, novel ideas generated by thinking outside the box are possible. Massidea.org—smashing ideas founded on a series of innovation theories—is a free-of-charge open innovation community in which people can not only share their ideas, but also discuss today’s challenges as well as visions of the future, which are key factors when creating new innovations. By intelligently connecting people and their brainchildren with the help of content recommendation, a creative space that can boost individual and communal creativity is born. In Massidea.org, public, private, and educational sector organizations and nations can collaborate in a green way with a wide range of people. First this chapter introduces the theoretical foundations of massinnovation, and then, the concept of Massidea.org is discussed in detail.

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Massidea.org is a good tool to stimulate collaboration before, during, and after conferences and other events. Massidea.org brings complimentary insights together and boosts creativity by intelligently connecting people and their insights. Especially scientific conferences, which are typically limited to face-to-face interaction and linear content format could expand collaboration possibilities with the help of Massidea.org.

1.1 What is the idea?

Massinnovation occurs when a wide range of people and their different but complimentary insights are brought together and novel ideas generated by thinking outside the box are generated. Massidea.org (www.massidea.org) is an open innovation community for sharing challenges, ideas and visions. It boosts individual and communal creativity by intelligently connecting people and their insights.

Because in Massidea.org people’s posts (i.e., insights) are cumulative of users’ knowledge portfolio, it helps them to build their collaboration network based on their insights while promoting their expertise to others. Interaction before, during, and after the conference is possible when combing these individual persons and their insights as groups such as scientific conferences.

1.2 Why might the idea work?

Scientific and other academic-oriented conferences in particular mainly rely on face-to-face interaction. This limits collaboration because the interaction is restricted to conference members and small groups during the conference days. This traditional process is also founded on linear content production and usage process (i.e., the process does not include interaction). Following linear process most likely results in expected findings. However, the possibility to discover unexpected findings increases when following nonlinear and interactive content reading processes. Unexpected findings have been identified as an important tool to generate novel innovations.

1.3 At whom is the idea aimed?

This idea should interest especially scientific conference organizers (or other written document–based events) and the participants for these events. Because the majority of the required content is already created, there is limited extra work required to exploit this possibility. Massidea.org is free of charge so there is no extra cost to run it.

1.4 Where can the idea be used?

Implementing this idea in practice expands the events from the physical world to the digital online environment. Thus, even a very local event can have a global audience. The automated translation tools in Massidea.org also enable the usage of one’s mother tongue. This lowers the barrier to interact with a global audience.

1.5 When can the idea be used?

Before the event: Using Massidea.org should start well in advance before the actual conference. The main idea is to start collaboration and group building preferably weeks before the event. As a result, when the conference members enter into the conference venue, they will already be familiar with those members who are interested in the same issues. Because the collaboration is based on people’s insights and linkages (even unexpected) between insights, this helps building up the right network.

During the event: Massidea.org will also act as a tool to collect insights during the conference presentations. Typical academic format includes 15–25 min’ presentation time and then a few minutes for a couple of questions. With the help of Massidea.org participants are able to give comments during the presentation. Now not only the session participants, but also other conference members and the rest of the world are able to “hear” what questions the topic raised. Also, if questions are raised before a session, the person giving the presentation can note them during the presentation. This process also enables a kind of simultaneous participation to multiple sessions, which is impossible in the face-to-face–based operating model.

After the event: All the insights, comments, and user profiles can be used as for networking interface after the event. Because Massidea.org collects different topics, including both academic and practical insights, this also links one event to the rest of the world.