If your idea is submitted 5 minutes before the brainstorming process ends it may not receive enough votes to be considered even if its a fantastic idea.
How about brainstorming first, then a voting period with consideration of the ideas, then discussion of the top suggestions followed by implementation.
Comments (7)
I agree with this. --Merry Maisel
Very much agree.
One of the main shortcomings of "crowdstorming" tools such as IdeaScale is that they often violate one of the core rules of good brainstorming, which is to suspend judgment (at least during the initial phase).
I blogged about this observation a few months ago:
Structuring Participant Input: Dynamic Facilitation, Brainstorming" (http://www.intellitics.com/blog/2009/02/15/structuring-participant-input-dynamic-facilitation-brainstorming/)
How about brainstorming first, then a voting period with consideration of the ideas, then discussion of the top suggestions followed by implementation. And then it's Miller Time!!! Sounds good!
This is so true. It should have been an idea brainstorming session where people could post a limited number of words (250-500 - I saw this in another post) and then the window would be closed.
Then voting
Then summarizing the most popular ideas and consolidating repeats.
Voting again
Another summary session and then a final vote session that whittled it down to say 15 key ideas that people consider very important.
If this process just started over every time it finished - it would be a great feedback system for the federal government.
I just checked - the most voted on ideas are all 9 days old or less, many of them 4 days old. So, time does not seem to be a big factor
OK, my bad, the oldest ideas altogether are 9 days - time is a HUGE factor
I've been tracking how the top 25 developed over time here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/planspark/3552325294/in/set-72157618585823580/
As of 05/28, the average age of the top 25 contributions was roughly 6 days (the program started 05/21, 8 days earlier). Half of the top 25 ideas were submitted on the first day (or even within the first hours).