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Among the many different methods used to generate new product ideas, group brainstorming has been one of the most popular. However, brainstorming has fallen into disfavor with many practitioners and researchers on the basis of such factors as the necessity for a skilled group leader, the potential for conflicts among members which can disrupt the process, and the possibility of one or more members dominating the discussion. Brainwriting, which is the silent, written generation of ideas by a group, is proposed as an alternative to brainstorming. Six different group brainiwriting techniques are described and suggestions given for the most appropriate use of each. It is concluded that both brainwriting and brainstorming will be useful in different situations and should be viewed as supplemental rather than primary sources of new product ideas. Furthermore, it is noted that idea generation is only part of the process. The best ideas in the world will be of little value if they are not implemented successfully.

This paper aims to offer a personal reflection on the 2012 joint conference of the American Society for Cybernetics and the Bateson Idea Group, “An Ecology of Ideas”. The intent is to raise awareness, through examples, of ideas – and their associated ways of thinking – that the author tends to take for granted in the work as systems theorists as well as in everyday life, yet ideas that confound the very social issues the conferees were trying to address.

The thoughts expressed arose after five days of listening to presentations and discussions, both formal and informal. The approach is conversational, with a desire to stimulate further conversation.

Certain versions of systems theory – whole systems, purposeful systems, systems theory as ideology – rely on ideas that although written about extensively in philosophical and socio-political works go unchallenged in everyday life. Three of these ideas – hierarchy, purpose, belief – are embedded in the way of talking about, and the language used to formulate, solutions to social problems. The suggestion is to avoid or suspend these ideas so that alternatives can be considered.

Idea avoidance offers those who study social change and/or those who participate in making it happen a way to escape the stuckness of ideas so ingrained in the everyday ways of thinking that they go unnoticed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore when, why and to what extent firms should intervene in firm-hosted idea-generation communities, and to develop a framework for firm-intervention.

A single case-study is conducted in a highly successful firm-hosted idea-generation community called Dell IdeaStorm, whereby the netnographic approach is applied.

The findings indicate that, overall, firm-participation is minimal and passive, and varies according to the three stages of the idea lifecycle in the community, such as ideation stage – here firm-participation is limited to acknowledgement of new ideas, checking for redundancy, managing search tool and profanity filtering; discussion and development stage – here firm-participation is more active by providing feedback and clarification when needed, troubleshooting, asking for additional input on an idea, etc.; and completion stage – here a firm intervenes to screen and select the most promising ideas for implementation and also provides status updates on ideas.

This study contributes by developing a new framework for firm-participation, which is useful for the early diagnosis of community issues in idea generation. The framework is also a tactical tool which can be used to guide community managers in selecting the correct moderation approach, depending on the specific stage in the idea lifecycle.

Decision making is an inherently simple process, but soon becomes complicated when a number of people are involved in the decision‐making process. How can a group move from a situation of disagreement or conflict to compromise or consensus, yet have confidence that the ultimate decision reflects the best solution to a problem? Describes the “traditional” methodology for managing the resolution of issues within groups and goes on to point out the limitations of this approach and ways in which it can be improved. The resulting methodology is a time‐efficient issue resolution process, which ensures that all team members are given the opportunity to contribute their ideas and opinions of the selected solution. This results in full commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for identifying the most promising user-generated ideas in user communities.

To develop the framework, each user-generated idea is first classified into a specific category depending on its source, such as market trend-, need-, solution- or mental ideation-based ideas. The degree of shared identity (shared agreement minus shared disagreement) based on user votes for each idea within the user community is then evaluated.

This study argues that unlike need-based user-generated ideas, trend-based ideas will not succeed in the marketplace even if they receive the highest ratings or the most votes from community members, and that hence such trend-based ideas should not be implemented. Moreover, solution- and mental ideation-based user ideas, even though they receive the lowest ratings or fewest votes from community members, are more likely to succeed in the marketplace, and thus, such ideas should not be discarded.

Community- and idea-level variables are combined to identify the most promising user-generated ideas for firms. This prevents overlooking the most promising ideas simply because their popularity is low within the user community. Moreover, this method prevents selecting the least promising ideas even though their popularity is high with the user community.

The purpose of this paper is to explore consequences of the use of social media for idea generation.

The paper analyzes over 600 ideas submitted to a Slate‐Twitter contest to find the best short characterization of the American Declaration of Independence. These findings are then compared with those of Kornish and Ulrich, who analyzed idea‐contests in classroom settings.

In the Slate‐Twitter contest, repetition of ideas was rare while recombination was frequent. The evolution in the total number of unique ideas suggests that the contest became more focused over time. It also appears that ideas that are recognized as valuable attract similar ideas in turn.

Further checks will be needed with regard to the robustness of the findings. Furthermore, while the current analysis relies on peer review by participants to the contest to value submissions, results might be different if it were done on the basis of independent external reviews. Conceptually, the findings suggest that idea generation via social media has a more iterative character than previously analyzed forms of broadcast search. Future research could investigate what triggers more exploration and exploitation of ideas in this process.

For businesses, which are more and more encouraged to engage in open innovation, the analysis can serve as guide on the use of social media for information collection.

The paper provides a simple and effective method to monitor social media, which firms can use to their advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new metric that aims to quantitatively support the selection phase of a new e‐business idea by performing an evaluation of its distinctness. The paper seeks to explain the reasons for the creation of a new parameter, called “E‐distinctivity”, the identification of the metrics to assess it and aims to present the results of its evaluation.

In order to visualize the new parameter and to execute all the needed evaluations a two‐dimensional radar chart has been created “ad hoc”. The radar chart is built on eight crucial characteristics divided into four principal zones representing the strategic aspects of the E‐distinctivity. In order to assess the soundness of the identified parameter its evaluation on a reference group of well‐known e‐business ventures has been performed.

The E‐distinctivity parameter permits easy comparison among many different alternative ideas during a feasibility phase and provides quantitative data to evaluate these ideas without requiring huge investments.

This parameter is not intended to be sufficient for an exhaustive feasibility assessment of an e‐business idea. Additional investigation is necessary to determine other parameters and evaluation tasks to improve the accuracy of the model. The aim is to support the selection phase of a new e‐business idea with the aid of new parameters that integrate traditional methods of business analysis.

The study identified an original parameter to be evaluated on a given e‐business idea in order to provide a quantitative measure of its distinctness.

The purpose of the paper is to describe a study of the styles and patterns people use to recognize the need for ideas, and generate and evaluate them to determine if understanding those patterns can help executives improve creativity and innovation in their organizations. People generally assume that good ideas are the result of good management and bad management leads to a dearth of them. But it might not be that simple.

We talked with 49 senior executives about their process for generating and implementing ideas. Their approaches to information, problem solving, and interacting with people both inside and outside their organizations determined the kinds of ideas they generate and consider.

We identified five distinct strategies or idea management types among the executives with whom we spoke: Incrementalists who take small steps and whose ideas are usually modest changes; Consensus builders who focus on agreement among stakeholders rather than ideas, per se; Searchers who combine information from diverse places and whose ideas result from unusual associations; Debaters who argue with themselves to develop ideas; and Assessors who are constantly revisiting their approaches and choices.

While our research is limited by the small number of executives with which we interacted, it points to the implication that to develop organizations that foster creativity, it is important to understand the ways that people engage in idea generation and evaluation. It may be fruitful to focus on how people inquire about the world around them and to select people with behaviour patterns that fit with the requirements of the task at hand.

Shows that understanding idea management inclinations may improve organizational creativity and innovation, and performance of management in general.

Online brand communities (OBCs) are important platforms to obtain consumers' ideas. The purpose of this study is to examine how peer influence and consumer contribution behavior simulate innovative behaviors in OBCs to increase idea quality.

Using a firm-hosted popular online brand community – Xiaomi Community (MIUI), the authors collected a set of data from 6567 consumers and then used structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to empirically test the impact of peer influence and consumer contribution behaviors on idea quality in OBCs.

The results of this study show that both peer influence breadth and depth have a positive effect on idea adoption and peer recognition, wherein proactive contribution behavior positively mediates these relationships, and responsive contribution behavior negatively mediates the impact of peer influence breadth and peer influence depth on peer recognition. A more detailed analysis using the fsQCA method further identifies four types of antecedent configurations for better idea quality.

Based on the attention-based view and the theory of learning by feedback, this study explores the factors that affect idea quality in the context of social networks and extends the research of peer influence in the digital age. The paper helps improve our understanding of how to promote customer idea quality in OBCs.

Organizations increasingly seek to leverage open innovation (OI) communities to generate and advance novel ideas through collaborative innovation efforts of their members. However, success is far from guaranteed, as OI communities can only thrive depending on individual and collective member contributions. This study aims to examine individual and social determinants that encourage members to first generate novel ideas, then collaboratively advance these ideas through cocreation with other members, a process this study terms member “(co)creativity.”

A survey design was used to collect data from 301 OI community members, which this study analyzed through component-based structural equation modeling using the partial least squares (PLS) method.

Drawing on componential theory of creativity and innovation, this study demonstrates the role of members’ creative identity, creative self-efficacy and domain-relevant knowledge as determinants for their novel idea generation. While novel idea generation leads to members’ participation in collaborative innovation, this relationship is partially mediated by members’ willingness to cocreate in this process. This process is further conditioned by social determinants and leads to members’ creative self-enrichment as a result of collaborating in OI communities.

Taking a member perspective, this study advances marketing innovation theorizing by investigating critical determinants of effective OI communities, informing managers about success factors that promote collaborative innovation in OI communities.

This helps overcome rather reductionist innovation models and highlights interdependencies between the individual and social determinants from a theoretical perspective while helping managers better understand important OI member profiles and social aspects that can foster the success of OI communities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the notion of member (co)creativity in OI communities and its determinants for effective collaborative innovation. This study also demonstrates self-enrichment as an important outcome of (co)creativity.