Wikubator – Proposal for Closed Community for evaluating, improving and exploiting business ideas.
The origins of this post can be found at
The video located at that link is a presentation by Toby Moores on what he calls the “cool curve”. This is an excellent presentation and well worth a view by anyone who sees creativity as an important part of their work.
What stood out for me in this presentation is that Toby sees their conversion rate of generated ideas to successful ideas at about 200 to 1. Bear in mind that this hit rate occurs in a creative environment and a disciplined one at that. From this I think it would be safe to assume that the conversion rate in most businesses/organisations/gatherings would actually be much less.
Maybe I find myself in unique company, but on a weekly basis I hear of ideas that have potential as businesses in themselves. Obviously they can’t all be! But shouldn’t they be recorded and evaluated in some way so as not to waste the opportunity?
So there are a few issues here:
- The recording of the idea itself.
- Exposing the idea to several view points and tweaking accordingly.
- Evaluating the tweaked idea.
- Creating plans around ideas that pass evaluation.
- Implementing the plan.
- A Wiki.
- Closed membership – Max. 200.
- A page for a new idea.
- 51% of idea owned by originator and 49% by Wikubator.
This is my first stab at the Wikubator concept. You got an idea on how to improve it or of a better way of doing this, let me know.
Hi Ant,
I like this idea a lot. I’m constantly having ideas that might be handy online apps and Im sure many more are too.
In a similar vein, I’ve been attempting to write down the some of the ideas I have in a weekly blog post. Readers can comment on them which might lead to something interesting or run off with them if they like. My thoughts are they’re probably better out there than floating around my head, assuming they’re any use at all.
Im unsure how’d I’d feel about paying for membership though. Would paying for it lead it off on a tangent?
Gordon
Thanks for the excellent comment on my blog post. In fact I have been following your ideas for a while via RSS.
I think we are both talking along the same lines. An Idea is better off out in the public domain (or semi-public) where it can possible grow into something more. Often the people who have ideas are too busy to exploit them, and this is a crying shame.
With the Wikubator, I think that we have the potential to record ideas but also, we can motivate the members to contribute to and hone the same ideas.
As for the investment – In the interest of brevity, I left out a lot of detail on my post. But it could be possible to have the Wikubator act as a sort of VC, where the majority members could choose to partially fund an idea’s further development. At this stage it starts to grow legs, so I will leave it at that for the time being.
I expect that if an idea such as this is presented in as simple terms as possible, it has a better chance of stimulating others to get excited about it.
Ant
Hi Ant,
Im all for keeping it simple. Are Wikis the right way to go? I’ve often heard of people that find Wikis hard to edit.
Would a forum or perhaps even a chat room at certain times be suitable? The forum allows for identifying users and threads and the Chat room allows for free flowing conversations which could produce more ideas.
Gordon.
Valid Point Gordon. I have in the past been skeptical about the usability of Wiki’s as well. It was Tom Raftery’s Web 2.0 presentation (available at http://blog.itcork.ie/web-20-toolset-presentation-video/) that made me aware of the use of Wiki’s for organising people/events etc…
He made a compelling argument for Wikis. One thing, read my comment on the post first. Its a long vid!
Yup. I watched that video and I was annoyed that I hadn’t heard about it in advance to attend. I joined IT@Cork as a result to avoid the same happening in the future.
As well as a forum or chat room mentioned above, a blog might also be useful. People are quite familiar with commenting on Blogs, possibly more so than registering and participating with a forum.
I guess it depends on the type of people you are trying to attract. I imagine thatmMostly, it will be people trying to benefit from the ideas more than people proposing ideas.
In a sort of X-Factor kind of way, could people register on a site to allow them to write blog post explaining their idea on a site that people will comment on?
“it will be people trying to benefit from the ideas more than people proposing ideas.”
Agreed. But given that successful ideas usually need more than one contributor to bring them to fruition, this should be a good thing.
As for the medium itself, I think it could well be a combination of Wiki/Blog, with some specific functionality highlighting New or Hot ideas. Also, along the lines of MyFootBallClub.co.uk, the users need to be able to give opinions in a friendly way, via polls for example.
Key to the proposal, in my mind, is that it should be a closed community with a finite size. The effort of the idea originators and contributors needs to be rewarded. Or at least know that there is the potential for reward.
[...] tried to describe a sharing approach to business ideas a few months back with my post on the Wikubator : A community for the evaluating, improving and exploiting business [...]