Idea Management ...

It began with a question I came across, from a gentleman on linkedin ... This was a question about Idea Management Systems. This was a new one on me. Though, and this is the beauty of the information architecture ... it took me all of 20 seconds to find out more. And what I read was not too impressive. No no ... Dont get me wrong ... Great idea ... Only thing, I didnt know there was a separate name for something which a lot of other things and initiatives which are taught in B-Schools, are supposed to achieve. Or, it is term the invention of an over-zealous software company trying to sell something which is touted as the next big thing?

Though, there is something I see here ... I can see the role social computing can play in this. There are software tools available out there, which are essentially meant for managing the idea generation and validation processes, in a conference-room atmosphere ... Something which is essentially a face to face process, whether it be brainstorming software, or tools for mind-mapping ... Question is ... How can these be deployed in a distributed scenario. Here, when I say distributed, I am talking as much about geographical as well as functional distribution. This is where, to my mind, social computing can play an important role. Tols which are readily available to us today can be cheaply, and easily integrated into the IT infrastructure of the organization.

Though, there is some merit to what I see here. Mind mapping ... Hmmm ... If we were to look at mapping the mind of the crowd ... I think by now you would be on to what I am talking about, and this is just a shade crazy. Mind mapping as a technique has been around for some time now ... What would it take to apply this to the collective mind ... the wisdom of the crowd? I had written about this ... Tools which can be used to mine the voices that are being expressed in the blogosphere (much easier to do in the confines of the corporate intranet, because the range of meanings you would need to look for would be quite limited), and to map the linkages between the different thoughts being expressed by folks out there. Basically, to aggregate the voice being expressed out there?