Do you ever think about writing that book? The ‘one’, it’s claimed, we have inside of us all.

Being, in the parlance of creative uber-agency Ideo, ‘A T-Shaped Cross Pollinator’ I have many diverse areas of interests, which I endlessly try to mould or mash together to create a singular view of the world. A little like the intellectual equivalent of a ‘plate-spinning’ act, topics are only kept aloft by a giving them fresh impetus like a deft flick of the wrist.   

My latest flight of imagination is to combine the philosophy inherent in the writings of Marcel Proust - see Alain de Button’s indispensable  ‘How Proust Can Change Your Life’, the best non-self-help help book, ever - with looking at the seismic impact the Internet has had on society as related through the lens of my personal experience. 

I’m pretty sure that Proust, had he been alive today, would have been an obsessive user of the Internet, being especially attracted to the mesmerizing effects of social media. He famously read newspapers from front to back, page by page, taking in, and being taken-in by all of it’s content, right down to the classifieds. Real time News website would no doubt hold for him the same satisfaction.

When occasion demanded it, he would also read the train timetable, as a way of relieving a sleepless night. Not that the reclusive Proust travelled much, having decided to spend much of the last decade of his life in bed, obsessively writing his seven volumes of A la recherce, but rather he could imagine life going on in the towns and villages mentioned in the pages of the aforementioned timetable. 

Perhaps the next time you fall victim to a bout of insomnia - we in the West now average just 6 hours of sleep-a-night - you might like to imagine, with a nod to Proust, what lives are being lived behind the names that make up your twitter following, or the people that stare out from your LinkedIn network. As Proust used the timetable to incite his imagination to create a world behind the numbers, so we can make our virtual networks more real, if only in our imaginations. 

So what about this book I should write? The one bubbling-up with in me. As a jumping off point I can easily imagine Proust transposed to modern day Paris, sat up in his still too narrow bed,  absorbed in the quiet of his ozone-free triple-glazed room, with laptop open, dispensing advice via twitter and IM, having spent the last hour looking-up old acquaintances on Facebook.

Would we, however, catch him from time to time, staring into space, dreaming of a less complicated, less connected age before the advent of the Net. Or would he, like billions of us today, embrace the  opportunity to dream about creating new lives online and having that sense of time regained. 

Perhaps my book, should I ever get to write it, will go some way to answering that very question.

Working in the ‘ideas industry- per se - you get attuned to seeing ideas everywhere.

Which is of course true. Except you don’t really see an idea, you rather feel it. You can of course visualise an idea, which is a different kettle of fish. But in their raw, abstract, mushy state, ideas remain to a degree undefinable.

If through the course of communicating your ‘idea’ you have to put it into words, you are doing so through the medium of language. Now, not all ideas can be described using either spoken or written language, or if attempted, may loose something in the translation. The same holds true if you choose the visualisation route.

Having to communicate an idea means we have to really think about what makes it an idea, and what will make sense to others when we then go on to describe it.

Some complex ideas are sometimes best described by using an analogy. Or alternatively, some ideas are discovered by observing another phenomenon that illuminates a new idea. I’m thinking here of Einstein standing at a fixed point with trams whizzing pass him, and the insight that gave him with his theory of time and relativity.

If you are getting my drift, ideas are tricky customers. They are not always easy to identify, describe and actualize, but nevertheless remain singularly (arguably) the most important ‘gift’ we can give to the wider world.

For every good idea there’s ever been (and likely to be) there’s a bad one standing alongside it. All that Ying &Yang stuff, darkness and light. One spawns the other.

I’m just about to embark on Peter Watson’s latest door-stop of a book ‘The German Genius’ http://amzn.to/b5z8du Reading the introduction I came across this interesting fact. Up to the mid-1930’s nearly half of all Nobel prize winners were German. It doesn’t take us long to figure out the significance of that fact, and what happened in Germany during the decade after the mid-1930s. Centuries of genius can be overshadowed by a decade, or so of, well, dark, dark, dark, ideas. The German Genius is still recovering today.  

As an antidote to such dark musings, elsewhere in the book, I came across a quote that also encapsulated the notion of genius being a freelance occupation:

“The Allies won the war because our German scientists were better than their German scientists”.

As I am often heard to say, “A good ideas can come from anyone and anywhere”.

Just make it a ‘good’ one.

I was asked to write a post for the recently launched www.propeagle.com webiste. Focusing on commercial property, in all its glory, Propeagle, offers anyone working in that space the opportunity to connect, inform and generally hang-out.

I took as my theme the word ‘space’, and applied it to the concept of ‘property’ and ‘ideas’.

Here’s what I wrote…

If you work in and around commercial property you’ll be familiar with the concept of ‘space’.  You’re often in a position to measure it, visualise it, monetize it and then sell or let it. Space can be, and often is a commodity.

Hold that notion for a moment and then apply the world space to ‘ideas’. Ideas similarly occupy spaces, which likewise can be measured, visualised, etc. And increasingly in today’s connected world, idea-spaces are traded in a similar way to the physical spaces you deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Propeagle represents a new ideas-space for the world of commercial property.

With advances in cognitive science research, and the ubiquitous rise of the Internet, it appears that we increasingly make sense of the world through recourse to a vast array of culturally and socially embed ideas-spaces.  The classification and identification of these ideas-spaces is perhaps best represented by that idea-space, par excellence, Wikipedia, which is its self a product of the rapidly expanding social media revolution and its goals of greater participation and greater connectivity.

And there-in lays the key for us all. Namely, having the ability to connect with and synthesise a  vast array of knowledge (contained in countless idea-spaces) that we now all have access to.

For those involved in, or seeking to innovate their business – and let’s face it, we’re all at threat from being left obsolescent - any crucial breakthrough is likely to come from the combining of distinct idea spaces into new products or services.

It is no coincidence that the ‘mash-up’ has become the default model for today’s breakthrough products. Take Facebook, for example, which took the decades-old concept of the ‘Yearbook’ beloved by generations of US students and combined it with another ideas-space occupied by computing geeks focused on creating increased use of the web as a social tool, whose potential was first witnessed during the early days of Napster.

The mobile phone application, Foursquare, combines the principles of satnav with social networking and a rewards mechanism; all underpinned by an open source approach to developing the service.

Often, the new idea-space that’s created leads to such fundamental changes in perspective that the old ways of doing things suddenly looks, well, old. The music industry is a prime example, and for my money, recruitment is going the same way.

Which leads me on to (or back) to the commercial property space. Which of its existing idea spaces, when combined with new, imaginative insights, will come to the forefront and make a huge difference in how business is done?

Changes are already underway, and perhaps seem so incremental as to appear un-noticed  and therefore routine.  But the rise of Facebook (and the age group now referred to as the Facebook generation), Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr are all making inroads into how business is being conducted. And characterised as being less formal, and more transparent.

A new generation of sites, such as this one, PropEagle, seeks to take the best of these new ways of doing business and combine them with the kind of breakthrough ideas that are only likely to appear through facilitating the connection of limitless day-to-day conversations. When this starts to happen it’s as if the space of ideas thinks for us. 

And that’s when you get smart space. The kind of space we all want to be part of.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to draw to your attention to the ever-so good 2007 white paper on  ’The Value of Openess in Scientific Problem Solving’ by Karim R Lakhani, Lars Bo Jeppesen, Peter A. Lohse & Jill A. Panetta  http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-050.pdf

With insights and gems-galore for the open innovation-minded amongst us, the authors present a compelling case for ‘the value of being open’ - with all that that phrase implies.

Broadcast Search

The term they employ, ‘broadcast search’, is used to describe the open approach to information sharing and problem solving that should be, but most times isn’t, the norm within the scientific community. But there in lies a dilemma. When it comes to solving scientific challenges, it’s best not to only ask scientists to participate.

The beauty of knowledge transference

Karim Lakhani, et al, discovered that “the further the focal problem was from a solver’s field of expertise, the more likely they were to solve it.” This implies that knowledge transference, from one field to another, is desirable, if not mandatory, if you are to achieve breakthrough solutions.

Other people’s motivations

However, to create the right open environment where a breakthrough solution is even a possibility, you are still going to have to overcome resistance in the form of other peoples personal motivations. Ring fencing career opportunities, financing concerns and intellectual property ownership are but a few of the barriers in the way of openess becoming more widespread.

I urge you to read this commendable white paper, as it really does get you all excited about the possibilities of what can be achieved through open innovation.

What’s not in it for me

What the paper also highlights is the vested interest in at least slowing ‘opens’ progress. It would never do, would it, to solve some of those big challenges, when there’s a living to be had from always being one step away from cracking them.

We’ve been amazed  by the coverage afforded to of our latest crowdsourcing project with long-time partner, The Royal College of Nursing.

It’s good to see that industry talking shop Dailycrowdsource… 

http://dailycrowdsource.com/2010/10/14/lifestyle/productivity/royal-college-of-nursing-uses-crowdsourcing-to-improve-customer-care/ 

…has its ever-ready, crowdsourced ear to the ground, along with a number of other industry insiders. http://reputationonline.co.uk/2010/10/06/royal-college-of-nursing-also-turns-to-crowdsourcing/

We’ve decided to publish the release in full, as it succinctly puts across the message of the campaign, and it’s importance to RCN, so much better than anything I could cobble together. So here goes…

ROYAL COLLEGE OF NURSING TURNS TO CROWDSOURCING AS PART OF CUSTOMER SERVICE OVERHAUL

In the run up to this year’s National Customer Services Week (October 4 – 10), membership organisation The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is today announcing the launch of its new crowdsourcing microsite, designed to engage staff in the development of an improved customer service strategy.

The microsite, which will be based upon the Crowdworks crowdsourcing platform, will be accessible to all RCN employees and offer RCN management the opportunity to engage with staff across the UK to come up with new ideas to improve the organisation’s offering to its customers. Designed to facilitate a collaborative approach to ideas generation, the CrowdWorks microsite will enable users to donate, vote, discuss and collaborate on any of the ideas and suggestions contributed by the community.

The crowdsourcing micrositewill be live throughout October with ideas generated used to form part of the RCN’s new customer services action plan, due to be published by the end of the year.

Matthew Batten, customer service project manager at RCN, explains: “As a recently certified member of the Institute of Customer Service, it’s important to RCN to thoroughly scrutinise its customer service offering and look at innovative ways to maintain a continued performance improvement strategy.

“Crowdsourcing represents an extremely cost effective way for RCN to benchmark itself against key performance indicators and ensure all staff, from contact centre agents on the front line of customer service provision to management personnel, the opportunity to have their views heard and judged upon individual merits. We’ve used Crowdworks previously for a HR function and recognised some genuinely tangible benefits. I’m hoping our second experience of crowdsourcing will also encourage an atmosphere of best practice and ideas submitted will once again snowball into ideas implemented.”

Nick Wright, founder of Hubbubideas the creators of the Crowdworks platform, comments: “To truly obtain ideas and insight from the frontline – which can then be channelled into targeted training for instance –RCN required a suitable forum for the debate to take place. Because of the size and structure of RCN, traditional consultations or surveys would have proved time, resource and cost intensive.

“RCN is a forward thinking organisation that recognises the benefits of harnessing social media and crowdsourcing to engage with staff on a large scale for the betterment of its customer experience standards. The team at Crowdworks is delighted to be helping RCN to achieve this and I’m confident that the action plan produced, and subsequent improved service levels, will be hailed a triumph by all involved.”

Over the last few days I’ve watched the much reported presentation that Chris Anderson gave at TED this year on ‘Crowd Accelerated Innovation’ http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html

We are entering an age of ‘Radical Openess’, and we can evidence this the world over, as we see the results of people who are ‘learning’ something new from others, via videos posted on Youtube. Actually, that should learning, improving upon (innovating) and then, in turn, posting their incremental changes back on to Youtube.

One of the examples the eloquent Mr Anderson uses to support this video-based, didatic phenomenon is that of a six-year old boy filmed doing extraordinary break-dancing moves seemingly way beyond his infant years.

Our ability to view, copy and then innovate relies upon the crowd’s willingness to participate (because of its importance to them), then illuminate whatever it is, by putting their endeavours under the spotlight for all to see; all of which has been motivated by the desire to improve and move their chosen past-time up the next rung of the ladder.

The cycle of show, copy, innovate and share is greatly accelerated as scores of people carry out this process with phenomenal speed. It’s as if they are literally trying to beat the clock by having a new move, a slight variation or upgrade out there, to gain their 5 minutes of reputational glory before the next person out-trumps their triumphs.

Given the attributes of Crowd Accelerated Innovation, and its easy to access ‘show and share’ basis, what are the chances of it being adopted quickly by more conservative minds? Improving upon your break-dance moves may be one thing, but can it find a home in such key areas as new product development and prototyping?

Now the cat is out of the bag, and a growing body of understanding and insight starts to form, the chances are Crowd Accelerated Innovation will start to feature as part of an organisation’s overall innovation strategy. So please take note, and let me know when you come across other examples of its use.

The conversations and engagement around crowdsourcing and open innovation continues to multiply. I recently hooked-up (latched-on) to Stefan Lindegaard’s www.15inno.net site, which provides a running commentary on what’s new, what’s hot and what’s cooking in the world of open innovation.

Shine a light

Also, judging by the content on Stefan’s associated Linkedin page many of those that participate appear to be gently feeling their forward, relying (quite rightly) on the input of the crowd to shine a light on the hidden path ahead. Others, confident in their opinions, act as self-appointed guides, happy to share their experience and any resulting insights.

The kitchen table Mark 2

This kind of discursive approach is everywhere on the Internet, and has become part and parcel of its didactic appeal. Not so very long ago, this opportunity to network, share and learn was confined to the kitchen table and the classroom. The image of a bunch of friends gathered around the kitchen table, deep in conversation, remains an appealing one. The growing importance given over to the ‘living kitchen’ space in our homes, as the hub of family life, coincidentally mirrors the rise of the global conversation hub via the Internet.

Listen-in not listen-up

For many the tone of that conversation remains as important as the content as the substance. As in the rest of our lives, we modulate it according to how ‘forceful’ we want to get our points heard. Generally, we adopt that easy conversational, style, and when we want the world to hear what we’re saying, we choose to do so in engaging tones.

The swapping of thoughts on such as large scale has never been delivered with such lightness of touch before. Encouraged to respond in kind, we’ve accommodated each others desire to appear helpful and reasonable.

The Whispering Gallery re-imagined

When I was but a young lad I came across a startling and provocative  black and white image from the 1930’s, depicting people sitting with their ear firmly pressed to the wall of that architectural gem known as the Whispering Gallery, located high-up in the iconic dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The acoustics are so exceptionally good that a couple situation on opposite sides of the dome can whisper to each other and carry on a conversation at some distance apart. 

We now inhabit the 21st Century version of the Whispering Gallery, ears to the wall, picking-up and emitting snippets of conversations, that circluate around us as if contained by some unseen virtual dome. There’s no need to shout or even raise your voice a little. Just like the real thing, let the ‘dome’ do the work for you.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been on a mission to get V.2 of Crowdworks out of the door for testing, make sure our new website is well underway for an end of October launch, courtesy of our build-partners Snapshot Mediaand answer the growing requests for more information and demos, and make sure, really sure, we service our existing customers. In other words we’ve been busy.

Momentum creates confidence

Being busy can go one of two ways. There’s the sink or swim response, and the wither or thrive, men from the boys reaction. In our case, there’s been a ‘momentum creates confidence’ response.

Confidence is high because across the whole open innovation space, to throw-in yet another resonant metaphor. ‘A rising tide lifts all ships’.

The rising tide of open innovation

The rising tide of open innovation, or crowdsourcing, brings with it a growing confidence in the fact that many of the things we’ve been talking about and throwing out there, are becoming a reality, a fixture on the landscape.

Interest and involvement in crowdsourcing is fast becoming a main stream activity. On the one hand, the media (all media) are churning out daily reports on the latest crowdsourced endeavour, whilst on the other, potential open innovators are in the process of deligently researching the whys and wherefores, prior to jumping into the space and seeing it for themselves. 

Open to new ideas

A cottage industry of open innovation services are jostling for your attention. We, no doubt, come under this banner, but strongly resist the novelty factor, in favour of the kind of hard evidence that clearly show that the crowdsourcing of ideas works, and works well.

“A better way of discovering new ideas”

Our oft cited one-liner ‘a better way of discovering new ideas’ still remains the best way of describing what Crowdworks does. It’s encouraging to know that others are beginning to believe it to be true for them. To complete the third part of the cycle mentioned above, momentum leads to confidence leads to success.

May that also be true of all who beaver away in open innovation, and who genuinely believe that there is now a better way to source and adopt ideas.

When you hear the word ‘crowd’ what image does it conjure up? Is it a vast sea of indistinguishable faces? Or, thousands of people sat on seats cheering on their football team on a Saturday afternoon? We’ve all seen footage of demonstations, where a steady flow of people walk past the camera, united in a common cause and belief.

That common cause and belief is what makes crowds form in the first place. Even seemingly random acts like a ‘flash dance’ has been organised around a common theme even if it tries to appear a spontaneous act.

We are at heart, deeply social beings

Online, we gravitate between crowds populated by people we ‘know’ and those that largely remain anonymous. Over the years psychologists have created tests to show that even when we find ourselves in anonymous situations, amongst complete strangers, there is still a deep rooted feeling that we are all still connected to society as a whole, and therefore abide by society’s rules of acceptable behaviour.

Crowdsourcing’s decent pursuits

I’m often asked why anarchy doesn’t breakout within crowdsourcing. The answer is to be found in that very fact, that we are all members of a larger society, whose rules of decency we uphold regardless of the situation.

Crowdsourcing the movie

Films and books dealing with shipwrecks, desert islands and stranded groups all play on the fact that the survivors seek to maintain standards of decent behaviour even when they find themselves cut off from larger society they want to escape back to.There’s usually one amongst the group who seeks to undermine the rest - usually for personal gain - and ends up either being banished or even killed by the group. One bad apple, and all that.

The upshot of all this is that a crowd can from a distance look and act as if its disparate, but actually underneath there’s always a common thread of ’togetherness’ which naturally occurs in the very fabric of the crowd.

The other genre of movie, that’s as formulaic as the the ‘shipwreck’ variety, is the ‘disaster’ movie. Some kind of earth shattering catastrophe throws a group of status ridden strangers together, who quickly bury their differences, and heroically go on and find ways to overcome insurmountable obstacles, to then finally triumph at the end. Along the way a few heroic members of this hastily assembled crowd unselfishly lay down their life to help complete strangers - who have now become firm buddies- to survive.

Society the biggest benefactor

Such is life in the movies, and such is the lot of those drawn to crowdsourcing. We’ve not, thank goodness, lost anyone yet, but have at times overcome seemingly intractable obstacles to go on and triumph at the close. And the biggest benefactor of all this, often selfless activity, has to be society itself. But then again, that’s why we get involved in the first place.

When things start to pick-up we feel more confident, both in ourselves and in our surroundings. So much of feeling good is wrapped-up in having a sense of motion, of going forward, powered by a growing, collective energy we can plug into.

This train of thought occurred to me early this morning when walking my 8-month old Lurcher puppy, Lola. A puppy is unbounded energy on 4 legs. And Lola’s enthusiasm to engage with the outside world literally propels both her and me forward; with me hanging onto her lead like some demented rider whisked along by the power of the peloton.

Ideas, people and crowds often act in the same way. The amount of energy an expectant, restless crowd emits provides sufficient propulsion to draw new people in. The larger the crowd, the greater the energy. Latching on to this power source, people are swept along - like your happless puppy owner - on a tide of ideas and creativity, that takes you from source to realisation.

A new found confidence then ensues. This unshakable confidence comes from a collective belief in the crowd’s ability to find solutions to whatever challenges are thrown its way. “Bring it on”, it collectively murmurs “We can cope”. So to complete the sequence, momentum leads to confidence, leads to success.

Lola’s constant supply of unfettered enthusiasm is the kind of energy I need when faced by the rising tide of crowdsourcing, and its unstoppable momentum. If only I could get her to sit at the curb, then we’d both be on a winning roll.