How Online Discussions Produce Good Ideas

• In Event: 3450 - Evaluating People, Work, and Organizations

Abstract

Research on the evaluation of ideas in formal organizations has focused on long-term processes of evaluation and reputation building. Increasingly, firms have used Intranets to sponsor intense, time-limited, despatialized efforts to engender new ideas and creative thinking. It is unclear to what extent theories based on long-term processes apply to such online settings. We analyze data from one of the earliest and most influential of these -- IBM's 2004 World Jam, a companywide discussion aimed at producing innovative solutions to global challenges. We ask what distinguished the 282 ideas selected for further investigation and investment by an IBM executive team from the 30,718 that were not selected. Drawing on a range of theories, as well as intuitions based on intensive reading of the posts, this preliminary report explores the impact of stylistic features, poster identities, and topical focus on the odds that posts were acknowledged as "big ideas."

Authors

• Paul J. DiMaggio, New York University

• Clark Bernier, Princeton University