IdeaIncubator

A place for ideas people to capture, incubate and develop and share their ideas. 

proposed by Anh.  Note:  I don't know how to code, but if you're a hacker and want some micro managing then you know who to call!(seriously, I'll be keen to get this made as it'll be super useful, I'm not a micromanager. much. serious).

The Idea in a Nutshell

It's a webapp to let people collect, develop and manage their ideas.  I really believe that ideas only get better if you work on them - it's an iterative cycle.  What I'd like to hack together is some app that let's anyone record their ideas, let them sit for a while and then go back and improve them slightly.  I'd like to be able score all my ideas with some criteria then visualise my ideas to find patterns and alignment with long term goals and value.  Oh and I'd like to be able to share my ideas for critique to make them the best they can be.

The Nitty Gritty

So everyone has a profile where they can submit ideas.  Let's imagine that we use projects as a logical container for ideas - so each person can create a number of projects, each with a number of ideas.

Each idea can consist of a number of parts.  Maybe a summary, the detail, research, etc.  It's just a place where you can develop an idea (or not).  Where it becomes interesting is providing the idea with various metadata. 

• Stage - how far developed is the idea.  Ideas should only have one stage and this could be something like Initial Idea - Feasability - Developed - Ready.  Whatever, doesn't really matter - what matters is that you can segment your ideas between those that are ready to be implemented, those that need work, those that need other stuff, etc.
• Criteria - How do you rate your idea.  Initially all ideas could be scored on three criteria: How WILLING you are to execute, how ABLE you are and what IMPACT this will have (e.g. if you did this idea, how much does it align to what you really want to do long term).
• Tags - for grouping ideas across projects.

So as you come up with a new idea you create a new entry in your project.  If you're inspired you'd think about it a little more, write some things down, do a little research (all captured in the idea page), if you're not, then you leave - safe in the knowledge that the idea has been captured.

Because we've taken some metadata, we can make some interesting visualisations.  Imagine taking all your ideas and plotting them on a bubble chart.  x=willing y=able z =impact.  Now you have a pretty picture that is very insightful.  You know to discard "flights of fancy" (high willing, low impact), find the expertise to create the idea that changes everything (High willing, high impact, low ability),quit the things that don't matter (low willing, low impact, high able) or stick to things that do (low willing, high impact).

The apps power is in providing you with a framework to develop your ideas and a way for you to determine what you should be working on.  

Now make it easy to submit and manage ideas to a project (i.e. via email), from multiple sources, then you've turned the app into a crowdsource brainstorming app.  Add moderation, custom criteria, digg like voting for ideas and better analytics and you've just given every organisational change consultant a massive wet dream (I.e. you've created an app that allows employees to crowdsource ideas for their company, vote on the most popular and allowed management to critically assess and visualise ideas to implement)

Next Steps?

If you're keen, lets develop this idea and hack together a prototype - make your mark here!  I can't offer any programming help but I have a knack for making things better!