Blogs for idea mining
By Diogo Lemos Pereira on Tue, 9 May 2006, at 16:00 , in Ideas, Reflections, Blogging, Innovation
A reverse approach to one of our main pillars here at the VCN - collborative business idea development through a trustable community - is introduced by Dorai’s LearnLog, in Blogs for Idea Mining.
Blogs are a great source of ideas. Some of the bloggers are the smartest people I know. They comment about products. They track trends. They predict future products. They compare and categorize. And they share it all free.
Yes, you can track new trends via blogs. In fact, if you watch carefully, most innovations end up coming out out sooner in the blogosphere than in traditional media. (The veracity and accuracy of what's reported in the blogosphere is another, hotly-debated theme).
For those that believe this kind of mining to be unethical because blogs are in nature "personal web logs", "private thoughts" of a blogger that souldn't be mined, think again: blogs are starting to be used for business in all sectors, the very same businesses that now are starting to understand the influence of the blogosphere and therefore starting to mine personal and corporate blogs for ideas and trends.
This same line of thinking is behind the rationale for the VCN. How do you see it?
I think if people want to keep their ideas private, they can use private blogs. When they start sharing their ideas in public blogs, they probably want to share it.
I maintain a private idealog. I share some of those ideas. It is not because I do not want to share the others, but I do not feel that they are well thought out. But I expect anything idea I write about is fair game for anyone else to use.
There is a bit of twist. I am not suggesting that you simply take other people’s ideas. Normally ideas trigger other ideas (a kind of chain reaction) and some times you combine some ideas with others.
We can all benefit from the experience of people on what works and what does not. That is the great thing about blogosphere. Product managers explain the rationale for their design decisions. You can always learn from the experience they went through.
Thank you for mentioning my blog.
Dorai,
Your point is well made on the collaborative nature of the blogosphere, and I agree.
One of the pillars here at the VCN is to collaboratively maintain a group idealog, rather similar to your I guess. Hence the semi-private nature of the VCN - each blogger chooses to either put out his thoughts to the world or to spark a private discussion until the point where one chooses to share it, either because it is thought out well enough or because it is simply one of those ideas that want to get out.
From that point onwards, it is as you say: anything you share is fair game for others to use. So there is a period for group discussion of the idea where the chain reaction happens privately within the group, and a period for public sharing and chain reaction.
I haven’t seen any similar blogs out there yet, how do you see it?
Thanks for the comment. We’re still launching the blog but your Dorai’s Learnlog seems to be a good candidate for our yet-to-be-born blogroll.
Diogo,
Your vcn sounds fascinating. Can any one join?
I have seen some ideas floating around about idea logs. I will collect a set of links and post on my blog. Danny Ayers had a post on a micro model for ideas. I was looking at an XML schema for ideas (may be a Microformat is better).
Creating an XML format for idealog
some type of description
my habit of keeping an idea log
Danny Ayer’s idea of a micromodel of ideas
ideas in the list
a list of tags
You can have other elements of etc. Or if you want to make it more formal, add some of the dublin-core meta data elements.
– Dorai
Dorai,
The aim is to create an environment where both private idea discussion can take place as well as public discussion. For the purpose of keeping some conversations private joining is not public - but anyone can participate in the public discussions.
So this is not a standard blog; it’s a community with a blog.
I hope this doesn’t sound too elitist, it’s a crucial requirement to enable those private collaborative discussions and to create a trustable environment.
How do you see it?
As for the micro-format for ideas, that isn’t a requirement in our case. We’re looking for discussion of ideas rather than structured ideas, and I’m afraid introducing that kind of technicality into the VCN would cripple it rather than help it for now.
Having said that, I’m personally interested in micro-formats so I’ll keep track of what you’re up to through your blog.
I understand. I think it is a great idea to have a community combined with blogs, some private, some public. The discussion capabilities of blogs is not all that great now. Now, there is an idea.
I agree that structured formats are too early for something like this.
Dorai,
Please let us know your input on the VCN as we go along this Beta Trial Stage open to everyone. Much luck with your blog, we’ll keep an eye on it.