Ideas Campaigns

An Alternative to Brainstorming

An ideas campaign is essentially a massive, extended brainstorming session that typically lasts from two to six weeks and can involve hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of participants.

Like a brainstorming session, an ideas campaign has a central issue or problem which participants respond to with their ideas. That issue can be about improving a product, increasing operational efficiency, streamlining logistics or any aspect of your business that could be improved through innovation.

Also, like a brainstorming session, an ideas campaign allows participants to read and build on each others' ideas. Thus good ideas can be built up into great ideas and outrageous ideas can inspire brilliantly creative ideas. Indeed, complete open collaboration between all participants is critical to an effective ideas campaign.

An ideas campaign typically involves a specific population of people, such as...

• The employees of a medium to large company, group of companies or institution
• The customers of a company
• A political constituency
• The general public

At the end of the ideas campaign, or sometimes during the campaign, the best ideas are selected for evaluation.

The ideas campaign model of brainstorming or idea generation is used in some idea management software tools, such as Jenni Idea Management.

By Jeffrey Baumgartner
©2005 Bwiti bvba