Innovation via Human Computation

This chapter considers the means by which many people can work together to generate new ideas that have practical value. A familiar example of such a process is “brainstorming”, where people build off of each other’s ideas. Network technology and social collaboration have allowed us to improve traditional brainstorming so that more people can contribute ideas and work together more effectively irrespective of time asynchronicity or geographical distance. This chapter describes the techniques we have found to be instrumental for achieving innovation on an organizational scale.