S O F T W A R E
E N G I N E E R I N G
September 5th 20114th International Workshop on Social Software Engineering
Leif Singer | [email protected] | @lsinger
Norbert Seyff | [email protected]
Samuel A. Fricker | [email protected] | @samuelfricker
Online Social Networksas a Catalyst for Software and IT Innovation
Agenda
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Platforms for Innovation
Requirements for an Innovation Process
Literature Review
An Innovation Process forOnline Social Networks
Platforms for Innovation
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“the average U.S. employee's ideas, big or small, are implemented only once every six years”
“more innovative companies typically implement far more employee ideas”
– Rachel Emma Silverman, WSJhttp://j.mp/sse11-wsj
Platforms for Innovation
• Platforms for Open Innovation, Crowd Sourcing of Innovation, ...– mostly for companies looking to fill a specific gap
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Requirements for an Innovation Process
• Do these platforms work? How? Why?
• What about innovation not tied to a specific business need? – What kind of innovation process could work for these?
➡ Requirements for an Innovation Process– from work on Star Search process– aimed at innovation in software– no problem statement, no pitch!
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Requirements for an Innovation Process
R1: Ideas need to be good
• judging an idea is hardest for the inventor• an innovation process should evaluate idea quality• only the best ideas should persist
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R1Quality
Requirements for an Innovation Process
R2: Ideas need to be shared
• ideas need to reach the right people who can ...– add valuable feedback– pass it on– join forces– support realization
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R2Share
Requirements for an Innovation Process
R3: Ideas need to be combined
• different perspectives add value to ideas– developer vs. user– management vs. marketing vs. engineering
➡ connect related ideas, reveal synergies
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R3Combine
Requirements for an Innovation Process
R4: Ideas need to be well understood
• trade-off: long-term innovation vs. reactive development• ideas at relative disadvantage compared to customer
requirements➡ invest in & enhance ideas that are really understood to lower
risks
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R4Understand
Requirements for an Innovation Process
R5: Ideas need to be selected
• realization requires scarce resources– people, time, financing
• ideas are abundant➡ choose which ideas to fund and implement
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R5Select
Literature Review
Information Diffusion
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Literature Effect on Idea Platform
Process Requirements
Kwak2010:RT reach (not count) independent of followers
ideas may reach very distant people
far reach
Sun2009: “viral” posts originate from multiple users
idea from only one user will not spread
social filtering
R2Share
R1Quality
R5Select
Literature Review
Behavior Adoption
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Literature Effect on Idea Platform
Process Requirements
Burke2009, Centola2010: social reinforcement makes others do the same as their friends (to a certain degree)see also: Sinan Aral
influence behavior of innovators and commenters
motivate sharing,
commenting, voting
R2Share
R5Select
R3Combine
Literature Review
Community Composition
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Literature Effect on Idea Platform
Process Requirements
Roger2005:Ideas spread faster in diverse groupsthought leaders crucial for adoption
heterogenous communities with thought leaders desirable
different perspectives
Kwak2010, Thelwall2009: homophily exists in OSNs
helps in bringing similar people together
similar perspectives
R3Combine
R4Understand
Literature Review
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Information Diffusion
Behavior Adoption
Community Composition
Literature on ...
R4Understand
R5Select
R3Combine
R1Quality
R2Share
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• Have an idea and scribble it down!
... then post it online.
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• Share your idea with your social network!
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• I like your idea!
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• Repost! Reshare! Retweet!
• Sounds interesting, let’s discuss this ...
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• You don’t know me, but I found your idea and I’d like to talk about this ...
• A friend told me about your idea, may I join you?
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• What are our options?
• But what about ...?
• Can we resolve this problem?
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
An Innovation Process for Online Social Networks
• Let’s post this to Kickstarter!
• I know someone who works there ...!
• I was looking for an idea for a startup anyway, may I use this?
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Idea Conception
Idea Publication
Initial Feedback
Idea Communication
Community Building
Idea Refinement
Realization Options
Summary
• understand existing platforms for crowd sourcing of ideas• innovation platform without concrete business needs?
• requirements for an innovation prozess from Star Search– initial literature review: can be supported in OSNs
• initial draft process
• Outlook– experiments in public OSNs– systematic literature review
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