online social networks as a catalyst for software and it innovation
DESCRIPTION
People have many creative ideas, but only a few of these ideas are realized and lead to innovation. Good ideas often fail because they are not shared between innovators and stakeholders, hence are unlikely to be realized. Consequently, many opportunities are missed to excite customers and to gain a competitive advantage. This paper proposes an innovation process that uses online social networks to lower the hurdle to sharing ideas. The process leverages diffusion effects of social networks while supporting the generation, evaluation, consolidation, and implementation of innovative ideas with lightweight activities. The process is illustrated and discussed using an application example. Although we are focusing on innovation regarding software-intensive systems, we foresee that the discussed process has the potential to be applied to other domains as well.TRANSCRIPT
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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