Everywhere I turn, I run into ideas about the future of mobile:
- ideas about new or improved mobile applications, services, tools, devices, experiences, alliances…
People frequently seek my support for their suggestions on all aspects of the future of mobile technology, the future of the mobile industry, and the future of Symbian. “Why doesn’t Symbian invest some time and money to improve such-and-such…” they ask. “Surely you agree it’s a good idea?”
There are big limitations in my own personal ability to discern the most significant and deserving of this rich brew of ideas. Happily, help is at hand, via the evaluative skills of the Symbian community as a whole. Indeed, it’s a core part of my job, not only to encourage and support the Symbian community to propose ideas, but to encourage and support the Symbian community to collectively review and prioritise ideas.
We are using the site ideas.symbian.org for this purpose. This site is being developed as a place where people can:
- Propose and assess ideas about Symbian (technology, services, strategy, initiatives…);
- Weigh up the community’s best thinking about Symbian;
- Guide Symbian management in decision making;
- Establish reputations as leading thinkers about Symbian;
- Participate in Symbian’s philosophy of Open Management.
As you can see for yourselves, the site still has some rough edges. But it already contains (to my mind) an intriguing set of ideas. If we get the design right, I expect that the site will attract regular visits and contributions from participants who cover the entire mobile value chain – including end users, analysts, researchers, designers, developers, and employees from companies both inside and outside the Symbian Foundation.
Ideas progress through stages
A key aspect of the design of ideas.symbian.org is that ideas pass through stages.
Usually, an idea starts in Stage 1 – “Seeking support” (also called “Being defined”). Other people viewing the site are able to comment on that idea, and cast votes either in favour or against it. They can also comment on previous comments made against the idea. In this way, good ideas spark useful discussion. To make cases for or against ideas, people can provide links to research data and other market findings.
To progress to the next stage, the idea must
- Have received a certain number of “page views”
- Have generated a certain amount of discussion
- Have sufficient approval votes and not too many negative votes
- Be approved by at least one designated Expert in the category applicable to that idea
- Be complete and clear enough (administrator’s & expert’s judgement).
In some occasions, the relevant category expert may instead decide that the idea, as proposed, is insufficiently actionable. The “idea” may simply be saying, “something needs to be done about problem A or opportunity B”. That can still be a good topic for discussion, but it’s not ready to receive votes and progress higher up the ladder of stages. In that case, the idea can be demoted to stage 0. It can come back to stage 1 once a specific concrete idea has emerged.
(Aside: In the current implementation of the ideas site, there isn’t a formal “Stage 0″. Instead, there’s a separate notion of “discussion threads” for topics that aren’t yet ready to be progressed. People can still cast votes in these threads, but in this case the votes indicate whether they find the topic interesting or uninteresting.)
Stage 2: Finding a producer
Deciding that an idea has sufficient merit is the business of Stage 1 discussions. Stage 2 discussions are different.
By this time, the idea is clear and well understood, but nobody has stepped forward to make it happen. Discussion now revolves less around the idea itself and more around how to find someone to take it forward and get it implemented (the “Producer”).
This may also mean that the idea is changed to make it more attractive to a Producer. In some cases this may change the idea beyond the originator’s intention – this should be discussed between the originator and the producer, but ultimately the decision lies with the producer (who is, after all, the person or organisation who will be putting the work into implementing it).
In some cases, the producer will be an employee of the Symbian Foundation, and the idea will be implemented as a project (large or small) inside the Symbian Foundation. However, in other cases, a producer will emerge from the community at large. He or she will say: “this is a good idea – I will make it happen”. And the resources used during implementation may come from far and wide:
- Established companies;
- New companies;
- Open source projects involving developers with some free time available;
- University research projects.
Finding gems
The ideas site supports many ways of viewing the different ideas it contains. The “view all ideas” page allows viewers to list ideas by modification date, post (origination) date, popularity, author, and so on. Further, it allows filtering of ideas – by category, by stage, etc.
For example, this filter lists all ideas that are currently in “Finding a producer” stage. I urge you to take a look! At the time of writing, there are 30 such ideas to consider.
Of course, it’s not just in the “well trodden path” of Stage 2 ideas where you can find starting points to set your own thoughts racing. There are (at time of writing) some 145 ideas in Stage 1. Some of these are, in my view, unduly neglected. It’s well worth dipping into these lesser visited parts of the site. There are some gems of ideas waiting to be unearthed and developed.
Footnote: Implementing the ideas site
Symbian’s ideas site is provided by Spigit – a general purpose social networking tool for idea and innovation management. You can read more about Spigit from their website, which is well worth browsing. Spigit’s offerings contain many features, suited to different contexts. Symbian is still in the process of choosing and customising which of these features we want to be prominent on our ideas site. We even have a category of ideas reserved for suggesting improvements in the implementation of the site itself: “Operation of this website“.
For the time being, the Symbian ideas site is open to general viewing, without need of user registration. However, if you want to vote, comment, or raise an idea of your own, you’ll need a formal login. Anyone who is already part of the site can invite you to join (they do this via the “Invite” button in their “My profile” page on the site). If you’d like me to drop you an invite, let me know your email address (for example, you can DM me on twitter). I look forward to seeing your own ideas, and your comments on other people’s ideas. Most of all, I look forward to seeing a blossoming and productive matchmaking between ideas originators and ideas producers.
