Brainswarming will become an online platform for use with remote groups. The next step in true human-machine collaboration in problem-solving is upon us.

Here are some of the benefits we can leverage from Online Brainswarming.

• It is difficult to get a global company/organization on the same conference call let alone around the same table. With Brainswarming, simply post a graph with a problem and have people contribute to the graph. Post a problem graph at night and wake up the next morning to see what your colleagues in Paris contributed to it--and then you can contribute more.

• No more long lists of ideas that can easily be forgotten. A online Brainswarming graph keeps track of a visual history of the problem solving activity in a structured manner so nothing is forgotten and the graph gives it a place.

• For best results, contributions need to be succinct. In person, the size of a Post-It notes limits the text. Online, perhaps a 140 character limit will enforce brevity. This reduces reading time, keeps the graph from unnecessary clutter, and encourages what Michael Nielsen calls microcontributions (in his book "Reinventing Discovery"). He found that microcontributions correlated with more effective group work.
  

• In the online version, software will offer nuanced variations of a contribution that may lead to an insight. For example, for a real problem we solved "adhere a coating to Teflon," our software offered new ways to phrase the goal such as "attach layers" which moved us away from chemical solutions implied by the verb "adhere" and toward a novel magnetic solution.
  

• In the online version, software will run in the background to suggest connections, unearth unnoticed assumptions, and uncover overlooked features of the problem. Because any innovation is built upon at least one commonly overlooked (i.e., obscure) feature of the problem (from my dissertation work), I have devised many automatic ways to reveal the obscure (which tend to be overlooked). Disclosing more of the obscure leads to more innovation or, as I like to say, innovation is putting the obscure to useful work.
  

Contact me for more discussion: tony@innovationaccelerator.com

Brainswarming produces many more ideas than brainstorming, as described in the Harvard Business Review's video.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/why-you-should-stop-brainstorming/

But Brainswarming is also a prize-winning educational game, awarded by BigLeap.org: http://www.bigleap.org/challenge/games-that-make-kids-smarter/?action=winners

Perhaps, your business would benefit from a little gaming, a little friendly competition added to your collaboration.

Here's how to play.

Divide into teams. As contributions are added to the graph (figure comes from HBR's video), one point is awarded for each contribution. If a contribution ends up being in a solution path (connects the graph bottom to the top), then that contribution receives an additional 4 points.

For example, the team that made the entry "Heat Outside Lines" in the graph above received 1 point when it was first placed on the graph. But now, that entry is part of a solution (which includes "Extra Wire," "Carry electricity to outside of line," and "Warm Lines"), so the team that contributed it receives an additional 4 points. If an entry is part of multiple solution paths (e.g., "helicopter" is part of two solutions), then the team that made the contribution receives 4 points for each solution it is part of.

I am open to hearing other ideas for point values and rules. Also, I have more information I can send you.

Just contact me at tony@innovationaccelerator.com. Thanks!