Ideation: The Evolution of Forums

Forums are okay, but only if you get your question answered within a few minutes or see your answer within the first few responses. Otherwise, today's smart-aleck know-it-alls take over and spin the conversation down whatever political or impolite alley they're heading down at the time. Enter Ideation. A more powerful discussion forum that's self-managed and automatically self-improving.

Ideation is a self-improving and moderated forum discussion module. Users are able to pose ideas or questions that are rated on their value by other users. Viewers can then post responses that are also rated, which are ordered highest ranked to the lowest. This rating system develops a user-moderated environment where clutter is minimized, off-topic discussions and irrelevant information is prevented and provides an incentive for users to provide quality questions with quality responses. Because of the rewards gained from having higher ratings, ideation is an incentivizing application of gamification.

In online social communities such as Instagram, YouTube and eBay, ideation is being used whether you realize it or not. Ideation can be applied to any social community to moderate and provide quality user content. When a user is ranked high on eBay, they will be able to buy and sell more goods, due to the gained publicity from a high rating. This rank gives the user a huge incentive to conduct quality business transactions. When you are on YouTube or Instagram, the featured and high rated profiles will be posted on the front page or higher up the list on your searches. In order to get your content viewed by more people, you will need to deliver quality content in order to develop a higher rank.

Scanning each page in a huge forum discussion can be quite irritating and possibly a waste of time. Many of us are looking for a simple answer to a question, but with all the litter scattered throughout the forum you have to spend hours searching for your answer. These forums are packed with off-topic discussions, politics and religion, there are opinions everywhere with little quality information. With an ideation concept applied, users would be able to rate the responses and questions posted. Being able to rate content would hide or even get rid of the poor quality information. The low ranking posts would be pushed to the later pages while the highest ranked posts would be on the first page.

With the capability of reducing clutter and creating an optimal community, ideation can also benefit those who work behind the scenes running the community. Because Ideation is a user-moderated module, the time spent moderating content is greatly reduced. This will reduce the time spent moderating the forums and will increase the time spent on higher priority tasks. The forum's clutter and off-topic discussions are also minimized, leaving only quality topics and discussions for users to enjoy. For an online store or market, reviews and ratings can benefit the higher quality products by promoting them. Products with higher ratings would be featured or recommended to users. Because of the publicity created with a high rank, suppliers will look to sell quality items and provide quality service. On a social networking site, it’s all about connects right? With ideation, those who post things that are rated positively will be suggested to other users. Their content would be placed higher on news feeds and billboards, making them more visible to other users. Ideation can be applied to other aspects in business, or even life. Whether you are rating your teachers online, ranking the fraternities on your campus, or even finding reviews for a neighborhood you are looking to move into, ideation can help find you the quality information you are looking for.

CTA - To learn more about bringing ideation to your website or intranet, contact Clarity or fill out the form below.