[maemo-community] Brainstorm: useful?

Tue Dec 15 13:24:20 EET 2009

Well said Andrew...

On Tue, 2009-12-15 at 10:36 +0000, Andrew Flegg wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:16, Quim Gil <quim.gil at nokia.com> wrote:
> > Currently the Brainstorm forum has [...]
> >
> > Threads: 107 | Posts: 1,463
> >
> > Yes, there are mailing lists that can afford such traffic and much more,
> > there are good filtering tactics, and etc. All this tends to a setting
> > where a very engaged and qualified minority can handle well the process,
> > leaving all the rest outside.
> 
> OK, there is a *perceived* higher barrier to entry for a mailing list;
> but vBulletin doesn't allow sub-threads, for example. Isn't an engaged
> and QUALIFIED minority better than a vocal, superficial, unqualified
> public?
For technical subjects this is a good point.
For some areas though you do need to listen to the great-unwashed ;)

> Anyway, even Talk would be better than Brainstorm. My problem is that
> trying to brainstorm for an undefined period of time,
Hmm we should make more of this - timeboxing a brainstorm is crucial.

> presenting some
> half-baked solutions for voting on and then splitting the votes
> because the solutions aren't orthogonal isn't going to produce a good
> outcome.
Agreed - most effective brainstorming is followed by discarding bad
ideas and consolidating the results. That takes time and effort.

>  Unless whomever implements the solution takes Brainstorm as
> "guidance". But it's pitched as a community solution provider, not a
> community's way for everyone to have a say which then feeds into the
> people who actually know what they're talking about.
If someone wanted a "keep the masses happy by giving them a notional
place to feel they are contributing" then the Brainstorm would be one
way to do it...

.... IMO to transform it into an effective comms tool it then needs
even-handed(!) analysis and response.... maybe consider a similar
process to the Bug-Jar?

If we solicit ideas from the community then they should be acted upon
somehow... we have a bug-master ... do we need a storm-master?

David