Should Research be subject of Chapter 2? > We Are Smarter Than Me

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Subject: Should Research be subject of Chapter 2?

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1ofus
Posts:103

11/16/2006 2:29 PM	Alert
I cn see how this came about given the genesis of the authors team. However, putting my corporate hat on, this is immediate TURN OFF! Tells me this is some 'out there' stuff, not practical. I should wait to see it work. So, I would push the Research part in the middle.

joe_flum
Posts:151

11/16/2006 3:12 PM	Alert
But do you agree that it's important to talk about how businesses come up with new ideas?

1ofus
Posts:103

11/16/2006 6:00 PM	Alert
Joe, I would say that it is essential to speak about how busineeses come up with ideas. This i what I put in the Comment re Challenge 2: ------------------------------------------------- QUOTE Challenge 2: How Can Communities Research? How should we use community to define new products, ideas and processes? UNQUOTE Notwithstanding my comment in the Forum for this Chapter, I suggest: What kind of Research does a Community do? How does the focus emerge? What policies and guidance are necessary for the ideas, products and processes to be defined? I would caution that construct "use community to" implies some form of manipulation on the part of an entity outside of it!

hjbarraza
Posts:11

11/16/2006 7:33 PM	Alert
What kind of Research does a Community do? How does the focus emerge? What policies and guidance are necessary for the ideas, products and processes to be defined? I would caution that construct "use community to" implies some form of manipulation on the part of an entity outside of it! An auto-organized or sel-formed community researches and develops a common interest. it usually does this by developing and working. this is because they are in search for something, whether its the best way route to the nearest town or the best design for a new race car. unlike some other investigation forms, a community in order to achieve some goals is always creating, not only producing ideas. A community that lacks this creation process, is still immature and incomplete. quoting Lilly's Questions: * What kind of Research does a Community do? * How does the focus emerge? * What policies and guidance are necessary for the ideas, products and processes to be defined? All emergent systems (natural or not) are successful only because they function under a strict and generally not-usually-broken set of laws that govern the system. These define both how each member of the system interacts with each other and how do they behave with the system's components. In our case, we have (slowly) organised start to organise ourselves in Roles, even before joe's started to place names on them, we in a way already had started to adopt these roles. And for our community system components we have this set of on-line tools that govern and define the way we interact with ourselves. I would think that we are now, as i type, trying to define our own policies, as in how are going to work what strategies are we following and if the ones we have are efficient. Every discussion from those regarding the various methods for writing the book to how we contribute (discuss then write wiki, comment then wiki etc.) are part of the definition of our policies. An interesting question we should be answering (or maybe already have and i haven't read it) would be the processes to define a communities configuration in order to work in any community. These policies for us, have been defined by the project managers since the beginning of the project in order to leverage the objectives of the group, these might or not change, but it takes me to place special attention on the relevance of roles (specially managers) in young communities, where still the rest of roles need to be guided towards specific goals. Then must simple answer that comes to me is, that each community, when starting to configure itself should have their managers, sets of processes and policies that leverage the rest of the members work... while i have defined our own roles: I'm sure other type of communities with different objectives will find some other fancy roles. hold i need coffee... ok, I'm back Now, trying to comment Lilly's last sentence * To "use community to" implies some form of manipulation on the part of an entity outside of it! Well i find this affirmation somewhat inevitable, since any system exists within a major one, any small chance of a system will affect the host system. Human social communities tend to emerge around an related but external entity of the community, existing before the community and which without, most probably it wouldn't exist. In the case of surfer communities they gather around the sea, and surf boards, enhancing and evolving both social and economical life of towns and venues they use (bars, restaurants, ecosystems) and revolutionising the surfing industry, which is the reason their community exist. So i can hardly see a community that doesn't, voluntary or not, affects entities, organisations or some other kind of system in which they have contact with.

jm04469
Posts:18

11/24/2006 9:25 AM	Alert
Explain the differences between research and development as they can be separate and distinct.

joe_flum
Posts:151

11/25/2006 2:07 PM	Alert
My personal view is this: Research is the investigative process to gather information regarding a particular topic. We research in order to better understand the existing knowledge that revolves around a subject. Development is the application of the knowledge gathered through research in order to prove or illustrate the concepts related to a topic. Research is the what and why, while development is the how.

usekar
Posts:1

11/28/2006 9:43 PM	Alert
It would be my opinion also that research should be part of Chapter 2, as this is the age of Globalization and information assymetry. I read somewhere that back in 1890, the patent office was going to close its door soon, as every thing that could be invented, has already been invented. I am sure that we all can agree that we have come a long way from there. Durng these days, people tend to look for new ideas and concepts that could provide new modes of service, that has been un thought of and so researching those core segments should be a core part of a business idea being conceived. I would say that the question should be re-framed as "If not during the beginning chapters, where else? "

jm04469
Posts:18

12/28/2006 12:26 PM	Alert
Research might be best served if thought of as the Appendix. Folks in corporate America will not take to it if it is chapter 2...

1ofus
Posts:103

12/28/2006 8:54 PM	Alert
I believe that the point about the use of the word 'research' is well raised. Of course, it all depends on who is the audience as to what the individuals will make of it! Since there are many more people in the corporate world (and I include Government and public services here) than in education (especially Universities), it stands to reason that we should pay much more attention to what might turn off our potentially largest chunk of buying public. As the current volunteer Moderator for this Chapter, I would suggest the use of the word 'research' in its most loose form. More like 'Explore' or 'Find Out About It'. I am aware that this is the opening for the book! As such, it carries a special onus to GRAB THE READER. It needs to seduce people into wanting to know more, to get them to care about what follows and to take part in th journey of discovery tht is Building of a Successful Corporate Community through a variety of real life examples. Any other thoughts?

joe_flum
Posts:151

12/31/2006 5:39 PM	Alert
I agree with the idea of "research" as the process of exploration or investigation. In this sense it definately becomes much more important for the "corporate" world. I would delve deeper into the ideas of the chapter, instead of worrying too much about the ordering of it. In the current structure the chapter is number two, but based on the final result of the writing process, it may be best placed in another position within the book. So, we shouldn't worry about it. What is important are the ideas that we are writing about (so that we can actually dive into the writing).

shilpav
Posts:2

01/31/2007 12:02 PM	Alert
All those case studies in chapter 2 are good examples of how community input has helped the respective business. But does community involvement always result into a better product/ successful business ? Has there been any case where this idea resulted into chaos or failure ? If so, why did it fail and what are the lessons learned ? How can we make sure that WE do not repeat the past mistakes?