InnovationJam: Worldwide Online Discussions by IBM Employees, Families, and Customers
Akiko Murakami
Researcher, Knowledge Infrastructure
IBM Research, Tokyo Research Laboratory
IBM Japan, Ltd.
Koichi Takeda
STSM Research Staff Member, Information & Interaction
IBM Research, Tokyo Research Laboratory
IBM Japan, Ltd.
"Web 2.0" is a phenomenon that characterizes the next-generation Internet. In 2006, Andrew McAfee, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, published a paper on "Enterprise 2.0", which he described as a form of emergent collaboration within an enterprise, analogous to the concepts of Web 2.0. The innovation of knowledge is one of the highest priorities for CEOs, and Enterprise 2.0 could provide a solution. In this article, we would like to introduce the InnovationJam, held in the summer of 2006 by IBM, an event for online discussion of various ideas with more than 150,000 participants, largely IBM employers, from 104 countries around the world. The insights obtained from the event have been distilled into five innovations that have the potential to change people's lives over the next five years. In the same way as general knowledge management, the knowledge of large groups of people cannot be leveraged effectively within an enterprise simply by tailoring IT without active participants and corporate commitment. We hope that the IBM InnovationJam reveals what technology and innovation are needed for the successful utilization of the knowledge of large groups of people.