This article is written by Dr Jo'Anne Langham, CEO and founder of SparkTank as well as researcher at the University of Queensland.

Before the pandemic, a big part of my job was to facilitate group workshops and ideation sessions in person.

I love the energy and the fun you can have when people are relaxed and are enjoying being creative. I was happiest running group collaboration or co-design sessions with the community, who in my case are citizens trying to navigate the Australian government online resources.

However, unsurprisingly, this does not translate very well in the new, remote and online world. You can’t get people together in a room, and it's very difficult to create the energy required for problem solving. However, crises can also lead to new inventions.

Many companies such as Miro and Mural have created tools that try to replicate the real world in the digital space. What they don’t do, unfortunately, is re-examine how we can perform these tasks online, which previously took place face-to-face. As a result, ideation, brainstorming and idea generation exercises have simply migrated online to electronic whiteboards and video conference meetings that are often long, boring and stilted.

My job has always been about understanding the human point of view, of collaborating and generating ideas for solving real world problems. When Covid-19 suddenly made co-creation impossible, I started examining the creative process and seeing if there was a better way to do this in the new world.

I ran several experiments in online university courses with international students to see how my ideas translated to a practical process. The experiments involved traditional idea generation of brainstorming (post-it notes and electronic whiteboards) in comparison to the brainwriting process that I have created based on research into creativity.

The results were clear:

  • Brainstorming produced stereotyped, heuristic, and obvious ideas (5% novel ideas, defined as unique or created by only one person)

  • Brainwriting produced unusual, more detailed, better quality ideas (53% novel ideas)

Not only can brainwriting be used to stimulate or artificially engineer problem solving — it is a much better way to generate ideas! I used the fundamentals of this experiment to create a purpose built brainwriting tool: SparkTank.

The name comes from the creative spark required to solve problems combined with the ability to incubate ideas so that they evolve and improve.

So, what is the secret to online ideation?

The electronic brainwriting process addresses many of the cognitive biases that are inherent in traditional group work, such as social loafing, social desirability bias, production blocking, evaluation apprehension, groupthink and confirmation bias. Brainwriting is a process where participants generate ideas individually on digital notes and share these silently.

The process is also accessible to all and hides other interpersonal cues that normally influence the way we respond in group situations. Using the brainwriting process, all people have an equal voice in group collaboration. People can be seen or remain anonymous in their contributions. I also use gamification and theatre improvisation techniques to stimulate thinking and imagination.

The other important difference is the size and diversity of the sessions. Digital brainwriting allows groups of any size and with people from different time zones and various backgrounds to work asynchronously — yet seamlessly — together. It’s a way to give all people a voice in finding solutions to today’s problems. The other advantage is you can harness the brainpower and experience of large groups of people without having any experience in using technology.

Here’s how it works

Someone writes a challenge using our SparkTank challenge creation wizard. This tool helps the challenge owner understand the problem and define it in a way that can be used to conduct online brainwriting. Alternatively, ideas can be generated around a topic. The challenge owner can make it a private or a public challenge, invite participants or make it open for the whole community.

Participants enter the challenge and are given a series of instructions to complete a first round of idea development. Participants are assigned specific factors to focus their idea generation. Their ideas are then randomly assigned to other participants to add to through a “yes and…” improvisation technique. After several iterations, ideas are returned to their creators for final refinement and to add any extra detail. The ideas are then submitted for evaluation. Participants evaluate each other’s ideas based on a series of criteria, creating an innovation score which places all ideas on a leaderboard.

Community co-creation can now be accessed easily, safely and creatively

Participants are encouraged to add unusual or “crazy ideas” as they progress. Ideas such as “use a magic carpet to move it” are transformed into ideas using drones or autonomous vehicles. “Teleportation” can become digital transfer and 3D printing of tools. Participants are also prompted to pivot during the process through pop-up challenges. Under time pressure, participants are asked a random question deliberately designed to make them disrupt their thinking process.

Challenge owners have complete access to all of the data, the iterations and how the ideas are developed. All of the ideas can be extracted in either CSV or as a PDF report, showing average scores, best ideas and also who contributed to the best ideas.

Organisations can use the tool for planning and developing solutions. However, one of the biggest advantages of the tool is community participation and engagement. The tool allows for true public engagement and co-creation in idea and solution development. Organisations can also set a bounty on an idea, rewarding best ones.

Get started

I wanted to create a tool that would enable seamless co-creation with the community, because public participation and engagement is the future of good government.

But often organisations are restricted by access to the right tools or overcoming obstacles to practically engage with the right people in the community. This tool gives you full control and access to the broad community.

To demonstrate my belief in the effectiveness of this tool, I am giving all Apolitical members free 12-months access to the premium plan, which allows access to all aspects and functions in the tool.

To start your free trial, go to sparktank and select “Join SparkTank”.

Then, simply create your own account and then create an organisation. Select the premium plan and apply the voucher: SPARK12. You will have free access to create and run any challenges private or public for 12 months. You can have as many participants as you want to invite.

You can also participate in any of the current challenges including:

Community co-creation can now be accessed easily, safely and creatively. Now we can all work together to solve the big problems.

All suggestions and ideas for improvement also welcome! — Dr Jo'Anne Langham

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