Plant the Garden by Users, for Users and of Users
Visualize Collective Brainstorming Dynamics & Building an Idea Pool for Community Sharing
Why? Email, IRC, blogs, forums or media sharing applications are ways of online communication, collaboration and problem solving. However, in terms of problem solving, there are limitations to these technologies. I want to design a community-based, topic-centered problem-solving game. Users could learn to analyze and solve problems, as well as gain global perspective and team spirit. At the same time, a pool of ideas could be built.
Solving problem:? It begins with publishing an interesting social problem by plugging a flag, e.g. how to encourage carpooling. Next, users will begin ?¡ãdigging pits?¡À (doing research and contributing findings), ?¡ãplanting?¡À sprouts (generating insights), ?¡ãadding?¡À branches (brainstorming concepts and expressing them by prototyping tools, such as drawing, music making, voice recording), and ?¡ãfostering?¡À the tree to grow to its full potential.
Collaboratively building an idea pool for people to check and use from the web in the future
Stimulating people to use creative tools to express their ideas: ?¡ãadding?¡À branches (brainstorming concepts and expressing them by prototyping tools, such as drawing, music making, voice recording)
Meaningful socialization: In each step, users sharing similar philosophies and interests will automatically be connected with each other and form a team to work on the same plant.
Building on previous outcomes: Rules of community should be set in that people generating ideas based on previous ideas should refer to the previous one.? The more adaptations people make, the more branches the sprout could have and the stronger the tree would grow.
Learning by participating: The step of digging pits gives children a chance to learn about a social, cultural issues, e.g. why private car driving is so popular in U.S., why not in China? Brainstorm and team dynamics also help children be aware of how people think and act from another culture. In terms of learning culture, topic centered collaborative problem solving is more effective than long distance chatting, reading and TV watching.
