[Discuss] A website to post and work on open design ideas

[Harry Hutton]

For sites like this to be successful, the implementation of them is hugely
important. I have used the following sites

- How it could be different
- Why not?
- Quirky
- Embrioo
- Idea Stormz
- Open Design Engine
- HalfBakery
- Lego Ideas
- DELL IdeaStorm
- Betterific
- Open Design Club
- Innocentive
- Reddits subreddit "Somebody Make This"
- Thingiverse

I may do a full and proper review of each of these in future, but in
summary, here are my thoughts
- The sites that are friendly, clear and visual tend to be the most popular
and receive the most entries. I feel this is part of the issue that makes
Open Design Engine quite inaccessible to the average person.
- Some sites are confusing to use, ultimately becoming a waste of time to
share ideas on as there is not enough of a user threshold to guarantee
interaction with collaborators (Embrioo being a good example).
- Most of the popular sites do not develop the ideas any further other than
an initial few lines of text about an idea (Quirky, Lego, Innocentive and
Dell are exceptions). Typical entries are often also farcical in nature -
such as "Wouldn't it be better if Cheetos came with chopsticks to keep the
orange stuff off your hands". All very well, but there's huge potential
here to use the connective power of the internet to change the world - and
its going to waste.
- The sites that do go on to develop ideas (Quirky, Lego, Innocentive and
Dell) are held by organisations who own the IP and rights. If there was a
site that enabled a way for users to discuss, research and put forward
concepts openly, I feel this would be a lot better, not just for the Open
Source movement, but also for design. When one has a single stakeholder or
company controlling an idea (e.g. Quirky) and many hundreds of
collaborators - it becomes a case of too many cooks spoil the broth. If
however, there was no sole owner of the idea, there becomes just as many
"broths" as there are cooks - reverting to a situation of a competitive
market where the most effective design becomes the most popular. Open
Design = better design.

I get the feeling this site doesn't exist yet, but I would fully support
and contribute to funding one. It would have to implemented at least as
well as the Quirky or Lego Ideas site.
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