The Social Intranet Innovation Centre (2002)

half-baked

adjective (of an idea or philosophy) Not fully thought through; lacking a sound basis

The halfbakery is a community-based ideas bank used by people who wish to propose and develop (not always serious) half-baked inventions. It’s been operating quietly since the mid-90s, generating thousands of ideas every year – it was, and still is, a social network and a fully functioning collaborative space way before such phrases had been conceived.

At the heart of the site is the simple idea that ideas when shared and worked on together are generally stronger for the process. Users of the site get to vote on an idea’s worthiness by awarding croissants although the reason for this appears lost in time. It feels that many enterprises are just now attempting to adopt these ideas for their intranets some 15 years after the launch of the halfbakery.

I recently attended the excellent European Portal Evolution Masters event in Berlin and one of my takeaways from that event, was a presentation on the Philip’s intranet. For every question, post or suggestion added to their Socialcast powered social intranet solution, 3.4 answers were returned. Not only does it generate financially important ideas, it also helps build a sense of enterprise-wide community. Again, these features are splendidly mirrored at the halfbakery.

Yesterday, whilst browsing the halfbakery for inspriration, I came across this idea entitled “Halfbakeries for Businesses” first published to the site in 2002. It seems there’s nothing new under the sun.