New Tool For Developing Ideas: IdeaOffer.com

Several weeks ago I was alerted by a friend, Brian Reese, to check out a new tool on the internet focused on generating new ideas called, “IdeaOffer.com.”  The purpose of the website is to serve as a marketplace for ideas – essentially you pose a problem or question, offer a sum of money to be awarded to the person with the best idea and allow the wisdom of the crowds to go to work for you as your question goes live on the site.  Here’s a video of how it works.

In a sense it’s like the Lending Tree commercials – “When banks compete, you win.”  At IdeaOffer when the crowds compete to give you the best idea, you end up with a multitude of ideas to choose from, hopefully culminating in some quality ones, and once again…you win.

To try out the service myself I posed the following question:

I am looking to improve my reach as a blogger and improve the quality of comments received. In addition, I’d like feedback on my blog design. What do you like? What would you change or add?

I also offered the following as background information:

Originally I focused on writing about life lessons or hacks, but have recently begun to steer away from that path in hopes of being able to write about my varying interests in fields like military theory, political science, sociology, books, wine, coffee and fitness among other things.

This obviously makes it more challenging to answer the question: “What is your blog about?” I know many bloggers say you should focus on one or two things, but I grew bored following that path. Not having a well-defined niche can be dangerous, but for now it’s the path I’d like to take.

Final bonus question:

How do I write about a wide variety of subjects without losing my readers in the process?

As with any brainstorming session, I received some really great ideas, some decent ideas and a few losers. This was to be expected.

***BEFORE I CONTINUE – IdeaOffer has generously offered readers of Schaefer’s Blog a $5 credit on their site just to sign up – no obligations to use the site.  All you have to do is enter the voucher:  cam5

Back to the show…

As I surveyed the various projects out there I noticed the following and tailored my project accordingly:

The quality and quantity of ideas depend on:

1) The amount of reward money promised to the best idea. Obviously the more money you’re willing to offer the more people will check out your problem to see if they can offer a good idea or solution. As with most things, you get what you pay for.

2) The amount of detail in your question. If I would have just asked, “How do I improve my blog” I probably would have gotten a ton of answers that wouldn’t have been what I was looking for. Instead I tried to hone in on a few key aspects to include comments, design and managing multiple topics.

IdeaOffer allows you to not only set the amount of prize money for the user with the best idea, but also the length of time your question will be posted on the site for viewing. I initially set my time for 1 week, but moved it to 2 weeks to allow for more opportunity for ideas. I’m glad I did since many of the ideas for my blog came in the second week.

In the end I awarded a user who’s idea was to unite my many writing topics around the idea of surviving a turbulent world. He said,

Many people are jumping on the survival bandwagon these days due to the current environment. Everyone knows there is something wrong from the educated to the unwashed masses. Your interest profile matches survival advice to a T.

I thought about this and realized that it lined up with some thoughts I had been bouncing around regarding resilience after reading John Robb. It’s true that the global recession, Iraq & Afghanistan, terrorism, growing national debt, etc. pose some incredible challenges to not only our nation, but each of us as individuals. The black swans (think unpredictable, like 9/11) that will come in the future have the capacity to break us unless we build more resilience into our lives and communities. Things like getting out of debt, becoming less dependent on oil, growing your own vegetables, just to name a few.

The idea also covered my blog design, though sadly I have yet to adapt these changes other than taking out one of my adsense displays (which, incidentally, was one of the suggestions offered in another user’s idea — who says you just have to use the winner’s ideas).

In the end I felt like my experience with IdeaOffer was a good one. I appreciated the ability to get a diverse set of eyeballs on my blog to give me a better idea of what I could improve on. It will be interesting to see if the site can reach a tipping point and see some serious growth. For now I’ll be recommending it as a possible solution to anyone who has a problem and a shortage of good ideas.

Disclaimer: Author was given a small amount of upfront credit by IdeaOffer to get started using their service, in addition to the money he put in himself.

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