Zeno: Groupware for Discourses on the Internet

It is our belief that processes of innovation, if they shall lead to sustainable solutions, must be open for participation, clear and fair. They must be designed so that everyone, persons involved, affected or interested, can contribute to their issues in the most effective way. Action spaces must remain open, development and design options must be recognizable and usable. Innovation processes have to be conducted as social discourses, but we claim that only networked computer provide the infrastructure to extend traditional discourses in the required way. Our work addresses the research issues resulting from these extensions. • Computer networks allow us to open participation: anyone can participate at any time from anywhere. As more people get involved (hundreds or even thousands), we have to find rules and techniques to properly manage the process, to distribute, split and aggregate discussions. • Computer networks allow us to increase clarity: much more data can be captured and recorded, such as documents and facts, goals and criteria, opinions, polls and votes, options and analyses, compromises and decisions, versions and revisions. To cope with the information overload, we must be able to condense discourses, to find ways to embed discourses into the context of their subject matter with seamless access to potentially relevant information (for example, a map with references to a discussion). User interfaces should help to perceive multiple perspectives and to track the evolution of the process. • Computer networks empower the individual: every participant can contribute to the discussion, raise issues, options and criteria. To elicit opinions and come to decisions argumentation outcomes have to be combined with online polls and votes. New analysis tools are needed to measure progress and divergence, to identify points of conflict, key issues, actors and actions. Zeno: Groupware for Discourses on the Internet