My search for a good collaborative tool for ideas

I asked my Twitter followers today if they could suggest a good collaborative tool where people can submit ideas, and later on, vote on the best of the ideas. For me, this kind of interation is among the most promising, both in a political and a journalistic context. Give both the inititive and the power to decide to the people, so to say. We did something similar but with less fancy tools back in 2005, when I was one of the organizers and judges in Dagbladet’s Norwegian blog competition, Gullbloggen.

This time, I’m doing an experiment at Europabloggen, the Norwegian Europa/EU blog I’m writing together with two Norwegian journalists based in Berlin, Olav Anders Øvrebø and Dag Yngland. We’ll try to gather the best arguments for and against a Norwegian EU membership, because we think the arguments profiled on both the Norwegian yes– and  no side are fairly outdated. After gathering the arguments among bloggers and whoever are interested, we will make it possible to vote on what you think are the best arguments.

These are suggestions for open collaborative tools I’ve received so far:

• MixedInk (via @mlopezplana, who also recommends the platform Fes Europa, where they are doing the same, but related to Catalonian politicians, and the politicians are actually answering, very cool!)
• Doodle (via @bicyclemark)
• Uservoice (via @stefanhapper)

A Norwegian blogger, Børge, mentioned Ideastorm a while back – a site for generating new ideas for Dell products, as well as Ideoffensiv, a Danish site for developing new ideas for a local council, Skanderborg kommune. Barack Obama’s administration did something similar with the Citizen’s Briefing Book.

Leave a comment if you have more suggestions for collaborative tools I should test out. I’ll keep you posted on which I prefered.