MixedInk Helps Large Groups Find A Common Voice

While there's no shortage of collaboration tools for small workgroups, large groups with dozens or even hundreds of individuals are somewhat limited in the ways they have to work together. With a multitude of opinions to consider, authoring and building consensus on a single document can be challenging, and while traditional wikis have their place, a company called MixedInk has launched a new service aimed at making the process easier and more efficient.The MixedInk team describes their service as "combining the wiki concept with Digg-for-ideas," and that seems about right. The approach is particularly interesting - as each individual writes their own document, they're presented with phrases and entire paragraphs as suggestions from other authors on the team. They can pick and choose what they like best, submit their own version and then vote on the results. Through multiple revisions and voting steps, a consensus version of the document takes shape. MixedInk has a clever demo video available that summarizes the entire process in about three minutes.

MixedInk's highest profile proof-of-concept demonstration to date is a partnership with Slate Magazine called The People's Inaugural Address. It was an opportunity for people to write what they wanted to hear in Barack Obama's inaugural address. It's interesting to compare how Obama's actual inaugural address echoes some of the same themes and sentiments, yet diverges in other areas.

I'd imagine that a large organization could find a lot of applications for the MixedInk service, although a small team probably would be better served by a solution offered by Zoho, Google Docs or Adobe's Buzzword.

Nevertheless, MixedInk is an interesting idea executed well, and I look forward to see what they have in store for the future.