others but, more often, because we figure—or at least hope—that other people will come up with some fairly decent ideas without us having to go to much trouble ourselves.
Interestingly, online brainstorming is a rare exception to the usual issues around group creative thinking —while also, if managed well, allowing an almost limitless number of people to take part. When ideas are pooled online, individuals seem not to free ride but rather to build constructively on each other as each contributor has the physical and psychological space to think for themselves and their contributions can more easily be publicly acknowledged. Marcel Proust, the famed writer and critic, called reading a “miracle of communication in the midst of solitude”—we might think of online platforms operating in a similar way.
