Idea Contributors Wanted - Towards the Adaption of the Pyramiding Approach to Recruit New Idea Contributors for a Virtual Ideas Competition

In this research in progress paper we report on our efforts to recruit idea contributors for a topic-related ideas competition. Due to the narrow topic of the competition, we expected our present marketing measures to imply high spreading losses. As a consequence we adapted the pyramiding approach for use in an online-based setting. As the study that we are reporting on is at its beginning stages, the main contribution of this paper lies in the adaption of the pyramiding approach for use in a virtual social network. We describe our reasons for using the pyramiding approach, and elaborate on the supposed benefits that an adaption of the pyramiding search within an online setting would imply. We present the first results of this study, which reveal promising insights into the possibility of conducting a pyramiding search in a virtual social network