I’ll bet you already knew this:

Spigit Blog - Collaborative Networks Produce Better Ideas

A key aspect of what one might term ‘Innovation 2.0′ is the ability to share ideas among a community, and have that community help identify and refine top ideas. It turns out that a University of Chicago professor studied this dynamic in 2003, and found it to be true.

Professor Ronald Burt wrote an academic paper, published in the American Journal of Sociology, entitled Structural Holes and Good Ideas (pdf). “Structural holes” are the gaps that exist within organizations between people and groups of people. Every organization has them. They represent a lack of communication between people, and are a limiting factor on companies’ ability to be agile and responsive to change conditions.

Professor Burt decided to focus on individuals who broker these gaps: being connected among different groups. Such brokerage is the core driver for companies that implement social software, overcoming the inability to make knowledge and perspectives more widely available. In studying this, Professor Burt put forth this hypothesis:

Idea generation at some point involves someone moving knowledge from this group to that, or combining bits of knowledge across groups. Where brokerage is social capital, there should be evidence of brokerage associated with good ideas, and vice versa.

His research shows his hypothesis to be true: better social connections improve ideas.

Read the whole thing, there are some interesting diagrams and stuff.