FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Part 1: Using the Darwinator

Who can participate in Darwinator tournaments?: The Darwinator is open to everyone. But, that does not mean that everyone can participate in every tournament. Here is how it works. Everyone can set up a new tournament and thereby become a tournament administrator. The tournament administrator decides who is allowed to participate in the tournament. The tournament administrator might decide to invite only a select group of participants. Alternatively, she can make the tournament open for everyone.
What is the difference between an “open” Darwinator tournament and a “closed” tournament?: An “open” Darwinator tournament is hosted by the Darwinator and any user can search for the tournament and elect to participate. Users may participate anonymously by essentially creating a random account and adding themselves to any open tournament. In a “closed” tournament, the tournament administrator identifies users in advance. Users then receive an email providing them with login instructions for the specific “closed” tournament.
Can I try out the Darwinator without creating an account or logging in?: If you'd like to play around and get a feel for the system, you can register and join any open tournament in the system. As a default, there is always a sample pizza tournament. You can enter pizza concepts and/or evaluate concepts and see reports.
How do you participate in a tournament as a participant?: For “open” tournaments, a user can either register a new account or login using a previous ID. After logging in, a user can always return to the MyDarwin page. From the MyDarwin page, a user can search the space of all “open” tournaments. For “closed” tournaments, the tournament administrator explicitly invites a set of users for tournament participation. Upon tournament creation, an email address is sent to every participant using the email address of record.
Can submissions include video, audio or attachments?: Yes, we support attachments, audio and video. So somebody applying for a job in a recruiting tournament can upload her cv or a team pitching an idea in an innovation tournament can put together an animated presentation.
Within a tournament, are the different stages concurrent or do they occur in sequence?: A tournament consists of four stages: submission, discussion, evaluation, and reporting. The tournament administrator sets the order of events ranging from completely concurrent to a non-overlapping sequence of events.
Can a tournament have multiple rounds?: Yes, like a sports tournament, innovation tournaments can include multiple rounds. In the case of the Darwinator, every round is itself a tournament where results from the previous round constitute the submissions (first stage) of the next round.
What types of reports are generated?: To summarize tournament results, the Darwinator generates reports for individual participants as well as viewing results for the entire tournament. An individual participant can view each of her own submissions and, for each submission, any discussion threads, and voting statistics for that submission. At the tournament level, users can view a “participants” report to generate group-level aggregations such as voting stats averaged over all of a single participant’s submissions. Conversely, users can view a “submission” report to simply rank-order every opportunity based upon voting statistics.

Part 2: Business related issues

How much does it cost to participate in a tournament?: Participating in a tournament is always free. The person setting up the tournament is charged a fee for the tournament, that depends on the type of the tournament (how many participants, how long it is running, whether or not includes video). Given that our site is currently in beta testing mode, all tournament fees are waived until the end of the calendar year 2011.
What is the difference between the Darwinator and idea management packages such as Ideascale or Spigit?: Most idea management systems are adopted in an organization and then they are “always on”. In contrast, the Darwinator is designed to support specific events, such as idea tournaments or recruiting needs. For this reason, the Darwinator is very flexible. You might be a participant in one tournament and an administrator in another tournament. Or, you might run one tournament with your customers and another one with your colleagues.
Is the Darwinator software compatible with my IT infrastructure?: The Darwinator is entirely web-based. You don’t have to install the Darwinator software or hire us to get your business processes ready for the Darwinator. This dramatically lowers the cost of running tournaments.
Where are my ideas, comments, votes, and results stored?: This version of the Darwinator functions as a Software as a Solution (SaaS), hosted service. All participant submissions, comments, and votes are stored on our virtual servers.