Research in the area of the early-stage of innovation concentrates on non-linear innovation environments constituted by the nature of the fuzzy front end of innovations in which there are no well-defined problems or goals at that point in time (cf. Simon 1973/ Bayazin 2004). Requirements of the early innovation phase are the general applicability and the possibility of iterations of the innovation environment to be developed. The research presented in this paper focuses on innovators needs in todays and future working environments to provide a highly flexible software solution supportive of early-stage innovation. The adaptability of the environment for the users and the fulfilment of requirements will be achieved by supporting the real-life work processes of innovation workers. As early stage innovation is seen in the actor-network theory (Allan 2007) as a social process the participation of individuals will be encouraged by the usage of game dynamics to support idea generation related workflows. To deskew the dependences of people working together in one place, time zone and personal relationship a database of knowledge and object representations will be implemented in the innovation environment. The integrated software solution will support and guide innovators to get connected to the right people, produce ideas based on explored knowledge and evaluate them to achieve the goal of developing successful innovations. The approach presented in the proposed paper is basing on the work carried out by the European funded research project Laboranova.
