Think tank

An organization whose members provide novel solutions to vexing problems, and advice on planning, policy and strategy. It is usually multidisciplinary and concerned with issues of importance to its staff or clients. Often taken as the original model think tank, the RAND corporation which began operation in 1948 focused on military, decision-making, and foreign policy questions important to the United States. In the 1960s, beginning with the RAND spinoffs (the Hudson Institute under Herman Kahn, and the Institute for the Future under Paul Baran, Olaf Helmer, and Ted Gordon) the number of think tanks grew and new organizations were created to express ideologically neutral as well as partisan and political views. A new type of Think Tank is evolving which is based on Internet ad hoc social networks. These new types of networks allow people a chance to try out their concepts for discussion without committing to large amounts of time.