Every few weeks a small group of us here at CNN.com get together for what we informally call an “Exchange Think” session. We’ll extract ourselves from the often frenetic pace of the newsroom, find a quiet corner, and share all the cool new things we’ve stumbled upon online, let each other know about new blogs, and just dream up fun ideas for the site.

Many of our discussions center around ways to enhance community on the CNN.com. For example, lately we find ourselves talking about pervasive newsgames, mash-up or green screen contests, meaningful CNN presence in online worlds, and other avenues for making user participation a compelling component of our storytelling. Building up a community on CNN.com is one of my personal passions. For our sessions, we also routinely bring in guests from across the newsroom so that we can hear about everyone’s own passionate projects.

For me, one of the best things about working at CNN.com is that we have the opportunity to take our blue sky ideas and make them reality. In addition to the many planned features that we’ll be rolling out continuously as part of the evolution of CNN.com, many of our “Exchange Think” ideas have also had an impact. For example, the CNN Exchange Flickr group, which feeds into I-Reports, is one of the great ideas that came out of an Exchange Think session. The I-Report blog is another.

Here are some of our favorite sites:

• Flickr
• Boing Boing
• BBC’s Backstage Blog
• Cool Hunting
• Information Aesthetics
• Smart Mobs

Do you have a great idea for us? We’d love to hear all about your ideas for newsgames, mash-up contests, or anything else that would get you excited about interacting with other CNN.com users and engaging with our stories. Let us know what content or resources we can provide to make your ideas viable, and we’ll be happy to explore it. Contact us with your ideas, share your clips or creations, or just let us know about links or initiatives that should be on our radar. We look forward to hearing from you!