Abstract: This paper describes the design and initial evaluation of a leader-driven open collaboration platform for exploring new domains. The goal of this platform is to enable the collaboration of subject matter experts across knowledge boundaries. Traditionally, new domains are explored from within a single specialist or a focused group perspective. However, this often introduces bias. Collaboration helps reduce such bias by providing access to a broader range of information sources, increasing the chances for producing new insights in a new domain. However, it also introduces a new problem: variance between the contributions made. Variance makes it difficult to produce a coherent document. In this paper, we report on our observations from developing an initial prototype of the open collaboration platform, and derive propositions about how leader-driven open collaboration helps reduce bias while containing variance.