Crowdsourcing how to Crowdsource

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Monday, 31 May 2010

People are crowdsourcing everything from logo design to crisis management. While many people have heard about crowdsourcing, we get lots of questions about what it can do and how it works.

At Mutopo, we do some crowdsourcing and we also try to figure out how it works. But we’re fortunate that people in the space share a lot of what they are thinking and what is working for them, from their motivation to their tools. Some of our recent sources include: John Winsor, Trada, Jovoto, uTest, bbhlabs, Andrea Meyer, 15inno, Going Social Now, etc.

While I love these resources, I have picked a favorite mainly because it elegantly uses crowdsourcing to understand successful crowdsourcing strategies . The Network Challenge project was run by DARPA and they have been good enough to share a detailed report of their findings (pdf).

DARPA asked people to find 10 tethered weather balloons across the Unites States. What is most striking is that the most successful teams all employed crowdsourcing. Although there were some differences in strategy, there were many more similarities, as a simple summary shows below.

Here are here are some of my favorite learnings (because these are questions we get asked alot):

1. Does it help to start with a strong brand?

It really does. Brands may have been built to get people to purchase, but they are good for recruiting full time talent and part time (even very part time) talent, too.

2. Does media coverage help?

Again, like a strong brand, people need to know that you need help, so getting covered, helps you get coverage of your community needs.

3. Should I use an existing community or recruit a new one?

Seems like either approach can work. If you don’t feel very good about 1 or 2, you might consider approaching an existing community.

4. So we can just sit back and wait for the result?

Probably not. As one of our Mutopo t-shirts say: “this community isn’t going to manage itself”. This really takes quite a bit of work. In this example, multiple people ran an operations center to respond to manage recruiting, manage tasks, deal with trolls, etc. Interacting with 100s or 1000s or people requires some new management approaches.

5. What tools do I need?

There are loads of good ones already. It probably makes sense to see what you can reuse and then focus on the specialized aspects of your task for custom development.

6. Do I need to pay people?

It certainly seem to help, although people participate for all sorts of reasons.

I really love the idea that an organization we expect to be very secretive is experimenting in public and sharing their learnings. Shame on us if we dont try to learn something too and thanks again to DARPA for an elegant enlightening experiment.

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Clios Presentation – What’s Inspiring Us Right Now

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Thursday, 27 May 2010

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social product development (the comic strips)

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Wednesday, 5 May 2010

concepts and ideas

testing and feedback

the launch

insights for new opportunities

created using strip generator.

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Social Curating

Posted by marcelbotha on Thursday, 28 January 2010

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Paola Antonelli, Curator for the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Our discussion centered on design curation techniques, decision making, and the future of social curation. Here follows our conversation:

How would you describe your curation style and process?

My favorite shows are usually thematic shows, less so mono-graphic shows. Thematic shows about contemporary design are more interesting. I am not overly concerned with future themes, but more about ideas from the present that inspire the future. I typically start with an idea that is not precise, or completely defined, and open with a show that is slightly unfinished. The audience finishes the show.  At the beginning I typically gather too much in preparation for the show, but exhibition needs clarity; it is about communicating one idea, possibly two. A natural selection process based on quality, independent selection follows.  A successful show attempts to match space, messaging with the core idea.

I never curate for only one type of public; there are always at least two. The first is my community. I need to make designers and architects feel that they are part of the show through speaking to their interests. The wider MOMA audience who come to see the Matisse, Picasso and other art are the second audience. They discover the design installations almost by chance, and find experiential joy from it in a different manner from the primary audience.

Former MOMA Design curator Emilio Ambasz (1969-1976) classified the contemporary curator as a “Hunter Gatherer”. How do see yourself?

I am a Hunter Gatherer, definitely not a conservator keeper. They have different philosophies of curating. Do you want to document the past for future access or do you want to influence the future? Innovation resides in culture more than just in technology or the financial markets. Don Norman’s latest book had an ossified approach to the origins of innovation claiming that it resides only in Technological domain. Innovation is present in cultural spheres at large, through the creative work of artists, poets, and teachers. The 900 number was in fact invented by performance artist in the 60’s. I am tired of the cultural sector referred to as less relevant in terms of innovation than the Financial, Economic and Scientific sectors for instance. Bruce Nussbaum used the Design and the Elastic Mind show as example of how innovation cannot happen without design.

How do you decide what to include in your shows and how does the natural selection or pruning process work?

Curation is an act of authorship, you do it by yourself or you can partner with others. This means that you are responsible to choose. Sometimes there is discussion with my assistant or a small advisory board. It is not a dictatorship, but very much an oligarchy or duopoly. It depends very much on how you frame and exhibition. In Australia for instance, all curators are obliged to go through a public focus group before they can go ahead with their shows. It is different from lone act of authorship. This is a similar process to a Hollywood studio. The director’s cut of a movie could be better or substantially worse than the final product.

AdAge recently reported that in 2009, most of the award winning creative work involved consumer participation. How do you participate with your audience and is there a future in “Social Curation?”

I have never attempted communal curatorship. The most interesting audience to participate with would be the general public; they are less predictable than the community. I think Social Curation has successfully happened in countries with a more critical social democracy versus our herd mentality. A couple of years before the BBC hosted a design competition where I judged products and objects with design luminaries like Paul Smith. We selected five product finalists through a process of active testing and engagement with the entries after which the public got to vote on their favorite submissions.  In this case the most crucial part of the curation was done up front.

As Design curator, how do you see the value of objects changing as we see a new emphasis on Social Product Development?  Can Mavericks coexist with the crowd? How do we balance elegance and function?

Design is more than elegance and function, it is also meaning. People should never discount beauty for ideological reasons. Social products should still be elegant and beautiful. Beauty is the right of every person and should not cost more than ugliness. Beauty however is relative, and those who attempt to atone for sins against the earth through ugliness are not my people.

You need mavericks, or star system to make the public focus on new issues (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Bono all do this very successfully in the mainstream). A star system for designers is not as far-reaching, but equally relevant and inspirational. The work of Philippe Starck, Karim Rashid, Zaha Hadid to name only a few has helped. Social Product Development needs strong curation. Without that you risk adhering to lowest common denominator. A strong moderator can choose, and avoid averaging results.

How do you measure success?

You feel it, or rather you know it. It happens only when the audience engages with the show and the conversation follows. I aim to entice a future present conversation. It is the space where I am most comfortable; it is the space of current feasibility because the technology and science is real, but not yet mainstream. I don’t do science fiction. The audience completes the exhibition; their reaction is a measure of success.

Design and the Elastic Mind was the most successful exhibition to date. (We also liked SAFE and Work Sphere). Design and the Elastic Mind reached a tipping point of relevance and interpretation as the audience started engaging with the work. For the wider audience it was fun, progressive and inspirational. For the design community it was a validation of their work. Most of the participants typically fall outside the normal definitions of art or design, and they gave back enthusiastically. Mutopo liked the pieces by our MIT colleague  Neri Oxman; read her interview on Material Connexion.

"Beast" by Neri Oxman

Do you track online conversation? How often do you use twitter?

Not really, only the daily press and blogs. I update very infrequently, and typically self-sensor on updates on Facebook and Twitter. I would start, then think to myself “who cares?” I would suggest that you rather follow @MuseumModernArt

Paola echoed our sentiments on the need for strong curatorship from your community managers when engaging in Social Product Development. Jovoto, Local Motors, Quirky and others are currently experimenting successfully in this space. See our current Monoski print project on Jovoto here. We will announce or next and most significant social product development competition to date, The Betacup Challenge, shortly.

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About Dreaming in Mono

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Sunday, 24 January 2010

Dreaming in Mono is a new approach to communications for McDonalds in the Nordics. Shaun Russell, Nordic Marketing Director, answers questions about the project.

[Disclosure: Mutopo is a project contributor]

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DARPA shows you how to find social media snake oil salesmen (and balloons)

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Over the last week, two things happened that suggest that many organizations are heading into the social media hype cycle to “you lied. it didnt work” (jobs may be on the line – at a minimum consulting jobs), while others are moving beyond the dip  to effectively harness social media.

Businessweek echoed a challenge to some of the most visible consultants in social media such as @chrisbrogran and @garyvee from others active in the space, who have differing views on  how businesses can harness social media (I think @armano would prefer social business). The concern is that, unless something changes and we show results, we will find ourselves in the “you lied. it didn’t work” phase.

Sorting those that can get results from those that cannot, is not easy. But there are huge differences between those who know and those who claim to know as demonstrated last week in DARPA’s Network Challenge.

DARPA asked people to find 10 balloons across the United States and a team from MIT’s media lab, won. As @mirzu put the solution so eloquently:

In fact most of the 4,300 participants used some combination of social media tools. Some people simply monitored twitter (we observed this throughout the day of the contest). Others enabled people to submit locations on a google map using APIs. Others set up Facebook groups. Still others had an iPhone app. In fact many of the strategies seem to mirror the types of work being sold to organizations as “social media”.

Many participants in this contest would probably refer to themselves as social media experts, but many could not verify the location of even one balloon – there were only 900 submissions of which many were spurious.

So what lessons can organizations learn from the DARPA contest for spotting Snake Oil salesmen?

focus on outcomes - many people can use tools, but few can use them to achieve specific outcomes, so focus projects that can achieve specific business goals versus simply using tools.

test and measure – you should be able to measure some outcomes that impact the business. DARPA was still going to learn if someone found 5 balloons and not all 10. But it would enable them to compare the results of different approaches.

small experiments are fine – DARPA is not likely to deploy MITs strategy in Afganistan next week, but it is likely that they will try this out again with more money and resources to see how it works for more realistic/useful problems.

Most important, beyond ballons, DARPA shows you how to spot spot Snake Oil salesmen. And you dont need to put too much as risk. We’ll be out of the hype cycle dip over the next few years. Please be patient.

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Two Tales of Crowdsourcery – The Homer and The Rally Fighter

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Our first story takes place in the Springfield. It is the story of a car company that sets out to create a new car.

Powell Motors is in need of new ideas. So they turn to Homer, because it is reasoned, he represents the interests of the average American. He should therefore be able to define what he wants in a car. He is given free reign and the result is well, less than what was hoped. In fact, the Powell Motors is forced into bankruptcy and the Simpson’s extended family is torn apart.

Looking at the Homer, now, it is perhaps easy to see what all the fuss is about. I don’t really want one and my guess is, you might not either.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvn9k8dnhjI]

Our second story takes place more than 15 years later, in present day Massachusetts, no where near Springfield. It’s being slowly documented, but this is what we know so far.

Local Motors wants to build C.O.O.L cars. They invite a large community or car enthusiasts to participate in the development of their car. But this is where the similarities with Powell Motors ends, because Local Motors decides to decide differently. While Homer was the decider with rather unfortunately results, Local Motors doesn’t let the community decide everything. The don’t leave them alone to figure things out and show up at the end to see the result.

Local Motors cleverly picks some things to do themselves (chasis design), some to leave to other manufacturers (door handles from a Miata, I think) and then they choose a few areas to get some help (body styling). And then for good measure they borrow some ideas from IKEA for assembly. The people who submit body designs are specialists, but the people giving feedback, encouragement and voting on their favorites are prospective customers.

Seeing the Rally Fighter now, it is easy to see what all the fuss is about. I stopped caring about cars sometime ago, but I want this one.

The Homer, I think most people would agree (aside from Bart, perhaps) was a massive #fail. The Rally Fighter, well it is still too soon to say that this will be a commercial success, but it looks very encouraging.

Local Motors is using crowdsourcing – making very clear choices about where and how they want the crowd involved, how things are owned and they are discussing with the crowd as they go and experimenting to see what works (we love recursiveness almost as much as crowdsourcery). It sounds a lot like the process experiments that saw Linux depart from the traditional processes of its time, or the cleverly organized participation in Wordpress or Mozilla as they go up against traditionally organized competitors.

The Rally Fighter feels like the result of magic. As Arthur C. Clark put it

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This technology is just the artificial, artificial intelligence kind. And it takes some clever experimenting, organizing, tools and people to make it work properly. The story of the Rally Fighter suggest to me, that we should stop looking at Crowdsourcing in the simplistic terms that resulted in the Homer and start to consider that although it may require new organizations, tools and people, it’s very likely to produce magic.

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Using Social Product Developent for The Betacup

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Monday, 16 November 2009

This presentation explains how we are using social product development ideas for the betacup.

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