Crowdsourcing defended

Dan Woods wrote an interesting condemnation of the concept crowdsourcing in "The Myth of Crowdsourcing" (Forbes).

Woods makes some interesting points. For example, an individually talented innovator will not be overtaken by a random group of less-talented workers. But he misses the point of crowdsourcing. His piece raises some questions:

1. Wouldn't a team of talented innovators be more effective than one?
2. Taking into account different phases of a project or product, wouldn't it be helpful to integrate the end-users of the product as it is updated, redefined, and improved?

It seems to me, with crowdsourcing, the value comes in the open call in which you invite passionate/talented/intelligent people to contribute to your project rather than limiting it to your network/internal employees/etc.

I like his observation that one individual or team leads the crowdsourcing effort. But I don't see how that observation and opening your talent pool are mutually exclusive. Doesn't the undefined crowd make it more possible for a talented contributor to take part? The best idea might come from a source from a different professional field you never thought possible.

I'm sure Woods has an impressive background and has accomplished much, but he sounds like a crotchety old skeptic. Here's an interesting video summarizing crowdsourcing in case you're new to the concept.

Reality Mining - great new tool

If you haven't heard of reality mining, its an interesting idea where interactions are recorded and measured in different social situations, such as an office setting. I'm not sure the exact conversations are recorded, but at least the fact that an interaction took place and its duration. Benjamin Waber (MIT PhD student) conducts interesting research in this new field.

So there's going to be skeptics, probably rightly so. Yes, in the wrong-unethical-devious-Orwellian hands someone could determine very private and damaging information about you. But I'd like to forgo the privacy conversation and dream a little bit about the possibilities of this new field:

Schools: What if the school psychologist (for those districts wealthy enough to have one) could analyze communication networks to identify isolated students? Maybe help prevent events like the VA Tech shooting? Columbine? Or just help a kid that's lonely or having problems at home?

Psychologist: How about shrinks? I'm thinking about people with family/marital problems, allowing the psychologist (or psychiatrist?) to see how often you communicate, with whom, when. All in the hope they can draw conclusions and offer positive solutions.

Politics: Andrew Odewahn's diagrams depicting political coalitions/factions within the US Congress presents an opportunity. Perhaps by viewing these patterns you could see who's talking and predict voting outcomes. Maybe this one isn't as useful.

Business management: There's got to be so many uses here. How about determining the "super-connector" person that disseminates information. As Waber found, this person usually isn't in charge, and the informal communication tasks overwork this person. If a manager could identify this person through reality mining, perhaps some compen$ation system could be worked out, or new roles assigned, or consideration for promotion, etc. etc. etc. If I ever manage a company/dept, I'd like to know where are my communication breakdowns...Odewahn-like graphs could certainly point that out to me.

Anyways, here's a start. If anyone else has ideas for social/public/business applications for reality mining please do share them. Also, don't hammer me too hard for ignoring privacy issues...

kickoff post

This blog will cover topics in social media. I created this blog for a class at American University covering social media and its business applications. All the posts will be created solely by me, Andrew Deogracias, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.