From Handbags to Traffic Navigation: Harnessing the Power of Crowdsourcing

The belief that two heads are better than one is an ancient one. As far back as the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament of the Bible, in fact. In 1546, a variation of this saying was found in English writer John Heywood's collection of proverbs: A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue. (phrases.org.uk)

Today, instead of a phrase, you're hearing the word "Crowdsourcing". A different word with a different definition, but ultimately driving toward the same goal as the ancient proverbs: Harnessing the power of multiple minds to creatively solve problems.

Note: I'm not including crowdfunding in this post, as I covered it in a three-part series I wrote last year. While it is arguably a type of crowdsourcing, crowdfunding harnesses the finances of the crowd to bring a new idea to life vs creating and expanding upon the ideas themselves.

A recent article in Smartplanet, How the crowd is making fashion design more efficient, got me thinking about just how widespread creative problem solving via crowdsourcing has become.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The article takes a look at a New York company, Stitch Collective, launched in 2012 to produce crowdsourced handbags. To create a new handbag, Stitch Collective seeks submissions from fashion schools and design networks. New designers worldwide send in their ideas, then based on which designs are most feasible to produce, Stitch Collective chooses finalists, and its community of accessory enthusiasts vote on their favorite.

The advantages of crowdsourcing? Even in fashion, one of the more difficult industries for an emerging designer to break into, as the Smartplanet article states, "...a rising new class of fashion businesses that, instead of handing down mysteriously conceived designs from on high, is turning to the crowd to decide what to make, and how much of it."

There are a multitude of crowdsourcing sites creating business solutions, such as web design, graphics, microwork, and microtasks. A few notable crowdsourcing sites include:

•  gengo: An online translation service that uses a network of more than 7,500 pre-screened and rated translators to provide high-quality translations in 33 languages. (TechCrunch)
• InnoCentive: Crowdsourced solutions to business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges from 300,000 diverse and creative thinkers and problem solvers from nearly 200 countries.
• PatientsLikeMe: A data-sharing platform, where patients can share and learn from real-world, outcome-based health data.
• waze: A community-based traffic and navigation app where 30 million drivers share real-time traffic and road info, either passively or actively. Gamification and social networking are included.

I'll point out here that I'm not endorsing these crowdsourcing companies — they're all for-profit companies who demonstrate the variety of crowdsourcing solutions available.

After the flattening of the world and normalization of globalization, it's easy now (thank you, hindsight) to see just how inevitable and incredibly creative the concept of crowdsourcing really is. What better way to harness the expertise and experience of people both in our communities and around the world to creatively solve problems?

A Marketer's Dream: Content That Goes Viral (a.k.a. Meme)

I'm sure that you've seen an item or two shared in your social channels recently that was meaningful to you or made you laugh out loud.

A friend posted this quotation on her Facebook wall, and it was a classic "duh moment" for me. "This is it! This is what I've been working toward the last few years!" I've internalized it and try to live it, but had never thought to articulate it as a philosophy of living. And because it's meaningful to me, I've shared it with my social networks.

(I always knew Roald Dahl was a genius, but this quotation confirms it.)

By virtue of being a piece of content shared and re-shared over the Internet, this quotation can be considered an Internet meme. Social networks are not only amazingly well suited for sharing these viral Internet memes easily and quickly, but have contributed to the meme explosion.

Note: Meme rhymes with team.

So a little back story here, if you don't know what a meme is:

The "meme" word was first introduced by evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in 1976. "Meme" comes from the Greek word "mimema" (meaning "something imitated", American Heritage Dictionary). Dawkins described memes as a being a form of cultural propagation, a way for people to transmit social memories and cultural ideas to each other. Not unlike the way that DNA and life will spread from location to location, a meme idea will also travel from mind to mind. (about.com)

If you're a social soul, you most likely see multiple memes every day flowing through your feeds like a river, gaining speed and strength before they suddenly sputter to a halt once they reach critical mass and lose shock value. A meme can be almost anything: a quotation (such as the Roald Dahl one above) a photo, video or animated GIF, an animal or person — real or fictional, or even just a symbol or a word. You can tell just how viral a meme is by how many versions you see.

Here are a few of the more viral memes that have made the social rounds.

Tardis the grumpy cat is a great example of an animal meme.

Gymnast McKayla Maroney's "not impressed" face was photoshopped onto thousands of of photos, and was so well known that even President Obama jumped into the fun.

                    

The multitude of "Gangnam style parodies created and posted on YouTube last year demonstrate just how fast and furiously viral memes can go.

Most marketers can only dream of having their content go viral like so many memes do every day. Unfortunately for them (and me), there's no single "formula" for what makes a meme go viral, but memes do seem to have some of these characteristics in common:

• They're usually humorous. The humor can be sarcastic, slapstick, dry, witty, rude, juvenile....
• They are something that resonates with people — they can identify with or relate the meme to their own experience or life.
• They can be modified with a basic graphics program.
• Whatever chord they strike in viewers makes the viewers want to share with their social networks.

There have been a few marketing campaigns that have gone viral. Arguably the most viral one is the Old Spice "Smell like a man man" campaign videos, which have had almost 100 million views on YouTube.

                 

Do you have a favorite meme? Why is it your favorite?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Tardis the grumpy cat
McKayla Maroney and President Obama

Social Is About Connecting: Person to Person

You've heard it all, right? The detrimental effect social networking has on our world, including, but not limited to:

• The steep decline in conversational skills. 
• An increase in teens who don't know how to talk to adults.
• People who no longer belong to their local communities; not volunteering, not mowing their lawns, not helping little old ladies across the street....
• People who no longer care about personal grooming or bathing; staying in their homes and never coming out; only connecting virtually.
• The end of civilization as we know it.

It's all hooey, to use a polite term. Civilization is not going to end because of social networking. Even telecommuting employees like me come out of our houses, often quite frequently — you're just not seeing us commuting on the freeway in the car next to you. I've not noticed a decline in conversational skills, except for perhaps a reduction in the meaningless "small talk" that isn't exactly scintillating to begin with. And teenagers? Please, when have the majority of them ever wanted to talk to adults? Did you? They have no trouble talking with their peers, and eventually they'll be adults and have to talk to the rest of us.

I'm sure you've seen this quotation, often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:

My experience with social is that it is creating an immensely exciting new form of communication enabling the discussion of ideas, all kinds of ideas, with like-minded people, regardless of location. Since you're no longer limited by proximity to communicate only with your neighbors, your office mates, or your immediate social circle, the connections you can make are almost unlimited. I think about the people in my virtual social circles, and they include:

• Classmates, colleagues and friends I've not seen for a while or had entirely lost touch with before reconnecting on a social network.
• The friends and family of my friends and family. 
• This one is cheating a bit as an example because I do work for a large multinational corporation, but I collaborate daily with colleagues from all over the US and the world with our internal social tools. Today, for instance, just a few of the interactions I had were with colleagues from New York, Colorado, Massachusetts, Florida, North Carolina, The Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, and India.
• People from all over the world who share my interests in philanthropy, social activism, books, design, technology, social networking, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, art, accessibility, writing, blogging, all things digital and my other 999 interests.

Does all of this virtual communication prevent me from being active in my community? Not in the slightest. In fact, I think it makes it easier to get involved by exposing me to new ideas.

So the next time someone tells you social networking is changing our world for the worst, you know what to say. :-)

How Social Networking Is Helping TED Change the World

I've recently joined the TEDxSanJoseCA team as a volunteer to manage social media, starting with the Facebook page. I'm excited and honored to be involved with this organization because I believe so much in the value TED brings to the world.

(I blogged just a year ago about attending my first TEDx event, The Power of TED — Pay It Forward.)

TED is a nonprofit that started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, and Design.

The TED mission is quite simple: Spreading ideas.
We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. 

And thanks to the popularity of social networking for sharing these amazing ideas and the ease and power of communicating via video, TED has taken the world by storm with the TED website, annual TED conference, TED Active, TEDGlobal, TEDx, TED Talks, TED Fellows, TED Prize, TEDEd, TEDIndia, TEDWomen, TED Salons, TED@, TED Open Translation Project, TED Books, and TEDYouth. (I'm sure I missed a few, but you get the idea...)

To give you an idea of the reach of TED, this TED Talk from 2006, "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity" is the most viewed at almost 16 million views. Many other talks have 7, 8, 9, or 10 million views.



I am committed to my local volunteer work, but I was also searching for a broader community with which to connect and learn, and TED with its current library of 1400 talks and local TEDx events, meets that need.  There is so much truth in this quotation:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/edmund%20lee

Social networking makes it possible and actually quite easy to connect both locally and around the world with kindred souls who are on this mission of changing attitudes, lives, and ultimately the world. You can join TED communities on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+,  LinkedIn and tumblr.

Because making the world a better place has become a core value of mine, becoming involved with TED via my local TEDx organization and surrounding myself with dreamers, doers, believers, and thinkers is where I need to be, and social networking is the conduit enabling me to do that, daily.

La Strada Verso Olympia — A Crowdfunding Project That's Come to Life

In 2012 I wrote a three-part series on crowdsourcing for the IBM Social Business Insights blog:

Crowdfunding: Harnessing the power of social networking to raise money.  (Part 1 of 3)  (Part 2 of 3)  (Part 3 of 3)

I enjoyed researching and writing it, and have been following various crowdfunding projects (and even funding a few).

In Part 1, I reviewed Kickstarter, a US-centric platform. In Part 2, I took a look at ulule, used mostly in Europe, and brought to my attention by an IBM Italy colleague, Nicola Palmarini (@nipalm).

While working on an IBM project in Nettuna, Italy, Nicola met and was inspired by a woman named Eleonora, and decided to crowdfund a personal project on ulule to help Eleonora travel from Nettuno to Paris to attend the concert of The Pooh, her favorite band, at the Olympia.

The way to Olympia: A documentary on barriers between dreams and reality is a wonderful documentary about dreams, disabilities, and accessible travel. The project received 109% of funding, and the documentary is complete and will premiere on Wednesday, April 24, as you can see by the screening invitation below (click on the image to enlarge it).

Translated, the invitation reads:
The road to Olympia
A film (fully funded from the web) by Claudia Di Lascia, Michele Bizzi, Federico Monti
Wednesday, April 24, 2013-12:00
At La Casa del Cinema a Villa Borghese/ Deluxe Room
Largo Marcello Mastroianni 1-Rome
Presented By: Professor Gioa Di Cristofaro Longo, Cultural Anthropology, University "La Sapienza", Rome
Authors and protagonists will be present on stage
The film will be followed by refreshments.

Congratulations to all involved with this labor of love, and maybe I'll have some photos of the screening to share next week. :-)

Follow @olympiafilm on Twitter.

From Advertisers to Teenagers: Facebook's Widespread Reach

Facebook is frequently in the news. Okay, almost daily. Or, if you follow AllFacebook.com, multiple times a day. I follow many of the news stories since I'm a frequent Facebook user / contributor, but today's news seemed especially relevant and broad based, since it races from a new advertising tool to privacy controls to more user functionality to teenage usage statistics. And interestingly enough, I found three of these articles on Twitter, and one on Facebook.  I think the breadth of these four articles shows just how integrated and ubiquitous social networking, and specifically, Facebook, has become in the daily lives of so many of us.

Wall Street Journal: Buy Signal: Facebook Widens Data Targeting

Facebook is officially rolling out a new tool for advertisers that combines Facebook's treasure trove of information about its subscribers and their likes with data partners who will provide information about the items and brands a consumer buys through sources such as loyalty card programs, email lists they subscribe to, and how they're spending their money.

Not surprisingly, privacy advocates are not thrilled. "There's no place to be left alone," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington, D.C., policy advocacy group. He said Facebook's relationship with data partners could become more worrisome if Facebook leverages the location data it passively collects from mobile devices to sell ads.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article.

Time Tech: Facebook Privacy Settings Guide

As the old adage goes, there really is no such thing as a free lunch. You pay for a "free" social media application such as Facebook with your personal data. People either are unaware of the exchange, or are comfortable with it.

Time Tech has put together a thorough little primer that walks you through the latest retooled privacy settings, such as who can see what posts, setting your timeline and tagging settings, blocking, app customization and more.

So now, if your friends post this inaccurate meme on their Facebook walls:

 You can refer them to the Time Tech article, or to the Snopes Urban Legend correction for accurate information.

Fast Company Design: Facebook Opens The Door To Dislikes, With Emoticons

 Image courtesy of digitalart
/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Everyone will soon have access to the new Facebook feeling/emoticon combinations — all 200 of them — on a drop down menu.

Having an alone, angry, or lost day or emotion? There will be an emoticon for it.  Feeling especially loved or great? You're covered.  Read all about it here.

Tech Crunch: Facebook Still Reigns Supreme With Teens, But Social Media Interest Dwindling

The results of the Piper Jaffray study quoted in this article are contrary to my experience. They claim that out of their survey group, 33% of the teens chose Facebook as their most important social network.  The teens I know (including the one who lives at my house) loved Facebook at the beginning, friending hundreds and hundreds of casual acquaintances, posting photos, liking statuses; all the things the rest of us do. And as soon as their parents and grandparents started flocking to Facebook, that was the kiss of death for it as far as teens are concerned. There is some hope that the new mobile Facebook app in the works may bring these younger users back, but we'll see.

No More Voicemails, Please

It's always amusing when I find myself unknowingly in the forefront of a trend. Voicemails, for instance. Well, my growing dislike of them.

In retrospect, I blame my kids. They prefer that I communicate with them via text for basic information exchange:

• What time will you be home? 
• Please unload the dishwasher
• I'm stopping at the store. Do we need milk? 

And after several years of this, I've come to appreciate the brevity of direct communication (texting or instant messaging) with family, friends and colleagues:

• Running late; on my way
• Call me when you have time to chat
• Read this article when you have a minute

Thanks to caller ID, there's (usually) no question that you've called me. And when I have a few minutes I'll call you back. What I won't do is listen to your voicemail, unless I absolutely must.

Nick Bilton, technology writer for the New York Times, drew a firm (and somewhat cranky) line in the sand last Sunday with his article, Disruptions: Digital Era Redefining Etiquette. While I didn't agree with all of his pet peeves, I did identify with this one:

Then there is voice mail, another impolite way of trying to connect with someone. Think of how long it takes to access your voice mail and listen to one of those long-winded messages. “Hi, this is so-and-so….” In text messages, you don’t have to declare who you are, or even say hello.

Rebecca Greenfield from the Atlantic Wire noted the fallout Mr. Bilton received, and took her own dive into the fray with her article,  A Guide to Advanced Digital Etiquette. Her opinion on voicemail?

It's totally okay to ignore all voicemails — except for ones from parents...

It's nice to know that I'm not alone...


3/13/13 Update. Here's a Gawker post with another viewpoint on Nick Bilton's article. The comments about voicemails left by now-deceased relatives are sweet and poignant. Check them out.