8&9

Working with a crowd can be both a blessing and a curse. You can break down barriers between your organization and the public and coheres many people to participate in small or large ways. Crowdsourcing can also be put into four categories: Collective intelligence, crowd creation, crowd voting and crowd funding. Collective intelligence is just what it sounds like, a group of people are ging to be smarter than one individual… two heads are better than one. Crowd creation is when the crowd literally creates or contributes directly to something, like a project, work of art or as the book uses an example of, an opera. Crowd voting is nothing new; people like to put their view points out there. Finally crowd funding, which is either by donation or purchase, as well as the understanding that no reimbursement will be made.

You also need to know how to work with a crowd. One thing to keep in mind is to connecting with the correct audience. This idea is explained in an article http://alasdairmunn.com/2011/10/crowdsourcing/. You have to have the right crowd for a particular project, they need to have the specific expertise to turn an effort into a success. The task also needs to be interesting but not overwhelming. People also must feel that their input matters, even if it’s a disagreement. At least they know their voice was heard.

Then there’s microplanning, which is an iterative process of small experiments that lets organizations change, scale, or scrap them easily, quickly and inexpensively (p 110). There are cautions to look out for. One caution, crowds are unpredictable, they just show up. You can’t plan or predict when or why, and they can be mean. Crowds in general are fine, but when they turn into big scary mobs, that’s a real problem, and Motrin found out the hard way.

The second chapter, 9, I took some issue with. If you look at what interests and audience, then Michael Vick wouldn’t have been the only reason a dog fighting ring was such a hit. Yes, the fact that he is a celebrity football player made the world hear about it, but the social media circuit is what really launched the whole thing to another level.

And since this is my blog, I rescue mini bull terrier which are NOT pit bull terriers. Both are loving and wonderful dogs, but they are two completely different breeds. They don’t even look alike! I will get off my soap box now.

Videos came out as part of a Humane Society challenge, and people went crazy. Why did it reach so many people? The 1:10:100 rule, if one person makes it, ten share it, one hundred will watch it. The advocacy is called a learning loop. Like the Humane Society, they had a specific , narrow objective, that was low cost/low risk, and it created a sort of outreach to educate people.

Engaging with people is very important. There are ways to measure if your blog is getting through to people, like how many subscribers do you have and reviewing monthly trends. Comments are the most powerful measure though, when people comment that means you are influencing them in some way. You are getting your message across and people are responding.