Published by Peggy on 15 Mar 2010 at 11:05 am
Crowdsourcing a presentation
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Beth Kanter along with Amy Sample Ward, Holly Ross, Kari Dunn Saratovsky and David Neff led a memorable crowdsourced presentation at SXSW Interactive. |
What is crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing was defined in the session as a way to work together for mutual good, and without competing for a bottom line. @kdmc, on Twitter, had a great succinct definition: “Experts + general public = formula for Crowd sourcing” while @acarvin said “My crowdsourcing definition: Getting the public to help you. Simple as that.” The twitter tag for the event was #crowdx
Everyone seemed to agree that the value of crowdsourcing is undeniable. It not only encourages diversity of thought but also levels the field of discussion so that different constituents can talk on an equal plane. Imagine the diversity this brings, and the innovative ideas that come through. It is a powerful way to mix experts with individuals that might not normally be heard.
How is it used?
A few months ago, the panelists asked the community to share what they thought were the best crowdsourced examples of initiatives working towards social change. Here are some of their favorites:
- Seattle Free School is a free school created for the community by the community. Social media has not only been an integral part of their strategy but also has enabled their program to succeed.
- Open Green Map helps the community map themselves. It is a totally crowdsourced information site on green living.
- Invisible People is a great example of how an initiative “used the crowd” to get stories and prompt action.
TheTwittersphere also had many examples to share:
- @eddybadrina: Example of crowdsourcing to nominate charities and giving money away to them: www.project7.com. cc: @project7 @tylermerrick #crowdx
- @lguite: Example of crowdsourcing for video footage here at #sxsw with Election documentary that played here last night. #crowdx
- @thinklynsen: My fave crowdsourced tool: @kaboom Playspace Finder. Find & map the “state of play” in your neighborhood! #crowdx
- @acarvin: Someone talking about Creole translation after Haiti quake. Our #crisiscamp vols also made the first Creole-English app, Tradui. #crowdx
- @andrewjcohen: The Sunlight Foundation’s App for America contest is an excellent crowd sourced project. Winner: DataMasher.org (plug!) #crowdx
- @paulfbove: My fave example of crowdsourcing? @geoffliving raising $5K for cancer research. Power in the crowd. #crowdx #sxsw http://bit.ly/cZZq3s
Takeaways around crowdsourcing
- Make it easy for people to participate
- Allow smaller organizations to have a voice
- You don’t need much money to make it happen
- Crowdsourcing is part of human nature (@aliciaeler)
- Crowdsourcing is not a transaction – it is an engaging conversation
- There might be a new definition of an expert: “someone who has a really good network.” (@CauseGlobal, @sharakarasic)
These are just a few of the highlights from the discussion. You can access the #crowdx slides at: http://bit.ly/bMlStC . You can also find Amy Sample Ward’s notes on her blog. Many thanks to Beth Kanter along with Amy Sample Ward, Holly Ross, Kari Dunn Saratovsky , David Neff and the Twitter friends for an excellent session.
Other SXSW Posts. Photo Credit: OpenSourceWay
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17 Responses to “Crowdsourcing a presentation”
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Thanks for taking these notes and it was great to see you!
Beth, it was a fantastic session. I can think of many other sessions that came from the fruitful conversations.
[...] to sort through. Peggy from Wiser Earth went through the resulting transcript and pulled out some of the key tweet points and users. We were also lucky to have Sarah Davies live blogging notes as [...]
[...] Amy Sample Ward, Beth Kanter, Holly Ross, Kari Dunn Saratovsky and David Neff. But WiserEarth has a great summary, you can see the re #crowdx and #sourcinginnovativechange hashtag streams or read Beth’s take [...]
Hey Peggy– thanks for writing this roundup! The session was much more a crowdsourced conversation than a presentation, so I’m sure it was hard to write this post, but you nailed it!
Thanks for the notes Peggy!
And good to see you again.
-ben
Thank you both Claire and Ben. It was great to see you there.
Thx for sharing. Some great ideas to explore here! Crowdsourcing to me is always engaging, fun and exciting.
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Thanks for including my tweet in your blog post! You really sum up this session well. What would we do without Twitter?!
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