2013 will be the International Year of Crowdsourcing
I’ve been thinking long and hard about what to call 2013. After saying 2011 would need to be the International Year of Resilience (much still needed) and 2012 the International Year of Problem Solving I’m thinking now that Crowdsourcing (the idea of seeking assistance beyond your own capabilities from the ‘crowd’ often through social media) has reached a critical mass and that means we can expect it to become a normal event across 2013. Here’s some examples to support my thinking:
Crowdsourcing is extending from niche hobby farm status to mainstream. The people movements like AVAAZ; MoveOn; GetUp! and 350.org are clear examples of mass movements of crowds in action. They have emerged to by-pass the political barriers that are preventing much needed positive action on a whole range of issues that many feel are beholden to selective special interest groups. The ‘Get Kony’ and Occupy WallStreet were other fine examples of a mass movement leveraging social media technologies around a particular issue, even if end-goal ‘success’ might not always be achieved.
And it’s not just social initiatives. Harvard University recently leveraged a gaming community and crowdsourced an answer to an HIV enzyme that had been troubling them for over a decade. The FoldIt community arrived at their answer in just three weeks! Other initiaives now look to diagnosing Malarial infections (UCLA) and private offerings such as ‘Cure Together’ seek to solve all sorts of chronic diseases. The barriers overcome are lack of research funding, entrenched approaches to solution seeking or bias toward models of cure.
And the funding of new business start up and ideas through the likes of KickStarter and GrowVC are showing that serious investment dollars can be generated by simply asking the ‘Crowd’ for help. The barriers here are heavy handed approaches for funding of the mainstream banking sector who’ve lost touch with the fact that in the years gone by (looong gone?), banks were Innovation partners in businesses and broader society, not usury takers which many seem to have fallen into becoming.
As acceptance of this approach improves its practise and societies’ willingness to engage in it, expect rapid uptake in a whole array of areas (see below).
So I herein declare 2013 to be the International Year of Crowdsourcing! Some key areas for Crowdsourcing will be Medical cures AND medical provision; bespoke pharmacy (legal and not); Tourism and bespoke holidays; Food production & Distribution; and one with ‘game changing’ status’ – Logistics, especially if (as I predicted in the 2004 National Geographic Channel’s TV series ‘Future Matters’) 3D printing goes mainstream. Other areas seem more obvious with the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) started by the likes of Stephen Downes around five years ago (and finally on the radar of more mainstream Universities over 2012), expect the push toward Crowdsourcing of Education to continue to shape both content creation and service delivery.
Don’t say you weren’t tipped!
The Trucking Industry, as a key part of the wider Supply Chain and Logistics Industry is coming to the end of an era, right at the time when it should be being refreshed. Put simply, there just aren’t enough drivers for trucks, and to date, attempts to recruit more drivers have been less that what…
Read More >In case you haven’t had time to keep up with these events, here’s a quick overview of the Everyday Sexism project’s attempts to hold FaceBook to account for its explicit support of sexual violence against women as portrayed in the many permitted Facebook pages that promote rape, rape culture, and violence against women. Facebook appears…
Read More >Today I have a bee in my bonnet, so please look away if my frankness might bother you. In the last couple of days I’ve had yet another conversation with a Local Council planning team manager about Strategic Planning for their Council that bothered me a great deal. What really has me bothered is that…
Read More >Whilst many people have heard about Drones in terms of their military applications, the concept of micro drones and their use in civilian settings is not quite so well known. It appears that the surveillance capability that technologies like Drones provide, are edging their way into more social environments. That may or may not be…
Read More >The link below will take you to the audio of the discussion I had with Annie Gaffney on ABC Radio Sunshine Coast the day after the Opposition released its Broadband policy. There’s been much discussion about the perceived value or otherwise, and I flag my bias here upfront: As a small business owner likely to…
Read More >In the article I link to below, Diana G Oblinger, the President of EDUCAUSE offers the Higher Ed community some insights such as this one: we’ve moved on from the Information Age and are now in the Connected Age. Such a statement will come as quite a shock for many Higher Education Institutions and policy…
Read More >In case you haven’t heard, technology is making so many jobs redundant, that only the adaptable will survive. And when I say ‘jobs redundant’ I mean across EVERY conceivable industry and level of specialisation. Robotic surgery is now so good that not only can it be done remotely, it can be done without human intervention.…
Read More >Coca Cola, Lion Nathan and Schweppes have successfully challenged the Northern territory’s compulsory container deposit recycling scheme in the Federal Court. The scheme had seen recycling rates jump by 30% in just a few months and was widely applauded by the public as the right thing to do. Despite the overwhelming public support, Coca Cola…
Read More >If you’re looking for an accelerated course in Strategic Planning and Advanced Management techniques in the Philippines in July, then TruEventUs has a two day session coming up on the 4th and 5th of June. Marcus Barber, founder of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will facilitate this intensive program. For full details You can…
Read More >Without putting too fine a point on it, most of us pay little attention to what we ‘deposit’ in our toilets each time the body needs to exit our bodily waste. And yet with a looming phosphate shortage around the world (along with other useful components) our personal waste streams are worth billions of dollars…
Read More >