What happens downstream?: Scott Mattoon's blog

Today I came across the work of Mike Krieger and Yan Yan Wang at Stanford's HCI Lab in which they studied the efficacy of certain online brainstorming techniques.  Their research focused on comparison of idea generation tools to see if, through tool adaptations, it was possible to increase participation in expanding and improving ideas while overcoming the problems of too many disparate ideas, not enough idea collaboration that are typical of brainstorming on discussion forums.  This very narrow (but valuable) study of brainstorming shows potential for significant improvement in modes of collaboration, so I hope they continue their probe into this area.

Krieger's research into idea generation revealed some great lessons from crowdsourcing endeavors on the Internet which he has shared in these slides posted on Slideshare.

The most valuable and, I think, uniquely insightful advice he gives are the 9 guidelines for when to apply crowdsourcing:

1. When diversity matters
2. Small chunks/ delegate-able actions
3. Easy verification
4. Fun activity, or hidden ambition
5. Better than computers at performing a task
6. Learn from hacks, mods, re-use from crowd
7. Enable novel knowledge discovery 
8. Maintain vision & design consistency
9. Not just about lower costs

I see these tips as not only useful to the aspiring wiki-ist and crowdsourcer, but also to users of Mechanical Turk, which happens to be a tool that was instrumental in Krieger and Wang's Ideas2Ideas study.  I'm looking forward to applying these guidelines and the design principles behind Crowds and Creativity to future crowd sourcing endeavors.

On Saturday February 10 I attended a great event on the Web 2.0 phenomena known as social networking (or should I say the social networking phenom known as Web 2.0?): CommunityNext at Stanford. Great speakers, good schwag, and a large dose of optimism about the potential for networks of people to affect enormous positive change in the world. See my notes from the event posted over on downstream.org.

Two orgs represented at the event I found especially compelling:
Kiva.org and Cambrian House.

Kiva.org has enabled the infusion of capital into the 80% of the world's population that is not banked through an innovative microfinance model that has gained much praise and attention from the media, philanthropists and financiers. My friend Tracey Pettengill, Founder of MicroPlace has partnered with Kiva's founder, Premal Shah, to bolster microfinance in Silicon Valley hosting a periodic event with the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network. Their next event features guest speaker Bob Annibale, Citigroup's Global Director of Microfinance. Should be an interesting discussion.

Cambrian House has an innovative model for incubating and propelling new business. Leveraging Crowdsourcing, the model facilitates those with a great idea for a product or service to connect with funders, technical expertise, legal support, guidance and moral support to get the idea off the ground. I'll let you know how my idea for the next big thing flourishes on Cambrian House.

If ever there was a group of entrepreneurs who are invested in the neutrality of the net's telecom infrastructure, it's the participants at this event. Perhaps better than any other business demographic, they demonstrate just how precious net neutrality is. No word on the next CommunityNext event, but I'll track it and post here.