Richard Gayle: SpreadingScience

Using crowds to solve problems - SpreadingScience

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:28:14 GMT

by James Cridland Get Ready to Participate: Crowdsourcing and Governance: [Via Confessions of an Aca/Fan]

Crowdsourcing and Governance by Daren C. Brabham It's been three years since Jeff Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" in his Wired article "The Rise of Crowdsourcing." The term, which describes an online, distributed problem solving and production model, is most famously represented in the business operations of companies like Threadless and InnoCentive and in contests like the Goldcorp Challenge and the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest. In each of these cases, the company has a problem it needs solved or a product it needs designed. The company broadcasts this challenge on its Web site to an online community--a crowd--and the crowd submits designs and solutions in response. Next--and this is a key component of crowdsourcing--the crowd vets the submissions of its peers, critiquing and ranking submissions until winners emerge. Though winners are often rewarded for their ideas, prizes are often small relative to industry standards for the same kind of professional work and rewards sometimes only consist of public recognition.

Recognizing that not all creativity and innovation resides in-house, some organizations are looking for connections to outside innovators. New social tools allow them to make connections, through such sources as InnoCentive. When done well, these approaches can not only produce new ideas but help vet these ideas for suitability. [More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

Innovating with elephants - SpreadingScience

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:18:13 GMT

Energy, innovation and elephants:
[Via Andrew Hargadon]

There's nothing like money to bring out the dogma in people, and there's nothing, if not money, in the $150B energy innovation plan of the Obama administration.

The ensuing dogma surfaces around how to best spend that money. On the one side are those arguing that we need to invest in deploying existing technologies (the latest in solar, wind, and energy efficiency)[~]on the other side are those arguing such federal investments in existing technologies would starve the basic research activities that will bring us the truly breakthrough technologies we need. Nowhere is this debate more starkly represented than in the (barely) civil dialog between Joe Romm and the Breakthrough Institute. Andy Revkin, of the NYT and his blog, Dot Earth, describes this debate:

[More]

A really nice discussion of two important viewpoints. And the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant is one of my favorites.

Because collaboration can help us gain a truer understanding of the world than a single view. If the blind men talked with each other, then they could actually describe an elephant. Just as more open discussion could provide a better understanding of where to put the money.

But respect for other views is a requirement for this to work. If the blind men went around saying all the other views were full of crap, then no real understanding could occur. Same with these sorts of discussions.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

Userland Shutdown

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:34:37 GMT

Userland, which has hosted my blog for 7 years, will shut down its servers on Dec. 31. I will see about moving this but anyone reading this here should strat following my other blogs:

A Man With A PhD - essentially this blog but hosted at Wordpress.
A Path to Sustainable - dealing with topics that overlap with some of my work with the Sustainable Path Foundation.
SpreadingScience - my work blog.
Idea Club Blog - my work on Idea Club for Sustainable Path

So please, follow me and my ramblings at these other blogs.

The failure is the process - SpreadingScience

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:49:13 GMT

by seier+seier+seier

Lessons Learned -- Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking: [Via Manage by Designing]

"You never learn by doing something right [OE]cause you already know how to do it. You only learn from making mistakes and correcting them." Russell Ackoff Design and "design thinking" is gaining recognition as an important integrative concept in management practice and education. But it will fail to have a lasting impact, unless we learn from the mistakes of earlier, related ideas. For instance, "system thinking", which shares many of the conceptual foundations of "design thinking", promised to be a powerful guide to management practice, but it has never achieved the success its proponents hoped for. If systems thinking had been successful in gaining a foothold in management education over the last half of the 20th century, there would be no manage by designing movement, or calls for integrative or design thinking.

[More]

This is a very interesting discussion. It seems to me the problem is not with systems thinking but with the attempt to create a defined process for it. Human nature includes trying to grasp innovation by naming it. In many cases, old fashioned hierarchical approaches are being use to try and fold systems thinking into them.

[More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

Communicating science - SpreadingScience

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:48:04 GMT

by hiddedevries

A Climate (Communication) Crisis?: [Via Dot Earth]

If experts change how they describe global warming, will people wake up?

[More]

Interesting points but trying to be more emotional and dramatic is not very effective when facts are trying to be exchanged. There has been a lot of research done that exposes the steps individuals and communities progress through as they adopt new idea and change their viewpoints. It might be better to be aware of this than to try framing exercises.

The five steps are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption. Different people move through these steps at different rate.This results in a differentiation of a population into different groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority,

Scientists are generally on the innovator/early adopter spectrum of things, especially compared to the entire population, which, by definition, is mostly the 68% in the middle.

Innovators and early adopters take their cues from outside influences and their own experiences. They are open to ideas that come from outside the community and move much faster through the five steps than others. They are not as dependent on community influences as the majority are.

So scientists are influenced by people who are outside their direct social network. We are trained to do that in order to examine data, converting it into useful knowledge that gains us understanding of the natural world. We have a lot of training that helps us have the sagacity to determine the usefulness of a new idea. even if the idea comes from someone 'outside.'

But, for the majority of people in the middle, outside influences are suspect. They usually will only adopt an innovation or change their opinion when a respected member of their own community, of their social network, tells them to. They are generally influenced only by those close connections in their social network.

[More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Social media

Disengagement is necessary for innovation adoption - SpreadingScience

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:46:50 GMT

Eartly Adoption: Not Just For Tech?: [Via Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech]

There is a great post from Louis Gray that I’ve been thinking about lately with an interesting view of 5 Major Stages of early adopter behavior. The Five Stages of Early Adopter Behavior include: Discovery, QA and Spreading the Word Promotion and Collaboration Mainstream Use and Engagement Sense of Entitlement, Nitpicking and Reduced Use Migration to Something New, Call to Move Followers You can read the full descriptions of the 5 Stages here. [More]

I've discussed early adopter behavior before. The first few steps compress the normal 5 step process everyone goes through in adopting a new innovation – awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption. Entitlement and migration describe something else – some of the early stages of adopting a new innovation require the rejection of the previous one. This is also behavior seen by innovators. Innovators love something new and even after adopting a new innovation are often looking for the next best thing. But almost anyone who adopts a new innovation must break away from the old one. It may well be a different process for the innovators/early adopters than for the rest of the group, the early and late majorities. Most people are informed about what choices to make by early adopters/innovators. These people do not generally discover new innovations and will adopt what others tell them to. They rely on key influential members of the community to inform them about new innovations. [More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

Adopting an idea

Thu, 21 May 2009 01:57:36 GMT

I happened to read this article from the Center for American Progress about the different groups found in polls about global warming. and was immediatley taken with the numbers. Here is the relevant figure I wish to discuss.

I've read a lot about how new ideas and innovations work their way through a population (here are some handy examples). What struck me was the these percentages are actually almost exactly the numbers one would expect to see for any innovation or idea moving its way through a society. Read the whole report . Seldom does a survey's report find people falling into similar 'types' seen that full scale research efforts also identified. Look at the numbers - 18%, 33%, 19%, 12%, 11% and 7%. I've mentioned several times before the different groups that are found as an innovation or as new idea diffuses through a community. There has been a lot of work that indicates that there are 5 groups present as a community adopts a new idea:

innovators
early adopters
early majority
late majority
laggards

From the work of Beal, Rogers and Bohlen (and the Wikipedia page), the distribution of each of these types in a population follows a bell curve,

Now look at the numbers from the global warming survey.They fit pretty well into these categories. Just another item to demonstrate how acceptance of a novel idea or innovation breaks down. [More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Environment, Social media, Web 2.0

Five Researchers - SpreadingScience

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:36:07 GMT

I published a new version of my Five Researchers Helped by Science 2.0. Hope you like it.

Technorati Tags: Science, Web 2.0

Serve Others and others will serve you - SpreadingScience

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:29:55 GMT

by Schristia (busy with my daughter's exams)

The Most Compelling Leadership Vision:

[Via HarvardBusiness.org]

A distinguished woman rose to speak in the front of a room of 40 fellow employees during a Total Leadership workshop I was conducting earlier this week at a large pharmaceutical company's headquarters.

"Joyous laughter [~] this is the sound I hear throughout the home I have built and now maintain for mentally ill women in Puerto Rico. They are surrounded by people who love and care for them. They are enjoying life."

Juana, let's call her, was telling the brief (one-minute) story of her personal leadership vision; a description of the impact you're having on your world and the legacy you're creating 15 years from now. When Juana sat down, one of her close colleagues said, "I've known you so long yet I never knew about this part of who you are. Wow!" I couldn't help but ask Juana how I could support her pursuit of her vision. All of us were moved, and felt inclined to contribute.

People will not follow a leader if it is only to the leader's benefit. We are social animals, using networks of interactions for live our lives. The most invigorating visions are those that lead people to a better place. Not to one that simply makes the leader wealthy. [More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: General, Web 2.0

It has only just begun - SpreadingScience

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:18:38 GMT

by woodleywonderworks
The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras:

[Via Web Strategy by Jeremiah]

Expect the Groundswell to continue, in which people connect to each other - rather than institutions. Consumer adoption of social networks is increasing a rapid pace, brands are adopting even during a recession, so expect the space to rapidly innovate to match this trend. Clients can access this report, but to summarize what we found, in the executive summary we state:

[More at SpreadingScience]

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0