Fix City Dot Org

The good people of Brooklyn, NY now have a new tool at their disposal: FixCity.org. This crowdsourcing website (and its supporting organization) is all about taking small steps to “fix your city”. In this case the first project is to enable the public at large to suggest good locations for bicycle racks. As a part of the larger Open Planning Project and Open 311, FixCity is another effort to help citizens help government implement changes that they really want. 

Crowdsourcing – What?

I’ve talked about crowdsourcing on several occasions but for the uninitiated let me give my quick explanation. Essentially crowdsourcing is the term used for asking anyone (and I mean anyone) interested in participating in a process to provide their opinion/data/etc. based on some set of specific parameters. This is most often done via social media sites because it allows for maximum participation. The most famous crowdsourced project is, of course Wikipedia.org.

Fixing my ______

So what are the projects facing your community or organization? Do you feel like you really understand what your constituents and supports want? By crowdsourcing you may not get expertise (but you might get that too); what you will get is a chance to learn and honest feedback.

Crowdsourced solutions are like any other solution, if you aren’t asking the right questions you won’t end up with useful answers. To mitigate this issue follow these guidelines:

1. Create an environment of invitation – make your crowd owners of the process instead of outside participants.
2. Make sure that your questions are framed in the positive and require actionable answers.
3. Provide clear transparency of what is happening along the way so that participants don’t feel like they are talking to a wall or that their input is being misused.

There are other issues that need taken into consideration as well but I feel like this list is an excellent starting point. There is no need to be fearful of crowdsourcing – just take some time for thoughtful consideration about what your end goal really is and if you are ready to listen to the wisdom of crowds.

Pay it Forward

A big part of crowdsourcing is sharing; people giving to reach a common goal without outside incentives. When developing a crowdsourcing process use social media tools like Wiki’s or Blogs to share the process, the work, the lessons learned and hopefully the success story so that everyone can learn from what you’ve done. In this way you will be paying forward the good work you received.

If you want to explore this idea of crowdsourcing and how it might enhance a project you have in mind please feel free to contact us at Andrew Miller Consulting using this page. Thanks!

Last weekend I had the pleasure and honor to be a scholarship attendee to the first national Public Media Camp held in Washington, DC by NPR/PBS. I was thrilled to spend the weekend learning more about the good work public media folks and supporters like me were doing around the country to make their community a little better, more engaged and more supportive of public broadcasting.

The format for the event was an un-conference which is loosely based on the same social technologies that the Art of Hosting employees in creating conversations that matter. If you’d like more information on Public Media Camp check out the website and wiki here: http://publicmediacamp.org/.

The framework behind the event

Setting up an un-conference is more than just inviting people to an event, there are underpinnings to the social technologies at work at these events that need to be built and understood in order to properly provide the space and mindset for truly meaningful conversations to take place; conversations that lead to innovative solutions.

Because many of the attendees of this event are expected to go back to their home city and host a regional Public Media Camp I wanted to provide them with a better understanding of the framework. I thought that providing some background about how these social technologies work would be crucial and, according to the feedback I received, I was right.

The purpose at the center of this session:

The design behind this session was put together rather hastily (I chose to do this teach at open space the morning of Day Two which doesn’t provide the time or resources you SHOULD invest in design):

The design is built around the purpose because EVERYTHING builds around the purpose.

We began with a check-in of, “How do you feel after a good conversation?” which led to the following thoughts:

• Like my ideas were represented
• I’ve been informed
• Feel like there’s action
• Empowered
• Motivated

This harvest sheet also grew out of our first question about experience with group circles and talking pieces. One of the key insights we came up with was that we don’t understand why, as children, we use these techniques and they work so well; but then at some point we stop using them and we stop really listening to each other.

That is the death of most potentially good conversations.

Other insights were:

• Talking pieces provide a physical reminder of how long your the only person talking, like a weight
• Talking pieces and circles are “good medicine” for having conversations
• Physical space is important when planning to have a circle so everyone can fit in it

Most of the session was a reiteration of the principles behind Open Space and World Cafe, some strategies for how they’re used and the importance of purpose and asking the right question. Refer to the design document for those notes (click here for a large version).

At the end of the session we had a chance to reflect on, “What did this conversation and teaching make you feel?”

• Bewildered at first but then it was eye-opening
• Confused that this session wasn’t about “online social media” but about “face-to-face socializing” and then glad that it was because face-to-face is so important
• Energized and ready to go
• Inspired
• Empowered

It was clear that we all shared a special experience and that several more individuals are looking forward to hosting meaningful conversations in their future.

Here are some resources for further research, learning and understanding:

• http://artofhosting.org
• http://www.openspaceworld.org/
• http://www.theworldcafe.com/hosting.htm

Excellent example of how to turn data into graphical representations, how that data changes hands and what it means for our future of understanding.

Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.