Can Crowd Sourcing Solve the Challenges Posed by the HIV Epidemic?
When I was born I was the 4,157,337,212th person alive on Earth
- Courtesy of the BBC
Thinking about population growth and what we’re facing as a planet, I’m struck by how much has changed even since I appeared on this timeline just over 35 years ago. Identifying and understanding these changes and the complex issues around us is of great importance to us at Crowdcentric. We believe that the biggest opportunity in addressing these issues lies in the collective intelligence of every person on the planet. Empowering Change through Collaboration is our global theme for Social Media Week in 2012 and through thousands of connected conversations we hope to surface some of the best ideas and solutions and share them with the rest of the world.
Calculate what number you were when you were born here.
Social Media Week Global Theme: Empowering Change Through Collaboration
Guest Post By Don Tapscott, Curator Social Media Week
I’m enthusiastic about taking on the role of “Curator” for Social Media Week. Between now and my kickoff speech Feb 13 to cities around the world, I’ll be writing a series of articles to stimulate thinking and discussion in our global community.
The debate on the role of social media and change is over. Over the last year, many have questioned just how important social media are in helping activists achieve social change. Writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote a thoughtful essay in The New Yorker entitled “Small Change: Why the Revolution Won’t be Tweeted.” He argued that social networks only create weak ties between people, but that it’s strong ties and close relationships that bring about real social change.
It was a good debate and then reality stepped in — Tunisia. It turns out that the revolution was tweeted. The Tunisian revolution wasn’t caused by social media; it was caused by injustice. It wasn’t created by social media; it was created by a new generation of young people who didn’t want to be treated as subjects anymore. But the media dropped the costs of transactions and collaboration and it empowered change.
The movement for change has like a prairie fire across the Arab world and has now extended around the world from the demonstrations of millions in Spain against unemployment, to Wall Street to the global #Occupy movement. Leonard Cohen was looking prophetic when he wrote “First we’ll take Manhattan and then we’ll take Berlin.”
The Social Media Week theme of “Empowering Change Through Collaboration” is an apt one. But evidence is mounting that the current global slump is not just cyclical, but rather symptomatic of a deeper secular change. There is growing evidence that we need to rethink and rebuild many of the organizations and institutions that have served us well for decades, but now have come to the end of their life cycle. The global economic crisis should be a wakeup call to the world. We are at a turning point in history.
Let’s face it. The world is broken and the industrial economy and many of its industries and organizations have finally run out of gas, from newspapers and old models of financial services to our energy grid, transportation systems and institutions for global cooperation and problem solving.
At the same time the contours of a new kind of civilization are becoming clear as millions of connected citizens begin to forge alternative institutions using the Web as a platform for innovation and value creation. Social media is enabling social business. From education and science and to new approaches to citizen engagement and democracy, powerful new initiatives are underway, embracing a new set of principles for the 21st century — collaboration, openness, sharing, interdependence and integrity. Indeed, with the proliferation of social media and social networks, society has at its disposal the most powerful platform ever for bringing together the people, skills and knowledge we need to ensure growth, prosperity, social development and a just and sustainable world.
But don’t count on governments or most of our current business and institutional leaders to be the architects of change. Leaders of old paradigms have the greatest difficulty embracing the new. And vested interests will fight against change. It’s up to us.
The stakes are very high. As Anthony D. Williams and I describe in Macrowikinomics, people everywhere have nothing less than an historic choice: empower ourselves to achieve change and collaborate to find new solutions for our connected planet; or risk economic and social paralysis or even collapse. It’s a question of stagnation versus renewal. Atrophy versus renaissance. Peril versus promise.
Fortunately, for the first time in history, people everywhere can participate fully in creating a sustainable future. We are now building the collective intelligence to rethink many industries and sectors of society around the principles of collaboration.
This is not just a theory — it’s happening.
What do you think? What is to be done?
Over the next three months I’ll be introducing bi-weekly discussions on a number of topics where we can empower change through collaboration: Education & Learning, Health & Wellness, Energy & Environment, Politics & Government, Media & Entertainment, Science & Technology, Banking & Finance, Transportation & Mobility, Art & Culture and Marketing & Advertising.
Please join in the discussion!
For three decades Don Tapscott has been the world’s leading thinker about the impact of the digital revolution on business and society. He is the author of 14 books, most recently Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World and with Anthony D Williams: Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World. You can follow Don on Twitter at @DTapscott.
Stop Broadcasting and Start Co-creating: Collaborative Experience Design for the Conference Industry
In the past two years, the global Social Media Week community has hosted more than 1500 individually organized events in fifteen countries around the world. During this time we have worked hard to innovate around the event experience to create more engaging and collaborative ways for people to exchange ideas and connect around shared passions and projects.
The most common type of event, has, unsurprisingly, been panel discussions. The panel format has been around for many years and while it still has an important role in the exchange of ideas and the convening of thought leaders, I would like to put forward an argument that there are new approaches to event design that provide better and more engaging experiences for conference attendees.
Co-creation & Collaboration as a New Experience Design Model
“Tell me and I will forget” Show me and I will remember” “Involve me and I will understand” - Confucius
Of the three statements above, which most represents a traditional panel format in your view? The first one right? The second might apply to product demonstrations or specific talks where the presenter guides you through a case study; however, it’s the third item–involve me–that we should be focusing on if we’re really committed to engaging experiences for our community.
Social Media Week is built upon a set of principles that focuses on openness, inclusivity, collaboration and co-creation. We have worked hard since launching to put the attendee at the center of the experience and curation in the hands of individuals and organizations who bring a greater depth of knowledge on a broader and more diverse range of topics – the community.
At the very core of what we do is the notion that if you invite industry and individuals in particular to co-create an event with you, the experience for those that participate will be much richer as a result. However, with more than 50% of our events still representing “Tell Me and I will Forget” approaches to knowledge and information sharing, we have a huge amount of work to do to address this.
Co-creation & Collaborative Experience Design
The reason why panel debates are so popular is because they are the lowest common denominator. They’re fairly easy to organize and plan for and require much less preparation compared to a person giving a 20 minute talk, or a group planning an interactive workshop. Don’t get be wrong, they have a place, and with preparation, inspiring speakers, and great audience participation they can be great. It’s just that in today’s hyper-connected world, where people demand deeper levels of engagement, they shouldn’t represent the standard for the conference industry.
So what’s the plan?
Over the next 12 months the Social Media Week global community will host in excess of 2,000 events in 30 cities worldwide. Our goal during this next phase of development is to ensure that every single event is designed with co-creation principles at their core. To achieve this we need to establish and communicate a new set of principles in event experience design.
As a way of framing these principles, let me first provide some definitions for what we mean by “Collaboration, Co-creation and Experience Design”:
Collaboration: “A form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature.“
Co-creation: “Ability to organize communities of participants to develop, market, and support the development of event experiences.”
Experience Design: “Practice of designing event experiences and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions.”
Next, I’ve put together a set of guiding principles which embody everything we believe in at Crowdcentric and Social Media Week. Think of them as a guide, rather than a set of rules. Most importantly, think about ways to apply them when designing your next Social Media Week event:
- Inspire participation: Invite the best and brightest minds in your space to join you in the co-creation of your event: open up and show them what’s in it for them by building in ways to fully recognize their support publicly.
- Connect creative thinkers: It’s important to enable bright and engaged people to build on each others ideas, both on- and off-line. Provide them with a clear brief and give them the tools to connect and collaborate.
- Promote openness and sharing: Share your ideas, release them into the public domain, thereby making them available for others to use and comment on.
- Build flexible networks for participation: Create flexible networks that extend across internal and often even external borders, thereby enabling you to tap into a broader pool of talent, ideas and resources.
- Be agile & iterative in your approach: Based on iterative and incremental development, be agile in your approach and allow requirements and solutions to evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.
- Continue the conversation: Co-creation is a longer-term engagement. Don’t give up on your event once it’s finished. Think about ways to continue the conversation, build on people’s ideas and inspire continued dialogue.
- Remember Confucius: “Involve me and I will understand”. Make it interactive, participatory and engaging. People don’t want to be broadcast to.
The benefits of Co-creation and Collaborative Experience Design
While the effort required to apply co-creation and collaborative experience design principles is considerably greater than “pulling a panel together”, the benefits far outweigh the additional time required.
Specifically, your event will rise above the noise, your participants and co-creators will come away with a much more rewarding experience and the extent to which people will want to continue the conversation and remain connected and engaged in the future will be considerably greater.
Ultimately, you have a choice when thinking about how to design your next event, but remember the most important principle. If you broadcast to your attendees they are unlikely to recall any information and you will have created no real lasting impact. If you involve them, they will not only understand, but they will become your greatest advocates.
Good luck in your efforts and thank you for reading!
Toby Daniels is the CEO of New York based Crowdcentric, which was founded as a means of bringing people together around the world via collaborative platforms that fuse real-world and online and mobile experiences, connecting people, content and conversation. Crowdcentric owns and operates Social Media Week. Follow Toby’s updates on Twitter.
The Great Transformation
Occasionally we at Crowdcentric like take a break from our everyday blocking-and-tackling to think big.
The other day we were discussing our philosophy and mission. I shared an interesting piece from Robert Greene called The Descent of Power: Thoughts on The Great Transformation and How to Master It. The team found it so interesting we decided we’d share it with you too.
Robert Greene, if you don’t know, is a bestselling author of books like The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War. He’s one of my favorite thinkers, partly because he looks at reality without passion or prejudice and distills unvarnished lessons from it. Those lessons may be inspiring or harsh (or both), but they are always insightful. Rather than camp in the skeptical “history repeats itself” or breathless “this time is different!” groups, Greene draws on a vast knowledge of human history to distinguish both the permanent similarities and the permanent shifts between us and our predecessors.
Some themes he discusses:
- Decentralization of power from the few to the many is an irreversible trend set in motion thousands of years ago, and the Internet has turbo-charged it
- The amazing similarity between the revolutionary strategies of Napoleon and Google
- How bubbles tend to signal periods of great transition
Our favorite quote:
“What is really changing in the world is not technology, or the globalization of capital, but the relationships between people—relationships that were once hierarchical and based on the force of authority. This has been radically flattened. What matters most now are the connections between people, the interdependencies and networks that can be formed and the unimpeded flow of information. Any kind of obstruction to that flow will be seen as something from the past, someone or some group trying to halt the course of an historic fatality.”
You can read the whole piece here: The Descent of Power.
Can you help us solve the world’s traffic congestion?
US drivers collectively spend 4.8 billion hours sitting in traffic
Cities everywhere face exponential increases in traffic. Most are unable to build sufficient infrastructure to cope. Driver behavior, like rubbernecking and erratic lane changing, compounds the problem.
In conjunction with our partners at social production firm Mutopo and open innovation platform Jovoto, we’re going to find and test new ways to eliminate traffic this problem through our new initiative BetaTraffic.
The BetaTraffic Overview
As part of a 12 month initiative we’ll bring together urban planners, designers, and fellow commuters to discuss the problem and develop solutions and we’re looking for global partners to help make this a reality. This is an opportunity to be involved with like-minded organizations in a high-profile initiative.
The Impact
Traffic wastes time and fuel, and increases environmental pollution. Truckers delivering goods in major US cities wasted nearly $50 billion in time and fuel sitting in traffic in 2009. When combined with employees commuting to work, the total rises to $115 billion. Here are some other sobering facts:
- 1 hour average traffic delay worldwide
- 2 ½ hours average traffic delay in Moscow
- 3.9 billion gallons of gas in US burned sitting in traffic
- 300% increase in fuel consumption and emissions due to congestion
Sources: 2010 Commuter Pain Study 2010 Urban Mobility Report
In addition to the environmental impact, traffic affects people’s health and harms communities. Almost 60% of commuters worldwide believe traffic negatively affects their health and studies have linked traffic to high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease. People living on high-traffic streets have fewer friends in their neighborhoods and feel weaker ties to their communities.
The Solution
This complex problem gets little attention. So as part of BetaTraffic, we’re starting a conversation. Over the course of the next 12-18 months, we’ll bring together urban planners, designers, innovators and fellow commuters to discuss the problem and develop solutions in an open design challenge.
The challenge will encourage mass-participation through the submission of ideas, data collection and analysis and continued dialogue through open conversation and collaboration.
Problems like this are usually discussed exclusively by closed groups of experts. The open challenge format will include these groups alongside a more diverse audience.In our experience, the best and most interesting solutions are created when we connect people together across disciplines.
How You Can Help
Here are a few ways that you can get involved:
- Sponsorship: We’re looking for high-tech, automotive, wireless providers, mobile handset providers and other brands to support the initiative
- Media Partnership: Promotional promotional and media support and outreach through mainstream and social media
- Expert Judges: Provide feedback on concepts, guide participants and provide expert advice
If you are interested to learn more about this forthcoming initiative, or if you would like to talk to us about being a global partner or to provide specific expertise as one of our challenge judges, please email Toby Daniels.
Who We Are
Mutopo is a Social Production company. We produce collaborative solutions. We have strategy, design, and marketing experience, and have solved problems with organizations large and small.
Crowdcentric was founded to explore new opportunities in how we as a society connect and communicate, and to help people, brands, and organizations around the world establish deeper relationships through collaboration and communication.
Jovoto is motivated by two ideas: To provide fair, challenging opportunities for creative people, and to enable organizations to access talent around the world to create better communications, products and services.
The BetaCup: Case Study
Goal: To create a coffee cup with the advantages of paper cups and none of the landfill.
Overview: the betacup launched in 2009 as an open challenge to solve this growing problem. After 403 ideas and over 10 million media impressions in the idea challenge phase, the best idea was prototyped (aka the ‘Karma Cup’). Read Core77′s write-up of the results. The challenge was sponsored by Starbucks and supported by Core77, Jovoto, Denuo, Good Day Monsters and our individual advisors and supporters.
Also, take a look at our promotional video that was produced by Good Day Monsters
.
thebetacup: 60 Seconds To Save The World from the betacup on Vimeo.
We Are Hiring: Director of Global Sponsorship
The Role
Via direct sales and business development efforts and coordination with our partners in more than 20 cities worldwide, the salesperson will sell sponsorships in the US and globally, including Europe and/or Asia, to consumer and B2B brands.
This position will be based New York City, but will also cover Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and South Africa and may involve some travel to those areas.
Responsibilities Include:
- Develop and execute a sales and business development plan
- Coordinate with global and local sales counterparts as needed on opportunities that represent integrated revenue building opportunities
- Maintain a database of contacts consisting of client and prospect companies
- Produce regular activity/contact reports and revenue pipeline estimates
- Develop and present customized and creative sponsorship proposals
The Person
Crowdcentric is small but perfectly formed. We think very very big and have a huge ambition for what we do. We also have big hearts and strong personalities and laugh considerably more than we cry. We are looking for someone who shares these characteristics and someone who has a passion for emerging media and technology.
Qualifications:
- Ability to build senior level relationships
- Have existing senior level relationships
- Ability to create creative solutions for clients
- Expert sales skills
- Expert marketer
- Knowledge of emerging media and technology markets
If you are interested in this position, please submit your resume and LinkedIn profile to jobs@crowdcentric.net
About Crowdcentric Media
Crowdcentric is a small company with a big mission. We launched in New York in 2010 are committed to helping people, brands, companies, not-for-profits and governments around the world establish deeper and more valuable relationships through collaborative learning and social communication.
One of our biggest projects is Social Media Week, a global conference which brings people, brands and organizations together to explore how we connect and communicate as a society.
Since launching Social Media Week we have hosted over 1,300 events for more than 50,000 people in 15 cities worldwide, including London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Hong Kong, Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Bogotá.
In addition to running Social Media Week, we’re also figuring out how to solve big complex social and environmental problems through a joint venture initiative with social production firm Mutopo. So far we’re taking on the issue of paper cup waste through The BetaCup and global problem of traffic congestion through BetaTraffic.
Crowdcentric is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and we welcome applications from all backgrounds regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, or any other classification protected by law.
Where does Crowdcentric live?
We’ve explored a range of different workspace options since we formed Crowdcentric in 2010. Our goal has always been to find solution that suits our specific needs, with an emphasis on being able to work remotely on some occasions and have space when we need it. We also scale the team significantly during the build up to Social Media Week events in September and February so flexibility is key.
The first six months we tested a number of workspace options, from renting a small office for a short period and then going fully remote for the down period. Getting locked into a longer term lease in a single, one-size space doesn’t work for us and is not economically efficient. Also, working from home or from typical coworking spaces has failed to quite meet our needs as this lacks the professional environment we need for client meetings. Combined with this is the fact that I and the rest of my team get bored easily and consider our environment to be directly tied to the energy that we bring to our work.
This is why our current solution is working so well for us and why I feel compelled to give them a big old plug.
As we are effectively in our “off-season”, with our scaled-down team, we are currently working out of the WeWork Lounge in Soho, which is a fantstically well designed space, incredibly affordable, together with the design, comfort and style of a boutique hotel together with the high tech business tools of a big company. Here are some of the amenities they provide:
- unique interior design and finishes
- conference rooms with entire-wall whiteboards
- fresh fair trade organic coffee every morning
- aquaovo ovopur water filters
- shared refrigerator and microwave each floor
- new book/magazine library
- indoor bike storage (coming soon)
- tools for use at home available for checkout
- discounted zipcar membership
But the amenities are just one aspect of the experience that WeWork provides. Since joining their community earlier this year, where we were occupying an eight person office at their 34th St address, we have been given unparallelled service and been looked after as if we were their most important hotel guests. I can honestly say this makes all the difference to us, especially when our needs are so varied and when flexibility is of such importance to us.
If you, or your company is looking for space, either temporarily, or full-time, I cannot recommend WeWork enough and encourage you to check out their site for more information on their Soho, Midtown and Meatpacking (coming soon) locations.
Crowdcentric: Our Founding Mission, Philosophies and Core Principles
Many of you that already know us and are familiar with our work will know that Crowdcentric has been the driving force behind some really fantastic projects since we launched the company almost exactly a year ago.
Today, we are officially launching our new online and social presence, which will function as a channel through which we can more effectively connect and engage with our friends, partners, clients and community.
As part of this launch, I wanted to take this opportunity to more fully and hopefully more clearly articulate our mission, philosophies and core values behind Crowdcentric.
Crowdcentric Beard Evolution: Brian -> Toby -> Zach -> Ben
Mission
As the producer of Social Media Week, The #Promise and collaborators in ThinkSocial & the BetaProject, our mission is to help people, brands, companies, not-for-profits and governments around the world establish deeper and more valuable relationships through collaborative learning and social communication.
Philosophy
Due to the self organizing and real-time sharing capabilities of social technologies, and in light of recent global events that illustrate the power of these developments, it is clear that we are becoming an increasingly interconnected society on a global scale.
This transformational change, which is in-part defined by the shift from one-to-many communications to many-to-many, has had a profound effect on almost every facet of industry; from businesses to governments, to public sector organizations and non-profits, to individuals who can now find empowerment through simply being able to access a mobile phone or an Internet connection.
With operations and partnerships in 15 cities worldwide, Crowdcentric is working to facilitate a global conversation anchored in how technology is changing how we connect and communicate.
While it’s perfectly understandably for people to attach Crowdcentric to only the conference and events businesses (indeed, we put on many killer events), it is important to note that we are primarily in the connecting business which goes far beyond physical interaction. “Listening” is Crowdcentric’s primary methodology in knowing where, who, and what to connect with next. Our vast network of global organizations and individuals provides us with this unique perspective.
Core Values
Open: Foster transparency, engagement and openness
Collaborative: Organize communities to support the development of ideas & innovations
Frictionless: Create clear and smooth paths for participation
Distributed: Enable global connectivity in order to achieve common goals
Networked: Build flexible networks that enable us to tap into a world of talent
Agile: Move quickly and iterate often through a process of constant evolution
We’re excited to finally share some of the founding principles behind Crowdcentric and would love to explore ways to connect and collaborate with you in the future. For more information on who we are please visit the team section and feel free to reach out to me directly, or email hello@crowdcentric.net if you have a specific question or idea that you would like to discuss.
Toby Daniels
Founder & Executive Director, Social Media Week, and CEO, Crowdcentric. Toby is an entrepreneur with 12 yrs experience in digital media. He managed an interactive agency in London (7 yrs), helped to launch Mint Digital in US, co-founded ThinkSocial & founder Social Media Week.
You can connect to him on Twitter or Facebook.