Entry #6 : Gotta Go Back in Time

The semester is over and if there is one thing that I learned from this class is that Crowdsourcing is a tricky business. I would be lying if I didn't say that I was slightly disappointed on how our film turned out. So I want to review on my personal experience of where I think we went wrong and right.
Self reflection time!

Areas that needed improvement:

In order for crowdsourcing to be successful- it takes time. More time than what I think my classmates had/were willing to give to our project. I'm guilty of it too. Its easy to neglect a once a week class, especially one with a unconventional setup. Which is very sad as I loved the concept of having more "power" in the structure of one of my classes. I think us as college students are so accustom to rigid class structure that when a class like this one comes along- our minds see it as chance to chill (which ultimately results in many slacking off).

In order for crowdsourcing to be successful- it requires a plan and a container idea. Now we did end up having a plan in the end. Our container idea of the poem, I found quite interesting ( especially it being a brainstorming morph from my pitched idea).   I think a place that we went wrong was that when brainstorming some of us tried to include everyones idea which lead to major confusion. I wish he had just picked an idea that was pitched and move forward instead of us "wasting" multiple class times on brainstorming that ended up just going in circles. I have found that many college students have trouble understanding the concept of brainstorming and try to jump from idea to final project without taking the baby steps along the way.  Is there such a way to teach how to brainstorm? Or is that defeating the purpose of the concept of brainstorming?

Personally, I feel that my specific job of social media managing was lacking.  I struggled getting responses despite what I felt was good content. Maybe with more time or perhaps a small budget I would have been able to get some better responses. I wish I could of had time to create video content for encouragement of submissions.  But should of, could of, would of.


Areas that we got right:

Everyone has a part of the puzzle ! Micro roles for the micro tasks.
Roles got murky as others had to step up in order to actually finish the final product. I just wish that some took more accountability/pride in fulfilling their roles. But in theory, the idea of having everyone play a certain role in the project was excellent.

Everyone is a editor.
Now this is were things got, well hellish. But the concept of everyone editing their section of the film that they were most familiar with was great. Once again, with this being a group project some did not do their part until the night before. The final film ended up looking like it was thrown together. I was not at the final assembly of the film, for some reason I was never notified.  It wasn't all bad, it just needed some time for refinement, I believe. I know for a fact a lot of elements that were planned and discussed for the final edit for some reason did not happen. This "section by section" editing did help with the project's fast turn around time.

Separate brainstorming and pitching of ideas. This was awesome! Having everyone come up with 2 different film ideas and pitch them was great. It showed a vast variety of interest and viewpoints.  I would have like to have seen many if the film crowdsourced concepts pitched. Most of our great micro task ideas came from this separate brainstorming approach as well.


In conclusion, this class had its rocky points (as do all classes with "large"- haha- group projects) but I feel that I got my moneys worth.  I was introduce to a lot of new crowdsourcing projects,films, and articles that I found great interest in. I still have a lot of interest in creating more crowdsourcing based projects and feel this class has better prepared me for tackling such projects. I also got to refine and improve upon my group project interaction skills. An area that I always need help in (I tend to like to work alone). If given the chance, I would take this class again.  Thank you Andre! - Hannah

Entry #5 : The Internet Is A Scary Place That Lies

Similarly related to Jon Ronson's ted talk on how twitter sought and destroyed Justine Sacco, a simple photo of an mega store employee was posted to twitter with the deep caption of "YOOOOOOOOOOO". The employee's name was....... Alex, and the internet has swallowed him. The picture blew up, retweeted, regramed, lunched 100s of memes, halloween costumes, mentioned on every news outlet, even boosted target sales. 

All of which lead to the "lucky" employee Alex gaining hundreds of thousands of followers in his social pages, a appearance on ellen, and internet fame benefits/ imaginary trophy. 
Everyone on Social Media knew Alex....but how many cared?
The Aftermath: Alex from target grew to kieran from tmoblie and steve from starbucks to matt from red robin....and so on....forever (okay forever in internet terms, so more like 3 months) impacting the internet.

My thoughts, this #AlexFromTarget smells greatly of a brilliant Target marketing campaign and I wasn't the only one thinking this. However, after great internet searching I have convinced myself that is wasn't, but in fact Alex is just another selected victim or saint for the internet's boredom delight. Unlike Justine Sacco, this had a rewarding outcome, Alex gained admires instead of haters. People often use the internet as a distraction and what is a bigger distraction than talking about a random target employee? How the internet chooses its distraction of the week, I can not tell you, but what I can is the mass crowd that is the internet will continue to select its distractions. These distractions is what keeps people so engaged with internet, a connection with strangers over one common topic. Suspension of disbelief for moment and that was what Alex provided. 

Side note, so apparently a market group fake claimed that they were the masterminds behind this internet creation then came out as saying the claim was just a social experiment. The internet is a lie.

Entry #4 : A Quarter of the Way Through

The Myth of Crowdsourcing 

Mr. Woods is a bit of a downer. I love the notion, even if it is possibly false, of crowdsourcing being this wonder filled idea of strangers coming to gather to solve and/ or create. Woods' business POV seems to say the that the idea of crowdsourcing is false because the "crowd"  is really just a group of nerds who have more knowledge than the public therefore are not the "crowd". Even nerds  (using this term respectively) can be a crowd. Directory states a crowd as

a large number of people gathered together, typically in a disorganized or unruly way.

 even if those people are geniuses and in it for themselves they are still the "crowd", disorganized thinkers. People working together on a project created by someone else. So yes, crowdsourcing can be very specific for certain projects but there is no need to dismantle the "crowdsourcing" umbrella title. Crowdsourcing and innovation are peanut butter and jelly.  Even if the innovation is under completely selfish reasons, that idea of innovation is what fuels and keeps the "crowd" working.

2 Reasons Why the Term "Crowdsourcing" Bugs Me 

Grams, too is a downer but in a good way. You have a idea and "money" (or any incentive) you will get content creators working, as Grams states, in a factory. But if you put effort into building a community on strong beliefs the factory workings soon follows. A bit too idealistic for me. Cause if you have ever tried to get people to join a "crowd" or "community" based solely on beliefs/ideals then you know how few participates you'll receive. And those participates will often be like minded creating more a cult less of a crowd. Incentives are necessary to build a crowd // ideals are necessary to maintain it. 

Entry #3 : There is No Escaping Now

Panting for Breath on a Virtual Shore

I feel a bit uncomfortable......which is a weird feeling for me. I don't quite get the man/machine/eroticism analogy. What I do get is this notion of how interconnected we are with the internet, especially my peers. That is why I refer to it as the interwebs, because it is just that, a web! A web that catches you, traps you, and even if you manage to escape it for a while pieces still stick to you like glue (similar to those  surprise spider webs). Constant up-keep of ones internet persona (guilty as charged) is seeming to become more in important to most than actual living. Brain scrambling is sure to follow with such habits. I wish there was a way for someone to hold a giant mirror to our faces and show us how ridiculous we are being sometimes. On the other hand, we also are doing GREAT things with this web and discouragement can hold awesomeness from happening. Is too much of a good thing bad? 

Speaking in Memes

I believe we should "memeified" even more!  A political event, sport scandal, or "dramatic"  news coverage is enough negativity to put someone into a lifetime of depression. Memes can speak volumes (often louder than a hour long video) while maintaining a sense of sanity. Also memes hold this sense of unbiasedness/satire forgiveness (yes one can agree or disagree but its just a silly picture).  Appealing to the ever so shorting attention-span of the 21st century. Yes, this political *insert problem here* is important but seeing constant comments/video/etc. content on it often makes me want to just shut it out....keep scrolling. A meme can grab my attention because it is based in fun. A meme can get people  thinking, really....it can.I do semi disagree with this whole idea that memes can't go reviral or resurge, a meme concept develops in layers, every new layer makes it gain in popularity.  But I maybe misunderstanding the concept because parts of this article went way over my head.  oh look a meme......

Entry #Two: The Words Continue

Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia 

Interesting to see the "origin story," as I would state it, of the great empire. I believe that Wiki does have more than one employee now....checks wiki, yes they do. I can't imagine how wiki could continue on with their ever expanding universe with just a single employee. Which brings me to the question of how can they find so many volunteers. Does the world really have thousands of people who like to edit a Encyclopedia for free? The answer to that question is complicated. What I think is, that there are thousands of people who are not only enticed by the thrill of editing articles, but also are drawn to the opportunity to provide free knowledge to all. To be that superhero teacher helping knowledge seekers and to contribute to a project who's world impact is very much understated.  As for the issue brought up near the end, wiki has not gained a good academic standing (in my personal experience) in the academic community. Heck, my advanced research logistics english professor (say that 10 times fast) spent the entire course telling us how horrible wiki is for any and all information. The way I see it, wiki is a good place for quick non-academic answers and a good place to start for academic answers. They are also masters at the craft of crowdsourcing volunteers.

Tiffany Shlain - From Failure to Innovation

It's hard for me imagine a world without internet. The year Tiffany "discovered" the internet I was born, hardwired for the new century. I share a lot with Tiffany's filmmaking beginnings. I too started as a young film enthusiast that reediting existing content to create my own content. Of course instead of old films, I used youtube videos which gave me a larger web of resources. What I take from Tiffany's talk/film is that in order to be a filmmaker you don't actually need to "make" the film. You create a concept, a notion, a abstraction, a conception and then the film that follows is simply a directed display of that concept. Easier said than done, yes, but the idea of vast community coordination to express one or many ideas is astounding.

This has nothing to do with anything.

Entry #One - The Beginning

TEDxNYED - Mike Wesch 

What I found particularly engaging about this video was Wesch's experience of media's interaction with "untouched" humans. I can complete see how something so simple as a census can change a culture so much. Heck, I remember how much a simple message board dictated my personal interaction with others in 6th grade. Yes, two different interaction stories, but they are related because media effects relationships, cultures, and learning. I also agree fully with Mr. Wesch's idea's and commentary on student learning. I received my pre-college education in a unconventional format. When I entered university, I was a bit dismayed/dumbfounded to see so many students only caring about the test and had no interest in gaining new knowledge/ asking questions.Unrelated Side note: the "social" graphic he kept displaying irritated me because of the pixelated and stretched out logos. Seeing similarities between Mr. Wesch's idea of learning and our class' approach, I am excited to see how this course unfolds. I am also a bit apprehensive as it relies a lot on the student's willingness to engage in their learning. Time and time again I see students just sitting there existing for just a letter grade, but I have full hope that this class will break the mold and produce/contribute to something awesome! 

Keynote Speaker: Michael Wesch

I found this video the most interesting (despite Wesch's dry presentation). Youtube is probably the social channel that I consume the most. It is my MAIN source of entertainment. Just like Wesch says, my web interaction is controlled (or crowdsourced) by others. If a video gets more likes, it will show up on my homepage and then I will most likely consume it. As much as I would like to believe that I "discover" video gems and web creators, the reality is the masses (and complex nerd code) have controlled how that content came to my screen. The interwebs is vast, I'm glad that my tiny selection is crowdsourced for me.

Linda Hill Ted Talk 

"A Leader's job is to set the stage but not preform on it."

I wish my "elders" (I hate that word) or people older than me would take this advise from Ms. Hill. Innovation starts from the bottom up. My peers (especially those in the same field) often feel that our voice in not heard. We are just young grasshoppers trying to "break" into the business and we feel don't have any innovated or valid points until we've climbed the ladder (brought the coffee) and gained "real world" experience. What I believe is missed out in this system is fresh, untainted, un-corporatized, ideas. Minds without experience baggage. Cause don't we all wanna work for a place that treats humans as a collective of geniuses.