Posts Tagged ‘wisdom of crowds’

Innovation to go

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

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David Tunnicliffe


What is it: A crowd sourcing website which allows those in search of new ideas to harness the power of the ‘global mind’.  A company, or presumably individual, with an innovation need can state their requirement which then attracts the attention of creative types who busy themselves addressing the issue.  A kind of ‘one-night-stand’ opportunity for those with intermittent rather than ongoing innovation needs.

Why is it cool: If we think of humanity as a kind of holistic organic melange of experience and ideas, this is a great way to draw on the powers of the collective brain.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: David Tunnicliffe

Opinionaided

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

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Erin Hearn


What is it: A mobile phone app that allows users to asks opinions of their contacts on various topics. The app has been up and running for about a month where its users can seek advice on a wide range of public topics, including: “Would you wear teal, fuschia or purple yoga pants?”, the questions can be accompanied by photo’s to illustrate the questions.

Why is it cool: New digital communication tools will change the way we do research. Sure, market researchers can already do surveys on mobile phones, but what functionality with apps bring? How must survey language change for the evolving research media? And what are the impacts on sampling of interviewing social clusters or cascades (e.g. cost, representivity). Exciting times!

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Erin Hearn

Sellaband

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

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Best of the Month, John Cucka

What the band you just bought might look like...

What is it: Sellaband is a website that offers a way for crowds to fund a band’s first album. They’ve now expanded their service to include bands that are known, allowing fans to buy shares in the proceeds of an album, the money used to fund its production.

Why is it cool: Breaking the music industry monopoly on artists is only possible today with the relatively cheap availability of recording gear and the web’s ability to directly connect bands with their fans. Numerous artists have offered their albums directly for digital download in the past. But Sellaband expands that fan-band connection to include funding the projects as well. Eliminating the middle man of the music industry could have serious consequences, so expect PR and legal resistance from the corporations.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka

Be your own crowd

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

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Liz Pridham

What a crowd of one might look like

What is it: We’re all familiar  with the wisdom of crowds: a group of people will usually give a more accurate response than any individual  or “expert” usually will. But what happens when we are on our own? Well a recent study has suggested that we can be our own “crowd”, using a technique called “dialectical bootstrapping”.

Essentially bootstrapping gets you to average your own individual conflicting opinions by forcing you to think of why your first opinion may be incorrect and, based on this, provide an  alternative answer (i.e. be your own devil’s advocate).   The research showed that the average  of your first and second answer will actually  be much closer to the correct one.

Why is it cool: We can all use bootstrapping to help us make better decisions ourselves, but this also has research applications to increase the accuracy of individual responses (and thus overall accuracy as well!). It would be time-consuming, though, and therefore perhaps reserved for only the most important (and/or error-prone) questions.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Liz Pridham

The wisdom of google

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

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John Cucka

What a pandemic may look like

What is it: Google.org is the non-profit arm of the deep-pocketed Google. Here, they demonstrate the power of google search data, in aggregate, by showing that they can anticipate flu epidemics two weeks in advance of the best CDC data (which lags due to reporting).

Why is it cool: Although far from perfect, once again we see that the activities of the crowd can serve as high-quality proxies for our scientifically constructed and collected data, and often do so more simply and quickly.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka

Wisdom of crowds

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

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Howard Parry-Husbands

What a council of wise advisors may look like

What is it: Just how good are people are predicting their own choices? How much better are they at predicting what most other people are most likely to do? Prediction markets proved their mettle in recent US elections, showing that “the mob” can deliver predictions as accurate, or better, than the so-called experts, and better even than an aggregate “meta-poll” analysis.

For example, here is a list of the final polls before the election. Although the winner looks likely, the share of the vote looks far from accurate. By comparison, the Iowa Electronic Markets reveal a prediction of final vote share much closer to reality, and when converted into an winner-take-all-odds, more certainly predict a winner than the other polling and predictions.

Why is it cool: The “wisdom of crowds” is clearly evident, and suggest that research has an opportunity grow – away from the static, traditional questioning similar to the typical polling, towards a more inclusive approach. Imagine tracking the predictions of the crowd, as part of predictive tracking.

Where to find it: article here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands