The Global Ideas Blog

Dumb crowds and innovation lessons

The Global Ideas Bank was lucky enough, when it started off as a website, to have the backing of a pretty amazing web guy: Flemming Funch, who set up and ran the New Civilization Network. Flemming now lives in the south of France, and blogs under the marvellous title of Ming the Mechanic. Always worth a read, particularly when Flemming gets on a (blog) roll, as he is at present.

So a couple of great articles via Ming the Mechanic:

- The Dumbness of Crowds is a great little piece about the difference between "collective intelligence" and "dumbness of crowds". Such as:

"Collective intelligence" is a pile of people writing Amazon book reviews.

"Dumbness of Crowds" is a pile of people collaborating on a wiki to collectively author a book...

For all those (such as myself) who got carried away by the wisdom of crowds....... (see sundry previous blog posts!)

- Ming also points to a great article on Innovation Tools (which I foolishly stopped taking the feed from) asking their readers what they learned about innovation in 2006; lots of good and interesting stuff here too.... such as:

"Passion is the linchpin to innovation. "Innovation" is a big fat generic concept in most corporations... like "God" or "life on other planets" or "empowerment." Unless the individuals within a given corporation have a genuine sense of urgency, personal ownership and passion for innovation, nothing significant will happen. Innovation begins within the mind of each person. Corporate initiatives that don't awaken the basic human instinct to innovate within each individual will be doomed" - Mitch Ditkoff

21st Century News Challenge

Been meaning to mention this for a little while, the Knight Brothers 21st Century Challenge:

"Turn the web on its head. Show us how online news can help people improve their lives and shape their communities.

Knight Foundation is seeking new ideas, pilot projects, commercial products and leadership initiatives that will improve the flow of information and news in the public interest.

In 2007, we will award a total of $5 million to individuals, organizations or businesses that can show their ideas will transform community life."

Apply before December 31st with your great ideas...it looks very interesting for creative social inventor types out there (maybe the GIB should be applying?), particularly:

"Those who receive awards in this category must agree to share their ideas with others, further developing them publicly in a blog on a Knight-designated web site for at least a year.

The public would be encouraged to comment on the idea. The author would reply and nurture the discussion."

 

Global Warming Student Speakout

Erstwhile GIB collaborator Greg Wright brings the following to my attention, the Global Warming Student Speakout, from Google Education and Global School Net. Basically, it's a big brainstorm to be held in classrooms across the US (though i guess it could go wider?) to come up with "strategies for fighting global warming -- and have their ideas published in a full-page ad in the Washington Post" (the top 50).

As part of the page, they also have a link to a Google Doc of brainstorming resources, which may be of interest...

Camp Invention and World-Changing Trends

Couple of things caught the Global Ideas Bank eye recently:

- Camp Invention which is not about new products for the gay market, but about helping introduce (US) kids to innovation and problem-solving, in an effort to create the next generation of entrepreneurs and inventors of all kinds. See the Invent Now site for more. Employers are increasingly demanding those types of skills and traits (problem-solving, innovation, creativity, flexilibility etc) which are associated with being an inventor or entrepreneurs, so this is an area which will only increase as the years pass...

- Wired magazine has had a number of interesting pieces (looking forward to Chris Anderson's The Long Tail book with breath that is nothing short of bated), including the top 15 ways to live longer...but most interesting was this piece on six world-changing trends, which is of interest to all futurists. Even if it seems obvious whilst reading it, the grouping of these together helps solidify and clarify some disparate thoughts about the way business and the economy (and therefore our lives...) are changing. The six, for reference, are:

People Power
Video Unlimited
Personalise It
Carbon Killers
Buy It Now
All-Access Economy

- And to pick up the first of those, People Power, my old friend Ming the Mechanic has blogged about crowdsourcing which kind of combines a lot of other stuff being bandied around (Pro-Ams work by Demos, wisdom of crowds/open source stuff, virtual volunteering etc.). Worth a read, even if the term is yet to make the OED.

- Also pleased to see that a GIB idea by John Tunney from way back when (see Lottery entry slips: 10% tick box for charity) has kind of made it into reality in the form of Your Pound, Your Choice. Different type of people power...

If only some of the other lottery ideas we've had over the years could make it too. Look forward to the day when the House of Lords is picked by lottery (topical...) and to the Fame Lottery, Pension Lottery and, by no means least, the Rubbish Lottery. Which are all far from being as silly as they may sound....

Social Silicon Valleys: the worlds of social innovation

A brief post to note that the Young Foundation have put up a draft of their social innovation overview / manifesto, Social Silicon Valleys. [please note: it's'a big pdf.....]. It's a very interesting, coherent approach to starting to methodically think about how, why, and where social innovation occurs (and in what ways...). It rightly identifies a lack of research in this specific field (though futurist studies, 'general' innovation research and social entrepreneurship studies inevitably crossover into / form part of that world) as something that needs to be addressed....which the YF will, of course, aim to do.

It also looks at and details various models and approaches: the heroic individual (aka social entrepreneur / social inventor), the political effect (laws etc.), non-profit organisations, and broader movements (feminism, civil rights). Looking with a view to create the types of environment and structure and approach that can allow/enable social innovation to flourish.

Anyway, I'm not going to go through all 60+ pages now: take a look yourself, and suggest any additions/amendments to the paper's authors. Relevant to anyone interested in how social change happens, and how innovation occurs.

Other than that, GIB is massively busy with social inventions itself, and I've been busy reading Malcolm Gladwell's new blog.....don't blink or you'll miss it.

Skoll movies

Interesting article in the papers this weekend on Jeff Skoll (he of the Skoll Foundation and eBay fame) and his venture into the movies world: Participant Productions. Which is an effort to turn American moviegoers into passive grassroots activists....or something. Basically, movies with a message, but not so heavy-handed that the message gets caught in the throat as the audience members stagger for the exits, and not so dreary that no-one goes to see them. Interesting use of dotcom billions.....

Read the full article (in the Observer) here: Hollywood's new politics

An enormous sense of e-wellbeing

Sustain-IT's annual e-wellbeing awards are announced again. Now in their fourth year, the awards are "the UK's only national Awards that identify and promote social, economic and environmental benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). " See here for more information...

It did get me thinking about the concept of e-wellbeing. Generally, the GIB has always been interested in the wellbeing / happiness debate, so what does e-wellbeing look like or involve? Is there such a thing? Can e-services be part of achieving wellbeing (for example, if community ties are a factor, do virtual community ties have the same effect?) or real, by which I mean not economically-related, happiness?

NESTA Futurelab

Perhaps this is of some interest...

"NESTA are seeking exciting ideas about new ways of learning with technology. Their aim is to turn your ideas into working prototypes that will prove (or disprove) their concept. Ideas can come from any source as long as they meet the criteria described in their process section.

Visit their website for full details. deadline: 12th August 2005"

Skoll World Social Entrepreneurship Forum

So the Global Ideas Bank is at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship this week. A massively diverse range of people are here, which makes for both interesting perspectives and clashes of approach (primarily that of practitioner and academic)....anyway, it kicked off with Ben Kingsley bigging up Jeff Skoll and all things empathetic (calling him a 'human silk route', which has now become a kind of conference theme...); then followed an interesting panel discussion on the use of popular media to help engender (as well as communicate) social change. The theme of the conference is NETWORKS, which is wide enough to allow people to talk about pretty much anything. More importantly, arguably, it also allows people to brazenly and unapologetically network themselves: i.e. meet and connect with other people who are here (from over 40 countries...)

Much more to blog about, which I will have to do from extremely non-copious notes later, as I have to go to a workshop on silos, ponds and knowledge ecologies. Which, as dry (or wet) as that might sound, promises to be intriguing and (the holy grail!) even relevant to what we do.

Skoll World Social Entrepreneurship Forum

So the Global Ideas Bank is at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship this week. A massively diverse range of people are here, which makes for both interesting perspectives and clashes of approach (primarily that of practitioner and academic)....anyway, it kicked off with Ben Kingsley bigging up Jeff Skoll and all things empathetic (calling him a 'human silk route', which has now become a kind of conference theme...); then followed an interesting panel discussion on the use of popular media to help engender (as well as communicate) social change. The theme of the conference is NETWORKS, which is wide enough to allow people to talk about pretty much anything. More importantly, arguably, it also allows people to brazenly and unapologetically network themselves: i.e. meet and connect with other people who are here (from over 40 countries...)

Much more to blog about, which I will have to do from extremely non-copious notes later, as I have to go to a workshop on silos, ponds and knowledge ecologies. Which, as dry (or wet) as that might sound, promises to be intriguing and (the holy grail!) even relevant to what we do.