Paul Dombowsky and Colleen Nystedt introduced crowdsourcing and how organizations can use it. They discussed engaging citizens through crowdsourcing, using social media to generate ideas. Successful case studies from New York City, San Francisco, and Ottawa were provided that used crowdsourcing to get citizen input on issues. Challenges were presented for participants to provide ideas on improving transportation and a mobile app. Best practices for crowdsourcing included making the questions clear and allowing for diverse participation. The Ideavibes platform and implementation process was described as a way for organizations to run their own crowdsourcing campaigns.

1. Engaging the Crowd
Paul Dombowsky / Colleen Nystedt

2. Introductions
Paul Dombowsky – founder and ceo of Ideavibes and Fundchange
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3. Welcome
What we’ll cover today:
• Practical Crowdsourcing - what is it and how can you use it?
• Social media and its part in engaging and mobilizing crowds.
• Citizen Engagement through crowdsourcing – successful case studies.
• How to tap into the conversations that are already going on to make better
decisions.
• Crowdsourcing and Place - mapping the conversations for citizen engagement.
• What is social product development? How can that help you acquire new
customers?
• Best practices and how to implement in your organization. How to satisfy the
skeptics.
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4. Challenge #1
Traffic congestion is a
major challenge to the
environment, quality of
life, and economic growth
of Vancouver. How would
you encourage your fellow
citizens to make
alternative choices for
getting around the city
each day?
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5. Challenge #2
Brand X needs help with
the new version of their
app to ward off cheap
competitors and to avoid
losing customers. As a
current or potential
customer, what would you
do to the app to improve
it?
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6. Crowdsourcing
Defined
An engagement process whereby organizations seek input from either open
or closed communities of people, either homogenous or not, to contribute
ideas, solutions, or support in an open process whereby the elements of
creativity, competition and campaigning are reinforced through social media
to come up with more powerful ideas or solutions than could be obtained
through other means.
Why Bother?
Organizations have a difficult time engaging with their communities to
strengthen their relationship and be citizen/crowd focused. Internal or
external, the community has ideas that can be harnessed that come from
diverse backgrounds, experiences and education.
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7. Citizen Engagement for Vancouver Web 2.0
• There are many one way conversations happening:
• Blogs
• Citycaucus.com Driven by Social
• Francesbula.com Media Platforms
• Insidevancouver.ca
• Vancityallie.com
• Dialogue.vancouver.ca
• Vancitybuzz.com
• Make no mistake – your citizens want to be involved in transforming the City
of today to City 2.0.
• Where is the engagement? Where is the innovation happening?
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8. Engagement – Who Participates?
Millennials (born ’91 and after)
Gen Y (born ’81-’91)
Gen X (born ’65-’80)
Boomers (born ’46-’64)
Civics (born ’45 or earlier)
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9. Who is your crowd?
CITY
Explicit
Experts
Emergent Experts
(community leaders, front
Engagement line stakeholders)
Targets
General Audience
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10. Where Innovation / Crowdsourcing Fits
Open Space
How we gather
Open
Innovation Social Media
Crowdsourcing Community How we talk
Where ideas come from
Leadership
How we inspire &
enable
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11. Innovation: Crowdsourcing vs The Survey
Crowdsourcing Surveys
• Lends itself to diversity of participation • Great for solidifying preconceived
• Fewer barriers to participation ideas or directions
• Drives innovation – new ideas from left • Hidden
field that have merit • Requires interpretation which is open
• Easy to interpret – the crowd generally to biases by reviewers
makes things clear • Doesn’t encourage creativity
• Comments are focused
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12. The Appeal
• Crowdsourcing surfaces new perspectives
• Invites participation from nontraditional
sources
• Infuses real energy into the process of generating ideas
and content
• Empowers people when they feel their voice is being heard
• Technology can enable participation by disenfranchised
(ie. PCs in libraries/shelters with citizen engagement
campaigns)
• Builds engagement and relationships with new audiences
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13. Things to Watch For
• Excessive lobbying and promotion
• Narrow crowds product narrow results
• No follow-through causes creditability hit
• If you say you are generating solutions for X, communicate
what happened and why
• Broad ideation campaign descriptions will result in less focused
results BUT too narrow will restrict creativity
• Dismissing ideas that seem far fetched
• Ideation often requires refinement – understanding what your
crowd is saying by ‘x’
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14. Example 1: Citizen Engagement
NYC Citizen Engagement
Program
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15. Example 2: Citizen Engagement in SF
San Francisco Engage4change
Citizen Engagement Program
(2 weeks)
• No. of Engagements = 2252
• Referrals = 64% from Twitter
• Cost = 500 ice cream cones ($1,000)
• Humphry Slocombe’s Crowd
= 320,000 twitter followers and
Facebook Friends
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16. Example 3: Open Innovation with Citizens
City of Ottawa
Have a Say Sustainability
Campaign
• No. of Engagements = 5700
• Goal: 1500
• Drivers: Twitter, Facebook, Media
Event (related)
• Number of ideas: 200
• English and French
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17. Example 4: Myscouts Innovation
Launching in April, 2012
Designed to move ideas for improving
Scouts and the web experience from
email to an open innovation platform.
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18. It all starts with a Question or Problem
• Needs to be:
– Clear and compelling
– Not leading
– Allow for open innovation
– Encourage participation
– Allow for outliers to feel comfortable
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19. I have a challenge
• Land use determination – who drives the
agenda and the conversation?
• Two approaches
• Opportunity driven
• Innovation driven
• The difference lies in where the ideas come
from
• From the user or the customer
• From the supplier
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20. I have a challenge
Opportunity Driven (supplier) Innovation Driven (customer)
City releases
RFI
City Posts Challenge
Developers
Selection
Respond
Developers invited
Crowdsourcing used
to respond to
to generate ideas
specific RFP
Study Short list
Feasibility Review Crowd determines
takes place their preference
Consultation
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21. Government as a Platform
• Ideas and information produced by and on behalf of the
citizen or the crowd
• Crowd is empowered to spark the innovation that will result in
an improved approach to governance
• Move away from ‘Vending Machine Government’
Expect
Pay Taxes Repeat
Services
• Responsibility is shared between citizens and staff
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22. Ideavibes Citizen Engagement Platform
• Easy to set-up and deploy
• Able to run multiple campaigns at once
• Can run Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Build stickiness and community around those that engage
(sign-in and see past votes, comments, ideas)
• Hosted solution (in Canada)
• Able to be implemented on existing website or set-up in new,
destination site
• Social Media connected
• One of few sub $1000/month solutions
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23. How an Engagement Platform Works
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24. Implementation Process
City creates
website
landing
page
City develops Moderator
Citizens post Results
campaign in checks and
ideas
Platform releases ideas analyzed &
presented
City promotes
Initiative initiative
Citizens share Citizens
through social
launched – media /
ideas with vote/comment
site live their crowd on ideas
traditional
media
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25. What we offer
• Platform
• Consulting support to help you get going
• Social media support
• 45 Day Trial to get started and run your first campaign
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26. Thank you
Paul Dombowsky | 613.878.1681 | paul@ideavibes.com | www.ideavibes.com