1. Putting Community at the Coreof Innovation in New Media by Evgeny Morozov Director of New Media, Transitions OnlineJuly 25, 2007

2. OutlineWisdom of crowds Social ways of being Emergence of social media How can communities help innovate? Challenges for media organizations 3. 1841 quot;Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!quot;Charles Mackay, 1841 4. Nowadays...Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few (2004)Wise crowdsquot; need (1) diversity of opinion (2) independence of members from one another (3) decentralization (4) a good method for aggregating opinions 5. Paradox?As technology is getting smarter, human interaction is playing an increasingly importantrole 6. Group think or individuality?Arguably, we have never been more autonomousand independent than nowBUTThe realm of the social Web also makes us more aware of others = better filtering/production of ideas ? 7. Ambient IntimacyAmbient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldnt usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how theyve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when theyre hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who theyre having drinks with tonightLisa Reichelt/ http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient-intimacy/ 8. All those new social dimensions change the group dynamics completely 9. Reflection is social 10. => Emergence of peer-to-peer economy 11. Individual still the primary figure But individual outputs are still more effective than community outputsCommunity just adds value at different stages (pre and post-production) 12. But connections matter! 13. Digital Natives won't see any distinction between old and new media 14. Old vs New 15. Old+New=Social Media 16. Nature of the community dynamicsnobody understands 17. Works in practice, but in theory?! 18. Sharing or peer-to-peer economyrequires new metrics 19. Yet all media organizations would need to devise those metrics sooner or later; newmedia is a good place to look at 20. How communities can help innovateI. Community can help build new productsII. Community can help change old productsIII. Community can help adjust strategy 21. Building New Products 1. Community designs, community decides 2. Community creates, you package3. Give away code, communities emerge 22. 1. Community designs, community decides 23. Threadless 24. Open Source Footwear 25. Cambrian House 26. 2. Community creates, you package 27. News To Me 28. uReport 29. CNN/YouTube 30. ohmynews/other citjourn sites 31. 3. Give away code, communities emerge 32. Google API 33. Chicago Crime 34. Mappy Hour 35. WeFi 36. Tunisian Prison Map 37. Google Earth/Deforestation 38. Google Earth Outreach 39. After discovering WeFi...? 40. Communities Change the Product 41. Who are the lead users?Lead users are users of a product that currently experience needs still unknown to the public and who also benefit greatly if they obtain a solution to these needs .... products are developed to meet the widestpossible need; when individual users face problems that the majority of consumers do not, they have no choice but to develop their own modifications to existing products, or entirely newproducts, to solve their issues 42. FeVote 43. Snakes on a Plane: didn't work 44. Radio Open Source 45. Rough Cuts 46. Rough Cuts 47. Rough Cuts cont 48. How communities can changestrategies? 49. Prediction Markets 50. Digg: the number 51. Subvert and Profit 52. Bug Blog Comments 53. Some challenges for news organizations 54. 1. How to make communityinnovation granular?Making every comma count Innovate by a click/idle capacity Fact-checking/UGCsomething to think about 55. 2. How to build a perfect community with lively interaction? Periphery vs core % of Wikipedia editors editing most of the articles/same with Digg Forming a proactive core is crucial 56. 2. How to identify/empower leadusers? Karma systems Virtual currencies How to break users into demographic groups? 57. The Right Demographics? 58. 3. How to mobilize a formedcommunity/for what cause? Finding an anchor activity TechDirt Insight Economist Red Stripe AZ/Offthebus.net 59. TechDirt Insight Community 60. offthebus.net 61. But remember: it doesn't work for everything!