[PeterParker]

Over in the arena talk thread these ideas were posed; here's a thread to discuss whether LU with its sometimes more authoritarian flavor would ever, as an institution, be able to lay its pride aside to incorporate these ideas into its Research & Development/Institutional Practices: (it should, organizations that shun this practice will increasingly find themselves out of touch with the consumer and said consumer will take their dollars elsewhere where their needs are being met on their terms--gotta love the free market.)

Crowdsourcing and Web 2.0


1a. Crowdsourcing http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 002422.htm

Companies have been outsourcing to India and China for years. Now they are taking it to another level by using social networks such as MySpace, Second Life, and a multitude of virtual communities to solve their most gnarly business problems. Business model innovation is happening at a lightning clip. First there was outsourcing, then open-sourcing, and now crowdsourcing.

But in their rush to capitalize on the wisdom of the masses, many companies are making big mistakes. Kraft was lambasted on the Web for not really "getting" web collaboration when it simply posted a digital suggestion box on its Web site. Though Kraft said critics misunderstood their effort, which was part of a larger strategy of open innovation, the danger remains that companies will rush to set up consumer communities without carefully considering what they're after and how they plan to use it. It is very easy for crowds to generate the lowest common denominator among solutions.

Smart crowdsourcing is about how we winnow the wisdom from the wash, and what we choose to do with it. Here are some key guidelines to follow...

1b. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds_pr.html

The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R&D

1c. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/co ... 755844.htm


2. Web 2.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2

[PAmedic]

ummm, what?

[El Scorcho]

I'm not even going to address "crowdsourcing" as I don't think it's anything truly new. The methodology of asking for advice has changed. I get it. As far as I know, LU has never been closed to suggestions. I just don't think they get a lot of good help. There's a lot of "LU should..." without any "I can help LU by...". Anyway, social networking is online now and folks here get it. At least the ones I work with.

As for "Web 2.0", now you're talking my language. While I think the term is a buzzword being applied way too liberally these days, the technologies it is being used to describe are great. Internally LU is already using a lot of W2 tech already. We have several server-side applications in production, are taking advantage of Wikis and there's even some AJAX stuff out there right now. We have RSS feeds of LU announcements available on the main website and more will certainly follow.

Most importantly, we've been behind the "Network as a platform" model from the first day our network went live. LU was late to the game in deploying a campus-wide network (big surprise), but it actually worked out to the school's advantage. While others bought in early, we got into it after a lot of improvements, standards and technology had been created. We started out years ahead of everyone else, and we've been there ever since. I'm not sure if students, faculty and staff are aware of it, but LU has one of the most cutting-edge networks in all of southwestern Virginia. It's why Cisco honored us as a technology partner last year. Anyway, we put everything on the network that we possibly can. From applications to phones. From television to classes. If we can use the network as the platform, we do.

I won't go on about LU Information Services, but it is far and away the hardest working and best-equipped (in terms of people and technology) division of the university. Speaking of which, if anyone is in the field and is looking for a job, please let me know. We've got a lot of work to do and need some more help doing it. I can't say enough good things about the people I work with and for.

[PeterParker]

ummm, what?

Yo, Medic, check the links; it will make more sense. Basically crowdsourcing and web 2.0 encapsulate the principle of tapping the collective resources of brain power and ideas of a community of users to bring about the best product design or service improvement for a particular entity. The precursor parallel was opensourcing, most notably Linux, multiple user input to tweak an idea to its best possible incarnation.

Since a university already has a community of users who also have a vested interest in the continued development and strengthening of the "brand" of their alma mater, it makes sense to utilize/deploy this principle of crowdsourcing & Web 2.0 to generate ideas and affinity with the constituents of the school--past, present & future. If any organization is suited to utilizing these concepts, IMHO it would be a university.