The brilliant visionary Marshall McLuhan accurately described the media as an extension of our senses. Your eyes can see what’s happening in your immediate vicinity, your ears can hear what people are saying in the same room as you, but with television and radio as an adjunct to your senses, you can see and hear anywhere around the world. All of the cameras and microphones of the world’s media are an extension of your eyes and ears, and journalists are your personal emissaries to report on their findings and impressions.

In my keynote on The Future of Crowds at TheNextWeb conference shown below I built on this perspective to suggest that:

“Crowds are an extension of our capabilities”

Now that we are connected, now that we can tap global talent and resources, our capabilities are extended to an extraordinary degree.

As I write in Getting Results From Crowds, the power of ideas reigns supreme. Crowds – if we know how to use them well – are making us capable of so much more than ever before.

View from 26:55 to 27:40 for the discussion of how crowds are an extension of our capabilities.

Some of the points I cover:

* In the face of a highly uncertain future increasingly driven by extraordinary technologies, we have a choice whether to be optimists or pessimists. This choice shapes how actively we seek and create opportunities from change. See more on this topic.

* Crowds and crowdsourcing are powerful mechanisms for creating positive change. One example is VizWiz, which uses connectivity and crowd platforms so that many people can ‘lend’ their eyes to the blind.

* Australia’s startup scene – notably in Sydney and Melbourne – is prospering and growing rapidly, with many global-leading crowdsourcing platforms and other initiatives that are helping to connect a geographically isolated country with value creation around the world.

To be frank I don’t completely understand the protocol, even after viewing the very interesting Prezi explanation below from David Pinto. In essence it is a structure for inviting people to join a meeting by paying them (nominally) £10, and thus participating in a value-creating structure.

In our fascinating conversation Indy brought out the distinction between ‘Entity’ and ‘Protocol’. Organizations are entities, with an intrinsic set of structures for working. However as I have long been saying, value is shifting from organizations to give rise to an ‘economy of individuals’.

This means that our protocols for how individuals interact to create value are becoming critical. It is challenging and time-consuming to be always working out ways in which we share value in distributed networks. If we can have pre-defined structures that enable value creation and allocation, that is an enormous enabler.

I have been actively exploring structures for shared value creation for close to two decades now, and much of my book Living Networks (particularly the latter section of Chapter 5 on Distributed Innovation) focused on this issue.

Partly stimulated by my interactions with Indy, I think it is time to come back to the theme of structures for shared value creation. The idea of establishing protocols is very rich, and the ideas emerging at Hub Westminster and its parent organization 00:/ appear to be breaking new ground.

More on this topic coming soon. Please do point me to interesting protocols and initiatives you are seeing in this space.

Over the last two weeks I have delivered 8 keynotes or workshops on crowdsourcing across Western Europe. Most of them have been highly interactive sessions, bringing out new ideas or highlighting common issues or concerns. Part of the intent has been to gather input from many participants on what to cover in

There is much to share. For now, I will quickly review the events I’ve run so far and highlight just one insight that was prominent in the questions or discussions from each event. Many of themes mentioned were in fact echoed across several events. I will write soon in more detail about a number of these topics.

- Ketchum Pleon Amsterdam client presentation
Insight 1: Know when to use open calls and managed crowds.
A question that frequently arises when you discuss crowdsourcing is how to manage the sheer quantity of input you can get. Of course the best approach depends on what type of crowdsourcing you are doing, but the first answer is in the filtering mechanisms that you use, which enable the most valuable input to become visible. However another approach is to use a closed crowd, where participants are selected by quality or profile. In this case you can take a ‘managed crowd’ approach in which a more individualized approach optimizes outcomes. While many definitions of crowdsourcing refer to an ‘open call’, in fact in many siutations restricting the pool of contributors will lead to better results.

- TheNextWeb CxO Summit keynote in Amsterdam on The Future of Crowds.
Insight 2: We need to understand where crowds are and are not useful.
In Andrew Keen’s presentation following mine he said that it is individual brilliance and not crowds that drives progress. I wrote a response on why I think he is wrong. I also intend to create a framework that shows where crowds are most relevant and where they should not be used, because there are many domains where crowds are not superior to individual insight or other approaches. My evangelism for crowds does not mean I think they are always relevant. Let’s use them where they can create most value, and understand the boundaries.

- TheNextWeb Conference keynote in Amsterdam on The Future of Crowds
Insight 3: Crowd business models are moving to the center of the startup space.
TheNextWeb Conference is at heart a startup event, attracting entrepreneurs from across Europe and beyond, and crowd business models were much in evidence among those presenting there. Notable ones included Babelverse, a crowdsourced real-time translation app that won the People’s Choice award at TheNextWeb, Seedrs, which is very interesting UK-based venture in the equity crowdfunding space, and crowd photojournalism platform Emphas.is. Immediately after my keynote (see here for video of the full presentation) I was approached with enquiries to speak at major startup conferences in Kiev and Istanbul, also showing the appetite from entrepreneurs for insights about crowdsourcing and crowd business models.

- Future of Crowdsourcing Workshop in Cologne.
Insight 4: IP governance can drive crowd product development.
In this interactive workshop following the Crowdsourcing Summit in Cologne, I asked the participants to select four topics related to crowdsourcing they wanted to examine in detail. Two of the topics were Future of Intellectual Property and Future of Product Development and Innovation. The choice was undoubtedly partly driven by the economic context in Germany, which still sports a massive trade surplus driven by product excellence, yet its traditional industrial strengths are being challenged by the East. The crossover of these two topics is a particularly pointed one, with apparently a panel discussion on IP at the Summit bringing little clarity on cross-border IP protection. I argue in Getting Results From Crowds that often too great a focus is placed on IP protection to the expense of value creation. However there are real and challenging issues to grapple with in managing IP in crowds. Those that can establish (preferably lightweight) IP governance processes have a solid foundation for using crowds successfully for product development and innovation.

- Ketchum Pleon London presentation.
Insight 5: The most valuable crowds are often communities.
The word ‘crowds’ evokes a collection of disparate people. Yet in a world of increasingly divided attention, it is very hard to get access to a crowd of people unless they feel they are engaged together and their contribution supports others’ participation. For marketers in particular the challenge is usually to coalesce a community from which distilled or aggregated insights can come. That gives the continuity to the crowd, which would otherwise disperse. Of course some kinds of crowdsourcing require maximal diversity and independence of thinking, in which case you need to be cautious about recruiting too like-minded communities. The nature of the crowd must be suited to the purpose.

- Crowdsourcing for Startups and Social Innovation at Hub Westminster London.
Insight 6: Equity crowdfunding will be a game changer for entrepreneurs.
Close to half the workshop participants were especially interested in the topic of equity crowdfunding, with the intention of either using it or potentially establishing platforms. The hype around equity crowdfunding today is probably a little premature given that it looks like some time until the first crowdfunding based on the US JOBS Bill will happen, however I’m clearly not the only one to believe that this will provide massive new opportunities for entrepreneurs, ultimately leading to a far better allocation of capital to where it can create results (if good reputation measures are allowed). We were fortunate to have Charles Armstrong at the workshop as an expert panelist, sharing his experience in equity crowdfunding in the UK. One of the legal loopholes he exploited was that while he was not allowed to say publicly that he was looking for capital from approved investors, journalists could. so prominent coverage in the mainstream press enabled them to raise Stg500,000 from the crowd, keeping Trampoline Systems afloat.

- Crowdsourcing Breakfast with Boostzone Institute in Paris.
Insight 7: New roles and structures for crowds are needed in large organizations.
It is perhaps not surprising that this extremely important theme came up particularly strongly in France, where institutional structures are still strong. Irrespective of the nature of the organization, a variety of new roles and structures are required. I am for example spending time defining the emerging role of ‘external talent manager’ and how it relates to existing functions in business units, legal, HR, risk, and IT. The rise of these kinds of new roles, however, can change the scope of current organizational roles and functions. The introduction of structures to help organizations interface externally can (and will) have a ripple effect through the entire organization.

- Crowds and the Future of Work with Fyronic in Brussels.
Insight 8: There is a massive market for effective crowd filtering mechanisms
As discussed in Insight 1, there can be real challenges in distilling the greatest possible value from massive contribution. There are many mechanisms in common use, including competitions, crowd voting, prediction markets, reputation measures, gaming, and so on, though all of these are best used in particular circumstances and have limitations, not least in how much value they can leave on the table. Developing more effective and efficient mechanisms to aggregate value from crowd contributions will be an important sector in years to come.

This list just scratches the surface of the sessions over the last two weeks. I will write more on these and other prominent crowdsourcing topics in the coming weeks and months.

It doesn’t show all of my full motion graphics presentation, though it frequently cuts to show segments of the visuals through my keynote. I will create and share a full video of my motion graphics presentation along with the audio of me speaking, however as I’m travelling it may take a little while to complete.

Here is a brief overview of the structure of the presentation:

Crowds are the future of everything
The economy of individuals
How individuals contribute
Tapping the minds of many
The 10 worlds in which crowds are the future:
- Work
- Organizations
- Business Models
- Capitalism
- Reputation
- Media
- Marketing
- Innovation
- Opportunity
- Government
The rise of the global brain
Collective intelligence
Collective consciousness
The future of sex and crowd orgasms
Crowds as an extension of our capabilities
The dawn of a new era

He and his arguments are intensely annoying because his case is blindly and obtusely one-sided, though it is useful to have his voice to provide a counterpoint to digital utopianism. 

Part of his argument is that we are giving away too much of our identity and personal data. That is absolutely valid, and it is good that people are reminded to think carefully about what they share online.

However Andrew conflates oversharing with the shift to crowds, going so far as to suggest that there is no value in crowds. Yesterday in specific response to my prior Summit presentation on The Future of Crowds Andrew said that all innovation, all new ideas of value, come from brilliant individuals. 

In Andrew’s extreme black and white world the reality of individual genius, which he exemplifies by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, to his mind who innovated separately and not together, implies that there is no value in crowds. The logic in this argument is not just flawed, but non-existent.

I suggest a more inclusive view of the world. Absolutely, individual inspiration is fundamental to human progress and the creation of great art, scientific progress, and successful businesses. At the same time, collective ideas, insights, and work will play an immensely important part in our future. 

As I write in my book Getting Results From Crowds, we need to consider what tasks and functions are and are not appropriate for putting out to crowds. There are some, perhaps many, things that organizations should keep inside. But for many functions there is immense value in going to literally a whole world of talent. 

No organization in the world employs more than 1% of the people working in their domain. While individual inspiration may drive some – but certainly not all – innovations, the reality is that hard work is required to develop these to reality. Well-defined innovation tasks are far better put out to the crowd than done internally, as many of the world’s largest organizations such as IBM, Boeing, and Procter & Gamble have learned.

One of my favorite examples of value from crowds is VizWiz, which enables global crowds to help blind people by lending them their eyes, immediately identifying what is in the world around them.

In Andrew’s stark and dark view of the world, a single example of individual value, or of crowds not being useful in a specific case, implies that crowds never have value, in the face of thousands of counter-examples.

Let’s recognize individual genius, learn where and how crowds can create the most value, and move to an inclusive view of the world in which one important source of value is from tapping the many. Collective intelligence may be very hard to realize, but if we seek to create it, we will find ways.

My topic will be the Future of Crowds, a big picture view of how crowds will be the future of everything, including its impact on work, organizations, business models, capitalism, reputation, media, marketing, innovation, opportunity, and government.

However one of the most interesting aspects of my keynote is that my visual presentation will consist entirely of motion graphics, 3D, and video – there will be no still images.

I first started experimenting with using Flash in presentations in the 1990s, and often use a variety of videos and flash embedded into my presentations. For many years I have wanted to create an entirely moving graphic presentation. When I was asked to speak at TheNextWeb, I thought it was a great opportunity to finally do it.

For the last few weeks I have been working with a global team of moving graphic and 3D designers to create my visual presentation.

What is significant is that it is only the advent of crowd work that has enabled me to create this presentation. Not long ago the only viable way of doing it would be to pay an agency tens of thousands of dollars. Now I can gather a global team of awesome 3D and motion graphic designers for a significantly more reasonable cost, easily collaborating to develop the visual ideas through screen sharing and other tools.

I believe we are about to enter an era of motion graphic presentations. Initially Powerpoint was mainly used for lots of words in bullet points. Over the last years presentations have become far more visual, with now even the average presentation usually far better than 5-10 years ago. The next phase is presentations consisting largely of moving images. This won’t be for all situations, but certainly for when a strong impression needs to be created, such as in keynotes.

I am not aware that any entirely motion graphic presentations have been done before. Prezi is a good platform, but with only a couple of dimensions to play with. Please let me know in the comments if you’ve seen one.

It’s time to properly kick off the motion graphic presentation era. Creating my presentation has been a massive rush in the middle of a very busy period over the last few weeks, however I’m pretty pleased with what we’ve come up with. However it is a first effort, and from now I will be working hard to get better at the art of motion graphic presentations.

If this is the dawn of a new age of motion graphic presentations, I very much look forward to seeing what emerges. It is a marvellous domain for exploring visual metaphors, 3D conceptual representations, and ideas writ on a large stage, an arena for boundless creativity.

I believe my TheNextWeb presentation will be live streamed and archived, and I will probably release it as a video along with audio of me giving the presentation. If you do or see any other motion graphics presentations do let me know. I am sure that truly amazing things are coming in this space.

From 1:30pm to 5:00pm we will run a highly interactive session looking at the practical ways in which crowds and crowdsourcing can be used to drive value in crowds and crowdsourcing.

We will primarily look at the crowdsourcing landscape, how to get outstanding results from using crowds, how to drive successful crowdfunding, and crowd business models for profit and non-profit, exploring many examples of how entrepreneurs and social innovators are using the ideas, energy, and enthusiasm of crowds to create amazing new ventures. Crowdsourcing is at the heart of how value is going to be created.

Expert panellists
The workshop will include a number of Expert Panellists who will share their experiences and lessons learned and engage in conversation with the participants.

We’re delighted to have Charles Armstrong, CEO of Trampoline Systems, originator of The Trampery, and a global pioneer in equity crowdfunding, joining us to share some of his experiences and lessons learned.

Matt Barrie, CEO of leading service marketplace Freelancer.com will share his experiences in rapidly building a major crowdsourcing platform.

Steve Bynghall, my co-author for Getting Results From Crowds, will share some of his experiences and work from across the crowd space.

There are other outstanding panellists we’re waiting to confirm. Do let me know if there is anyone in London who would be essential to have there in their depth of experience in crowdsourcing in startups and social innovation.

Workshop discounts for London incubator members
It has been fantastic to see from a distance London’s startup scene flourish massively over the last few years, with Silicon Roundabout and beyond seeing Hub Westminster, TechHub, Accelerator, SeedCamp, Innovation Warehouse and many others becoming central to a new entrepreneurial focus to the London business community.

Workshop registration is just £50, but we’d be happy to offer a £10 discount to members of any of London’s incubators. Just get in touch on the Ross Dawson website with the name of the incubator and we will set up a discount code for you and your fellow members.

Unfortunately I am in London just for a day trip on 1 May, but I hope to be back in London briefly again over the following week or two, and will be keen to drop by some incubators to get a feel for what’s going on if I have space in my schedule.

Hopefully catch you along the way.

Do let me know if you have any thoughts on possibilities you’d like to chat about. If so please get in touch on the Ross Dawson contact form.

Dans mon livre Getting Results from Crowds, qu’on pourraît traduire par “Obtenir des résultats des masses”, j’explique comment les organisations, petites et grandes, doivent procéder pour bien utiliser le crowdsourcing.

À Paris, le 3 mai, je présente avec le Boostzone Institute un petit-déjeuner à propos du crowdsourcing. Je vais parler en détail des opportunités, des défis et de comment les entreprises doivent s’y prendre.

J’espère vous y voir!