Engaging the Crowd

Paul Dombowsky / Colleen Nystedt

Introductions

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Paul Dombowsky – founder and ceo of Ideavibes and Fundchange

Welcome

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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.

Challenge #1

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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?

Challenge #2

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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?

DefinedAn 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.

Crowdsourcing

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Citizen Engagement for Vancouver Web 2.0

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• There are many one way conversations happening:• Blogs

• Citycaucus.com• Francesbula.com• 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?

Driven by Social Media Platforms

Engagement – Who Participates?

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Millennials (born ’91 and after)

Gen Y (born ’81-’91)

Gen X (born ’65-’80)

Boomers (born ’46-’64)

Civics (born ’45 or earlier)

ExplicitExperts

Emergent Experts(community leaders, front

line stakeholders)

General Audience

Who is your crowd?

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CITY

EngagementTargets

Where Innovation / Crowdsourcing Fits

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Community

Open SpaceHow we gather

Social MediaHow we talk

LeadershipHow we inspire &

enable

Open Innovation

CrowdsourcingWhere ideas come from

Innovation: Crowdsourcing vs The Survey

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Crowdsourcing Surveys

• Lends itself to diversity of participation• Fewer barriers to participation• Drives innovation – new ideas from left

field that have merit• Easy to interpret – the crowd generally

makes things clear• Comments are focused

• Great for solidifying preconceived ideas or directions

• Hidden• Requires interpretation which is open

to biases by reviewers• Doesn’t encourage creativity

The Appeal

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• 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

Things to Watch For

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• 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’

NYC Citizen Engagement Program

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Example 1: Citizen Engagement

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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Example 2: Citizen Engagement in SF

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Example 3: Open Innovation with Citizens

City of OttawaHave a Say Sustainability Campaign

• No. of Engagements = 5700• Goal: 1500• Drivers: Twitter, Facebook, Media

Event (related)• Number of ideas: 200• English and French

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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Example 4: Myscouts Innovation

It all starts with a Question or Problem

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• Needs to be:– Clear and compelling– Not leading– Allow for open innovation– Encourage participation– Allow for outliers to feel comfortable

I have a challenge

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• 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

I have a challenge

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Opportunity Driven (supplier) Innovation Driven (customer)

City Posts Challenge

Crowdsourcing used to generate

ideas

Crowd determines their preference

Feasibility Review takes place

Developers invited to respond to specific RFP

City releases RFI

Developers Respond

Short list

Consultation

Study

Selection

• 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’

• Responsibility is shared between citizens and staff

Government as a Platform

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Pay Taxes Expect Services Repeat

• 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

Ideavibes Citizen Engagement Platform

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How an Engagement Platform Works

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Implementation Process

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City creates website landing

page

City develops campaign in

Platform

Initiative launched –

site live

City promotes initiative

through social media /

traditional media

Citizens post ideas

Moderator checks and

releases ideas

Citizens share ideas with their

crowd

Citizens vote/comm

ent on ideas

Results analyzed & presented

• Platform• Consulting support to help you get going• Social media support• 45 Day Trial to get started and run your first campaign

What we offer

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Thank youPaul Dombowsky | 613.878.1681 | paul@ideavibes.com | www.ideavibes.com