We left off talking about the possibility of breaking work
-- even something like a writing assignment -- down into smaller bits and inviting
other people to help chip away at it. This'd be an example of using collective
intelligence: the pooling of small and incremental contributions into coherent,
useful bodies of knowledge. Surely it's an execution approach CP-facing orgs could
use to get more stuff done.
Ever hear of Amazon's Mechanical Turk? It enables,
in the words of David Weinberger*, "vast numbers of people to work on
small, distributed tasks" in exchange for small amounts of money. What
kinds of tasks? Getting images labeled, finding duplications in yellow-pages
listings, rating the relevancy of search engines' results...
We have tons of
communicating to do. Could any of it be run through Mechanical Turk or
something similar? What about researching? I think about UCP's close to 100
affiliates and all the data they must generate. Could it somehow be worked on
in small increments and parsed?
I really don't know much about this "microwork"
business, but it does seem to represent a relatively shallower form of worker engagement. Little or no training or expertise are required. The contributors probably aren't
deeply commited or emotionally involved. Much of what they have, potentially, to
offer never enters the equation.
It may actually be helpful to look at the use
of collective intelligence in terms of how relatively engaged the worker is --
with "fully dis-engaged" at one end and "fully engaged" at
the other of a spectrum -- and to ask: What are the next, more-engaged kinds of
work (after microwork) on the continuum? More to the heart of our matter: What additional
kinds of work could organizations pull from the collective of CP parents out
there?
As The Bridgespan Group sees it, the next, slightly deeper form of
engagement involves getting constituent -- think CP parent -- input. The more insights
an organization has about its constituents or customers, the better it should
be able to increase its impact. You accomplish something, in other words, when
you're able to engage constituents in doing the work of telling you about themselves.
(Who are you? What do you think?) Gathering demographic info. Taking surveys.
Conducting focus groups. Employing human-centered design processes. Making real-time
and comparative feedback systems available. These are all ways of seeking
input, of eliciting constituent voice.
How many of these approaches are any of
our CP orgs taking? Not many, I'm willing to bet. We could be doing a lot more. Outfits that
may be able to help nonprofits in particular in their quests to elicit customer
voice? Keystone Accountability. Great Nonprofits.
The quality and quantity of
information an organization is able to draw out via surveys, focus groups, and
the like depends on how it frames questions and otherwise manages its
interactions with constituents. Those things set the limits as they relate to depth
of engagement.
The next level of engagement is where the org actually gets its constituents
thinking creatively, developing programs and solutions together with your
organization. On the same page and fully partnering with you, in other words,
in furthering your mission. This is the deepest level, really, because lots of
fully engaged people give you: multiple perspectives; ongoing relationships;
surprises /unexpected better ways of thinking and acting...
The Net makes this sort
of co-creation possible. And it holds out this promise: The more smart people
you can deeply engage, the bigger the dent you can make in whatever problem it
is you're trying to solve. This is where collaborative communities coming
together at forums, wikis, mindmaps, etc. come into play. And where we'll head
next.
*author of Too Big To Know (2012)
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