Crowdmap Offers a Cloud-Based Crisis Mapping Service

Improvements in mapping and mobile technologies have helped facilitate the development of new social innovation tools that respond quickly and efficiently to crisis situations worldwide. "Crisis mapping," as its called, is a processing of collecting mobile and map information and crowdsourcing, visualizing and analyzing that data. Mapping can be undertaken by researchers, first responders, NGOs, citizen scientists.

Ushahidi is a software tool uses for such mapping projects. Swahili for "witness," Ushahidi was initially created following a disputed presidential election in Kenya in 2007. The website collected eyewitness reports of violence, contributed via email and SMS. The software used to build the site was open sourced in 2008, and the Ushahidi platform has been in development since then.

Today Ushahidi announced the launch of Crowdmap, a hosted service providing Ushahidi "out of the box with nothing to install." Analogous perhaps to the difference between Wordpress.org (a downloadable version of WordPress that you run on your own server) and Wordpress.com (a Wordpress blog hosted on the Wordpress server), Crowdmap will provide a hosted version of the Ushahidi software.

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Crowdsourcing & Web 2.0

For many years, it seems the buzzword in business circles has been "outsourcing," the idea that companies turn to third-parties (often overseas) to fulfill some of their services. But it may be the new "sourcing" buzzword is "crowdsourcing," turning not to a single third-party but to "the crowd" for help in projects. With the growth of social media and Web 2.0 tools, crowdsourcing is becoming increasingly popular.

The idea of crowdsourcing draws, in part, on James Surowiecki's 2004 book The Wisdom of Crowds. In it, Surowiecki makes the argument, as the subtitle suggests that "the many are smarter than the few" and that collective wisdom has much to teach businesses and governments.

This potential for benefiting from the "wisdom of crowds" has been embraced by several new technology tools that allow users to weigh in and assist in the development and decision-making processes. These crowdsourcing tools are innovative ways in which public sentiment can be used to shape the direction for a product or a project.

Crowdsourcing has been used to assess a number of different areas, including determining speakers at conferences, in deciding on logos for businesses, and -- in the case of perhaps the best known example, Wikipedia -- in determing what constitutes "knowledge".

Typically crowdsourcing efforts fall into one of three areas:

1. Creating products and projects: When using crowdsourcing for product creation and testing, input from users is taken and weighed in order to ascertain the direction for a project.
2. Predicting outcomes: Recent studies have shown that analyzing sentiment via Twitter is a good indicator for the success a film will have over its opening weekend
3. Organizing information: Wikipedia and StumbledUpon are good examples of taking user input to categorize information.

While there are many tools that can be used to help with crowdsourcing -- tools where companies can solicit input and gauge users' response -- it is important to remember that sometimes the wisdom of the crowd proves to be decidedly "unwise." Surowiecki speaks to the dangers of this in his book, noting that crowds can be swayed by the emotionality and conformity of the group. Sometimes "the crowd" is too homogeneous to be innovative. And Surowiecki reminds readers that despite crowdsourcing's "wisdom," crowds are only as smart as their smarted individual member.

Nevertheless, crowdsourcing seems to point to interesting potentials for engagement with the customer and can be a powerful way to do good. "Outsourcing" has been a controversial move for some companies. It remains to be seen if crowdsourcing will be viewed as a positive or negative move. After all, what are the implications of handing over your creative processes to outsiders?

Have you tried to crowdsource any projects? What were your experiences? Comments welcome!

Battling Social Media Overload

As someone who works in the technology field, I'm quite accustomed to spending most of my days online. And as someone who is heavily involved in social media, I admit to spending a lot of time checking updates via Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. (OK, the latter isn't necessarily work-related. Scrabble anyone?) I am also an early adopter of many new technologies, but again, this is part of my work world. But I do sometimes find the number of social media sites I must visit and update overwhelming. And I've seen more and more friends lately post on Facebook that they're giving up social media. Suffering from social media overload, they are opting not to participate in social media at all.

This decision seems a bit drastic, I would contend. Instead of cutting all social media out of your life, I recommend the following steps -- for both personal and professional use -- to help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by social media choices.

Avoid social media for social media's sake: Rather than signing up for every service possible, pick the sites that best serve your goals. Do you want to reconnect with old friends? Try Facebook. Do you want to connect with potential business associates? Try LinkedIn.

Use the services you're most comfortable with: If you already belong to a social media network, it might be better to remain active and increase your presence there than it is to create profiles on every site. The drawback of the latter is that you might find yourself with a lot of unused and out-of-date profiles. There's little use to having people stumble upon your profile if it hasn't been updated since 2006!

Engage: One of the keys to make participation in social networks useful is to, well, participate. But remember that these services are not bullhorns. Do not merely "shout" at your "friends" and "followers," only using these networks to push information out. While social media is a great place to share information, it is important to be responsive -- listen, comment, engage.

Trace, evaluate, adapt: If you are using social media for professional purposes, do be sure to utilize the analytics tools that many of these services offer. These can help you ascertain the traffic levels and the user engagement. It is important to check these regularly to evaluate the ROI of a platform. But as the field of social media is ever-changing, you should be prepared to adapt. For example, just because a service like Foursquare is popular now, does not mean you should be forever wedded to location-based marketing.

Take a break: If you're feeling overwhelmed, step away. Rather than delete your profiles and swear never to return to Facebook again, simply designate a small amount of time (daily or weekly) to give to social media. You needn't feel compelled to respond to every post or every comment or every tweet.

Thinking about E-Books

With the release of the iPad this weekend, much attention is again drawn to electronic books, a social innovation that is shaping how and what we read. An increasingly popular way to read with an estimated one million plus e-readers sold, the iPad joins the market of other popular devices, including the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Only a small portion of American bookbuyers buy and read books electronically, but that number has been steadily on the rise. Studies show that most readers and frequent book-buyers still prefer their books in print, but as people grow more comfortable with reading digital texts, more consumers do seem willing to try e-books.

Even if you don't own an e-reader and/or aren't confident that it's the right technology tool for you, there are several other ways in which you can read e-books:

Computer screen (You can download files as PDFs or TXTs or in other formats depending on the software you are using)

PDA/smartphone (There are multiple applications you can download and install)

paper (Print it out!)

If you're not certain you want to invest in an e-reading device like an iPad -- or even if you already have -- here are some resources where you can find free eBooks. This is not only a good way to save money when testing to see if you like reading e-books, but it's a nice way to read "the classics," many of which are freely available in the public domain.

WEBSITES

• Project Gutenberg 30,000 free books (also available through the iBookstore)
• Google Books
• Wowio

MOBILE APPLICATIONS

• iBooks
• Amazon Kindle App
• Kobo
• Barnes & Noble
• Stanza

(Another source for free e-books, although not to everyone's taste I realize, are the iPhone and iPad Comics Apps Marvel and ComicsX)

As a book lover, I have resisted e-readers, preferring to have the paper-bound one in my hands. Having gone to graduate school to study literature, I have had a hard time imagining a world without the printed word, without "the book." (I also have a hard time not taking notes in the margins) But as I find myself spending more and more time reading online (reading blogs, reading the news), I've become increasingly comfortable with digital text. However, this type of reading is quite different, I would contend, than the type of reading I do with a book, physically, in my lap. On a computer, I tend to multi-task and follow links, not reading with the same focused and solitary concentration that a book gets (or supposedly gets).

How will this new form of reading change how we think about books -- both those delivered in print and electronically?

Have you tried e-books? What are your thoughts? How will a social and technological innovation that shapes how we read shape us in turn?