I just started reading this one and am loving it. It can be dry and redundant, but the examples of commerical entities using mass collaboration are worth wading through a few moments of drudgery.
The downloadable online membership directory in csv format is a nice step in the right direction. With that kind of thing, we can keep track of who is new in our ward and might need a visit and who moved out. It would be helpful if you could add to the csv file some kind of unique member and family identifiers.
For members, there are their membership record numbers, but you use them to give people login IDs to the ward website, so you probably want to keep that confidential. You could create another unique identifier for members or figure out another way to grant people access to ward websites. It sure would be nice to be able to tell if the John Smith that just showed up on our records was the same John Smith that moved out three months ago or a different one.
I don't think there is currently a unique global family identifier, but it would be helpful for tracking families moving in, out, or within the ward. If a father and mother get divorced and all the kids stay with the mother, the cleanest record keeping approach would be to take the father out of the family and leave the rest of the family in place. Without a globally unique family identifier, the best we can do is attach the family to the head of household's globally unique identifier. Problem is, the head of household changes from time to time, while most of the rest of the family can remain intact. This can require some record keeping acrobatics without a globally unique family identifier.
I love the first story listed in the book. A gold company in Canada needed help finding gold on one of their plots of land. The chief executive for the company decides to take all of the information they have on the property (surveys, seismic data, sub-surface analyses, etc.) and open it up to the public. They offered some prizes for help.
They received an incredible breadth and depth of assistance and have subsequently found several million ounces of gold.
Interesting approach in using the community to help with a commerical objective.
I am enjoying this book so much! I'm half way through now. It has some terrific examples of businesses or groups organizing communities (or facilitating their self-organization) in order to create value, either for the company/group or for the public good.
One great example is http://innocentive.com, a web site which allows companies to post scientific problems and request community members to help solve the problems for cash incentives.
Another example describes a gold company in Canada which opened up all of its confidential information about possible locations of gold on its land to the community and asked for help in locating the gold, again for cash incentives. Thousands of entries came in from a variety of different disciplines, some of them very unconventional. They ended up finding something like 8 million ounces of gold over the next several year--saving millions in R&D budget.
The downloadable online membership directory in csv format is a nice step in the right direction. With that kind of thing, we can keep track of who is new in our ward and might need a visit and who moved out. It would be helpful if you could add to the csv file some kind of unique member and family identifiers.
ReplyDeleteFor members, there are their membership record numbers, but you use them to give people login IDs to the ward website, so you probably want to keep that confidential. You could create another unique identifier for members or figure out another way to grant people access to ward websites. It sure would be nice to be able to tell if the John Smith that just showed up on our records was the same John Smith that moved out three months ago or a different one.
I don't think there is currently a unique global family identifier, but it would be helpful for tracking families moving in, out, or within the ward. If a father and mother get divorced and all the kids stay with the mother, the cleanest record keeping approach would be to take the father out of the family and leave the rest of the family in place. Without a globally unique family identifier, the best we can do is attach the family to the head of household's globally unique identifier. Problem is, the head of household changes from time to time, while most of the rest of the family can remain intact. This can require some record keeping acrobatics without a globally unique family identifier.
I love the first story listed in the book. A gold company in Canada needed help finding gold on one of their plots of land. The chief executive for the company decides to take all of the information they have on the property (surveys, seismic data, sub-surface analyses, etc.) and open it up to the public. They offered some prizes for help.
ReplyDeleteThey received an incredible breadth and depth of assistance and have subsequently found several million ounces of gold.
Interesting approach in using the community to help with a commerical objective.
I am enjoying this book so much! I'm half way through now. It has some terrific examples of businesses or groups organizing communities (or facilitating their self-organization) in order to create value, either for the company/group or for the public good.
ReplyDeleteOne great example is http://innocentive.com, a web site which allows companies to post scientific problems and request community members to help solve the problems for cash incentives.
Another example describes a gold company in Canada which opened up all of its confidential information about possible locations of gold on its land to the community and asked for help in locating the gold, again for cash incentives. Thousands of entries came in from a variety of different disciplines, some of them very unconventional. They ended up finding something like 8 million ounces of gold over the next several year--saving millions in R&D budget.
Very cool stories.