Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Government response to Crowdsourcing "a failure"
Coalition 'crowdsourcing' attempts 'a failure'
The Telegraph reports that "The first attempt by the Coalition government at “crowdsourcing” appears to have been met with failure with not one Whitehall department willing to change its policies"
Was there an element of cynicism in the crowdsourcing attempt, in trying to involve people in cuts and getting them partly to take responsibility?
HoL has also engaged in a well-meaning attempt to Crowd Source at the local level for ideas as to how or where to effect needed savings in our local authority.
Was there any evidence that local council departments (let alone central government) would be interested in the slightest in taking notice of suggestions from the public in this regard? Should there be any surprise about this?
The failure is more conspicuous at central government level: at least Haringey never pretended they were interested in the public's suggestions: but thousands of people went to the trouble of responding on government department websites where they had solicited suggestions. (The Guardian on the same subject here).
The Telegraph reports that "The first attempt by the Coalition government at “crowdsourcing” appears to have been met with failure with not one Whitehall department willing to change its policies"
Was there an element of cynicism in the crowdsourcing attempt, in trying to involve people in cuts and getting them partly to take responsibility?
HoL has also engaged in a well-meaning attempt to Crowd Source at the local level for ideas as to how or where to effect needed savings in our local authority.
Was there any evidence that local council departments (let alone central government) would be interested in the slightest in taking notice of suggestions from the public in this regard? Should there be any surprise about this?
The failure is more conspicuous at central government level: at least Haringey never pretended they were interested in the public's suggestions: but thousands of people went to the trouble of responding on government department websites where they had solicited suggestions. (The Guardian on the same subject here).
Tags for Forum Posts: council, crowdsourcing, cuts, department, public spending cuts, whitehall
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Sounds like to me, with the Government having received 9500 public responses, the crowdsourcing bit worked. The failure has been in the Government's response. (So with that in mind, I'm adding three words to the front end of your title).
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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There seems little point in Crowd Sourcing unless there's a point to it. The risk of the government response is that people won't bother another time. Fans of Yes Minister, like myself, may think that is exactly the effect departments will want to see.
Many heads are better than one. But is there any evidence that Crowd Sourcing has been effective?
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Of course, Clive, but your original headline blamed the tool not the workman. It'd be like reading 'Hammers "ineffective"' because some klutz couldn't use one. So the 2.0 naysayers will just shrug their shoulders and move on without questioning why it's been ineffective.
And, yes there is plenty of evidence of the efficacy of crowdsourcing which is why big companies are increasingly using it. The article you link to suggests that it might have been effective in this instance to (depending of course on the quality of the input)
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Our friend Councillor Stanton is a believer in the production of evidence. You claim there is plenty of evidence that Crowd Sourcing is effective. I have a suspicion that this could be wishful thinking, but I don't necessarily disbelieve that crowd sourcing is effective.
I am no expert in Crowd Sourcing, but I think there may be a risk of confusing soliciting (and public responses), with effect.
Sorry if I wasn't clear with my question above. I'd be interested to see the evidence: not of companies or governments soliciting evidence (which we've seen) and not about public responses (which we've seen), but evidence of crowd sourcing being effective.
There is evidence of the effectiveness of hammers!
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The spirit is willing, the diary is weak. Should be plenty around n Google.
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Just one of the top of your head would do, Hugh! (I'll take that as a no!)
I'll believe it when I see it. I happen to believe that in the long run CS may be a good idea, even though it is voguish and fashionable and oh so two point oh.
Has there been a bigger or higher profile test of CS than the government's soliciting? I bet there are many good ideas in the 60,000 that the public have contributed to the Treasury's web site. In practice it may be a long time if ever, before the ideas sourced via this route take effect.
There is this fundamental problem: you are expecting an organisation (and by extension, the employees in it) in effect, to admit publically that they are not perfect and they hadn't come up with these ideas themselves, which is their job. It reflects on their competence. And there would be the evidence for it for all to see. This conflicts with their authority role.
In commerce, especially in tech companies, this is known as the "not invented here" syndrome, i.e. even though it might be a good idea, we'll have nothing to do with it because it wasn't invented here!
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Ok, you've goaded me. I've used 2 of my minutes and my Googlefinger and offer you this. I know there are better examples out there. The rest, if you're truly interested, and not just in Luddite mode, is up to you.
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Enjoyed the link Hugh. I think the BP example makes the point perfectly: there was the "momentum" of 80,000 ideas submitted to plug the leak ... but how many of these ideas were adopted?
There is no evidence of a single one of them having been adopted. The BP engineers went ahead with their own ideas that they knew would have a chance of working.
Cynics might say the whole 'give us your ideas' exercise was an insincere PR scam designed to try to share the responsibility for what had happened with the public – and to lessen the heat on them from the US government.
Back to our own government, here's my own Luddite-mode idea for making it work: oblige government departments to pick the best idea or best 10 ideas, give the originator a prize, publicize it and disclose how they will be implementing the idea. If the department refuses to nominate an idea, it goes to the Minister, who can select one (or not).
Don't laugh, this could become normal in 10 years!
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Interesting that you pick up on the BP example in the 4th para, but ignore this example in the second para:
Dell's three-year-old IdeaStorm has received over 10,000 suggestions from consumers, and claims to have implemented almost 400 of those ideas.
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Dell's three-year-old IdeaStorm has received over 10,000 suggestions from consumers, and claims to have implemented almost 400 of those ideas
By sheer coincidence, while the Dell example of crowdsourcing was being flagged up on HoL, I was reading an article on another website I frequent, The Register (below).
The example of Dell as a company focused on its customers' needs is fascinating. Dell's claim to have implemented "almost 400" ideas has to be taken with a pinch of salt for two reasons:
The first point to make in connection with Dell is that that company is bound by the strictest contract to be unable to alter or improve the one thing without which a Dell box will not work: the operating system from "Microsoft". Dell-boxes are permanently disadvantaged by running the DOS-Windows "operating" system and there's nothing that Dell or its poor customers can do about it.
One wonders therefore, just how significant the customers' ideas were, the ones supposedly implemented (but unnamed).
The second point is the nature of Dell the company. Did they really want ideas or was it part of a PR-marketing strategy to appeal to its customers and make them feel involved? How important are customers to Dell and how sincere was their IdeaStorm?
The Register has a shocking story Dell's fraud settlement explodes PC market myths. Any Dell customers who think they are valued by Dell ought to read this, as an expose on modern business practices and for an insight on how high crowdsourcing ideas are likely to come in the Dell boardroom.
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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I thought of the original post about this the other day while half-listening to a bizarre radio programme about how an enormous elephant was moved from Scotland to the north of England 100 or so years ago. To get some publicity, Butlins (I think?) ran a campaign, part of which involved asking the public how they would move the elephant... The key point being that, hidden among the 1000s of less than useful responses, there was one from a man who had worked with elephants in Burma and ended up being very useful. (But the did end up just using the original trainer to do the actual moving ....)
The two parallels that stood out of this for me were: 1) how these sorts of exercises can be used (simply?) for gaining publicity and 2) the fact that, hidden within a huge amount of less than useful stuff, there will be nuggets of gold - you just need the commitment to spend the time looking for them (and of course the will to act upon them).
The point about the BP cap made me recall a similar thing a few years back when people were asked to suggest ideas for air conditioning on the tube - does anyone remember that? Clearly no workable solutions came forwards ..
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Apropos the tube, I forwarded an idea about improving turnaround times in stations. I suggested it to the then Chair of the Transport Committee on the GLA (Lynne Featherstone). She was enthusiastic but it was pooh-poohed by officials. It was quite simple really: label alternative tube-train doors Enter and Exit Only. I thought it might even out the load in the carriages, stop people fighting to get on and off and stop the [sauce] crowding by doors.
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