Crowd-sourcing moves to the mainstream

There was an interesting debate on crowd-sourcing this week, held by the Institute for Government.

Their video of the event is below, and I've also pulled out a few of the tweets from the event that raised some of the most interesting issues.

For me the most remarkable thing about it was how mainstream the idea has become since the last election (hard to get much more establishment than the IfG).

For all the flaws, which are often more in the implementation than the concept, the idea of crowd-sourcing is now firmly established as a tool in the digital engagement armoury.

Some tweets

Govt could have more transparent deliberation of pros and cons of policy, not just taking 'input' and locking selves away. #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 8.11pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@cath_haddon

Catherine Haddon

This is a really important point about the 'black box' of the policy making process. It also applies more widely to issues such as freedom of information and open data. I've previously discussed the benefits of more openness in policy-making in a post on the slightly unusual subject of the Iraq war and eDemocracy.

Still not sure about the added value of crowdsourcing beyond it being a innovative form of surveying #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 8.09pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Kateblatchford

Kate Blatchford

An interesting point which is also related to this tweet:

.@sburall poses interesting Q: should gvt be playing guessing game with public or consulting experts in particular fields? #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 7.53pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@amyjsmith

Amy Smith

Those two tweets raise a couple of issues.

The first is, do you really trust your crowd-sourcing exercise? This relates to a range of issues involving participation, self-selection, representativeness, etc.

The second question that follows on from that is even if you trust the validity of the inputs, does that make the outputs right?

The answers to those questions go into a deeper set of issues around deliberative mechanisms and user-led service design.

Are civil servants supposed to 'represent' the public, as @alex_butler says at #ifgcrowds ? Or is that the job of politicians?

January 23, 2012 7.45pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@owenbarder

Owen Barder

Last time I considered this point, I came to the conclusion that social media might well invert traditional roles and require civil servants to do more to represent the public than at present.

And for some more on the event, Simon Burall of Involve (one of the participants) has posted his thoughts on the issue.

The video

And here is the video, which is worth watching.

• Digital Economy Act rethink: A success for crowd-sourcing?