CrowdCrack.com: New and improved accessibility

We have added a new way to log in to CrowdCrack.com.   From now on, you can use any of the popular OpenId authentication mechanisms available to participate in CrowdCrack.  Google, AOL, Yahoo, and many more are supported by the site.   In the near future we will be adding support for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn authentication as well. 

You might also notice that Google +1 and Facebook Like buttons have appeared as well.  These are integrated into the problem and solution pages so if you see something you really want to draw attention to, you can do so using your preferred platform.

Head on over and check out the new features!  As always, please comment or leave feedback if you can.

Announcing CrowdCrack.com

For some time now I have had a vision of people sharing their talents to solve important problems. It is a vision of an ecosystem that will allow the most important problems to rise to the top, and the best solutions to those problems to become a reality.

To that end, I’m launching CrowdCrack.com. The application is in its infancy as a beta application and needs a big face lift yet, but this launch will serve as the first step toward this vision.  As you might suspect, the CrowdCrack.com name is a combination of the crowd sourcing concept and the vision of “cracking” tough problems (think detectives, not plumbers).  From the site:

We at CrowdCrack believe that opportunities to improve our world are often covered over by the problems that have us stuck. By pooling our brilliance, we are capable of getting un-stuck and fully accessing these opportunities to evolve on a global scale. As a site where we in “the crowd” can work to articulate, offer solutions, and finally “crack” our problems, CrowdCrack uses the appropriate technology to create space for the sharing of brilliance and the development of change.

Although technology and space are important, we also recognize that people are the most crucial components in a movement for positive change. For this reason, the concept for CrowdCrack is rooted in a belief in the gift system. Indeed, this site grows out of a profound conviction that we build better communities—online and otherwise—when we give and receive freely. As a space for collaborative problem solving, CrowdCrack allows for giving to happen.

There are three levels of giving that occur at CrowdCrack. You can give by posting to our list of “problems,” offering suggestions as to how to resolve these “problems,” and/or actually developing solutions to “problems.” Also, as problems and possible solutions are posted, please take the opportunity to rate them so that the problems rated as most important or urgent and the solutions rated as most viable will rise to the top. Technologists who want to give more significantly of their time and talents can use this site to work proposed solutions as open source projects.

You might think that your problem is too big, too small, or just too specific to your life to post in CrowdCrack. On the contrary, your problem is exactly the kind that can be solved in this forum. We intend for CrowdCrack to serve as a site where people like you can bring the problems that affect you on a daily basis as well as the higher-level problems that you see affecting the world around you. On this site, you turn over these problems to “the crowd” to be “cracked.” In the process of sharing and solving problems, we will together access opportunities for positive change and growth.

So, take a look around! If you notice an opportunity in the form of a problem to solve, please submit it. If you are willing to give of your brilliance, then peruse the problems already posted, offer solutions, and start working them!

There are many features not yet complete but in the works for the site including buckets for categorization, a dashboard, Facebook and Twitter integration, integration to bitbucket/codeplex for developing solutions, file attachments, and some much needed graphic design.  If you have additional ideas or thoughts on these, please do post them.   As things are still rough and in beta, the promotion of the site will be pretty slow and metered.  I plan to try it out on a host of friends and colleagues first, then open it up to the innovation community, and then promote it in additional circles.  

You can also follow CrowdCrack on Facebook and Twitter.  Google+ is coming, but Google has requested holding off on created brand pages until they unveil their brand solution. 

Take a Chance

Thank you to all those who contributed online and offline to the post on Trust.  While responses varied in their illustrations, the underlying sub tone is extremely consistent. 

We are a people that desire and need to trust.  Even when that trust is violated and sometimes when we have the feeling it will be violated, we still desire to trust on some level and hope for the best.  This desire explains why we attempt to surround ourselves with people we trust.  We attempt to befriend those that we interact with on a day in, day out basis.  This friendly touch increases our sense of trust and confidence in the choices we make.  We desire to follow leaders who we feel are trustworthy.  Integrity is consistently one of the top traits desired in our leaders.  When those that we do hold to high standards of trust make mistakes, it is imperative for them to take action immediately.  Some prime recent examples are Michael Phelps and Tom Daschle.  Both are/were respected professionals in their own genre.  Both made a mistake recently that put a spotlight on their fallibility.  They both chose to do the right thing and admit their mistakes.  While Phelps has faired better than Daschle so far post admission, they can both teach us something important about the frailty of broken trust.  Amazon on the other hand may not fair as well.  It is still early so the jury is still out, but the recent #amazonfail on twitter may cost them some serious trust points.  So far, the only word from Amazon is that it was a ‘glitch’ which has not appeased the angry masses.  Perhaps they will reverse course in the next day or so, but they would have been much better suited to come out and admit they made a mistake with a new, poorly thought out policy.   That would regain trust.

It seems we are always willing to take a chance on something or someone that inspires us with hope or seeming integrity.  When they fall short, we may forgive them, or cross them off our list depending on their integrity during the fall from grace.  No matter though, it seems that there are always new faces and opportunities we are willing to reinvest our trust in around the next corner.

What does this say about our long term viability as all cultures shift from local, domestic, close circle of trust settings to distant, global, highly connected networks of geographically diverse entities?

It is clear what our choice has been, we will take a chance.  How will we fare?

Technorati Tags: chance,trust,leaders,traits,Amazon,glitch,cultures,global,mistakes,networks

Trust

How do we know who to trust?

 

When we choose to trust, what limits do we place on that trust?

 

When that trust is broken, what do we do about it?  

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about human interaction and the topic of trust is one that I keep coming back to.  The human model for trust is really intriguing.   I'm certainly not a professional in this area so bear with my amateur wanderings. 

In the US, we trust strangers everyday with a variety of very important things.  We trust public transportation operators to deliver us safely to our destination.  We trust medical staff with our bodies and state of our health.  We trust individuals to take care of our babies while we work.  We trust educators to teach our children.  We trust individuals we enter into relationships with on many levels.  All these varying degrees of trust have different consequences on the line if the trust is betrayed.  Most, if not all of them are life changing.   Given that, how do you choose who to trust?  How do you know you can trust them?

 

In some cases, we have constructed institutions to help with trust. Medical associations help us trust physicians and hospitals.  The Food and Drug Administration helps us trust our food quality  and drug safety.   Things like the sexual offender registration help us navigate the tricky questions of who to trust or not trust in our neighborhoods.   Why do we trust these institutions?  What do we do when they break that trust?  (/cough, financial sector; S&P, Moody's, /cough)

 

We seem to be having a trust-based crisis at the moment.  I have some further thoughts about this, but I would really like to get your feedback on trust in general and how you approach it.

How do you give it, in what ways, to whom, and for how long?

 

 

Technorati Tags: trust, human interaction, individuals, children, relationships, consequences, life, medical, Moody, crisis, feedback, strangers, operators, educators, degrees, institutions, physicians, hospitals

Welcome!

Welcome to what I hope will be an interesting exploration in several topics and directions.   I'm planning to explore a wide range of items as they come up and hope for a lot of feedback and discussion.  I'm personally exploring means of innovation, design thinking, transformation tactics, as well as bigger issues like sustainability, green tech, the current political and financial climates, and many more.   You name it, its on the menu.   I hope you enjoy!

-mw