Calling on Crowds

Matt Ball, Vector1 Media@spatialsustain

mattball@vector1media.com

Crowdsourcing is the act of sharing a job or function that was once the domain of a specific agent with distributed masses through an open call.- Wikipedia

Definitions

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is the harnessing of tools to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic data provided voluntarily by individuals.

- Michael GoodchildParticipatory sensing tasks everyday mobile devices to form interactive networks that enable public and professional users to gather, analyze and share local knowledge.

- Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS)

History

Mapping Rapid Response

DIY Distributed Capacity

Amateur Satellite Observers Search for Jim Gray 1/28/07

Disruption

Motivation

Geekdom Greater Good

• Gamification

• Bragging rights

• Rock-Star Status

• Empathy

• Altruism

• Community

• Impact

• Contests

• Career Rewards

• Business Opps.

$

DIY

Walking Papers Grassroots Mapping

KickSat.orgUshahidi

Kite and Balloon Aerial Mapping Kits

Microsatellites

App Contests(Finding Utility in Open Data)

http://open.nasa.gov/appschallenge/

http://www.epa.gov/appsfortheenvironment/

http://2011.nycbigapps.com/

http://www.appsfordemocracy.org/

Real-Time

Energy Demand ResponseArab Spring (2011)

Haiti Earthquake (2010) Intelligent Transportation

Engagement(Passive to Active)

•Participating: Becoming a member and agreeing to be tracked and sampled

•Collecting: Aiding one-off efforts, sharing personal perspectives, photos

•Mapping: Careful capture of details

Participating

Sense Networks

CitySourced Waze - Social Navigation

Street Bump

Collecting

Twitter Flickr and Picasa

Historypin Mechanical Turk / MobileWorks / CrowdFlower

3D Models from Photos

Mapping

OpenStreetMap / Ordnance Survey

Community Maps TomTom Map Share

Google and Apple / ‘Locationgate’

Authority and Community

Old WeatherEye on Earth

Encyclopedia of Life South Korea - Paparazzi

Mapping Issues•Authority / Vetting / Quality assurance

• Good enough if I have it now (currency)

• Knowledge flows vs. authoritative silos (access)

• Quantity can trump quality (insight through analysis)

• Human fallibility (inconsistency)

•Obtaining adequate coverage• sensors to fill in the gaps

•Integration• multiple points of truth?