Of course not.
I'm used to being behind the times on technological developments and crowd sourcing is no exception. The difference is that even those of us that took years to get a facebook account and still think that RT stands for Radio Times can understand the benefits of crowd sourcing.
Crowd sourcing plays to the internet's biggest strength: the internet brings together people with a common purpose. Anyone who has taken part in an internet forum will know the sheer weight of pressure that can be brought to bear once a group of users have been roused by a righteous cause or grievous injustice. It's staggering.
If anything, the only surprise is that it's taken this long for people to realise what a phenomenal resource this is. Okay, from a software point of view it's not so new (remember the SETI program that would find aliens using tiny amounts of your processing power?). But it's not crowd sourcing of software that has really inspired me over the last few months, it's crowd funding.
There are a lot of statistics bandied about but everyone has seen a variation on those spammy chain e-mails that put our first-world wealth into proportion. I'm not claiming that everyone on the internet has cash to throw around but, if you have access to the internet then there's a good chance that you have a computer. Internet users are a group that, on the whole, is not living on the bread line.
So you have a group of people. They like communicating. They might have a little cash to spend on things they care about. And they're GOOD at caring about things. Really, really good at it. Thanks to the internet, those people can now be connected to the things that they care about and really put that mob mentality (in the nicest possible sense) to some use.
A few weeks ago I mentioned Unbound and the Warhorses of Letters book and I'll admit that there's something magical about helping books come into existence. But it wasn't the first public funding site I joined, that is a micro-financing site called Kiva.
The idea is simple: If you can spare $25 (around £15) then you can help people around the world. The site lists hundreds of small business owners who need loans to improve their business. And we're not talking about big loans, some are as small as just $125. Together with dozens or hundreds of other people - each with their £15 - you fund that loan. It's not a charity donation, they pay you back a little every month and, although there are some defaults, there is a 98.8% repayment rate.
It's really quite addictive. So far I've helped:
- Essi, a 32 year-old woman from Togo to improve her charcoal-selling business
- Marlene from Peru to buy new stock for her clothes shop
- Babak from Azerbaijan to diversify the stock in his food & drink shop
Less altruistic but more creative is Kickstarter. Fancy supporting an independent film maker? Kickstarter has dozens! Want to help bring an album into being? Kickstarter can sort it for you. Art installations, performance pieces, games, comics, design, fashion, theatre... the list is extensive and Kickstarter has it all.
Much like Unbound, you donate money and you get a reward. Rewards are better the more you donate. It might be a copy of the book/film/clock that you're funding, or a walk-on part, or an executive directors credit or....
You get the point.
Although I came to kickstarter through a much geekier route, I am now helping to fund a graphic design student who wants to knit a 7ft-wide map of the world. Without leaving my sofa I have supported an art project and, in return, I will get: a knitting pattern; a high-quality photo of the map; and the warm feeling that comes with knowing that I helped someone achieve something pretty crazy and epic.
But crazy and epic doesn't happen without yarn. A lot of yarn.
Help her get yarn.
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