Opening strategy through 'Jamming': exploring the process

Jamming is a term which is increasingly common in case studies and literature, both academic and nonacademic, especially where topics such as social technology, collaboration and innovation are a predominant focus. An IBM expression which represents their use of social technologies to connect actors to collaborate in an ‘online conference’ environment, these ‘Jams’ are usually focused, time-limited events surrounding a particular theme or set of topics. Jamming has also become an almost customary example presented in literature on the topic of ‘open strategy’, especially the IBM ‘InnovationJams’, which in the past have opened strategic conversation to actors across the entire organisation. Open strategy itself arises from increasing interest in the phenomenon of openness in strategy research and practice, and how this represents a paradigm shift from the more traditional, top-down role of strategic planning. In light of these developments, this short paper offers a brief overview of the Jamming concept, particularly in the context of a case study into its use in a collaborative open strategy initiative, involving IBM and a public defence organisation. It concludes with a selection of questions which could direct future research

Capturing the City’s Heritage On-the-Go: Design Requirements for Mobile Crowdsourced Cultural Heritage

Intangible Cultural Heritage is at a continuous risk of extinction. Where historical artefacts engine the machinery of intercontinental mass-tourism, socio-technical changes are reshaping the anthropomorphic landscapes everywhere on the globe, at an unprecedented rate. There is an increasing urge to tap into the hidden semantics and the anecdotes surrounding people, memories and places. The vast cultural knowledge made of testimony, oral history and traditions constitutes a rich cultural ontology tying together human beings, times, and situations. Altogether, these complex, multidimensional features make the task of data-mapping of intangible cultural heritage a problem of sustainability and preservation. This paper addresses a suggested route for conceiving, designing and appraising a digital framework intended to support the conservation of the intangible experience, from a user and a collective-centred perspective. The framework is designed to help capture the intangible cultural value of all places exhibiting cultural-historical significance, supported by an extensive analysis of the literature. We present a set of design recommendations for designing mobile apps that are intended to converge crowdsourcing to Intangible Cultural Heritage

Submitting tentative solutions for platform feedback in crowdsourcing contests: breaking network closure with boundary spanning for team performance

Purpose To obtain optimal deliverables, more and more crowdsourcing platforms allow contest teams to submit tentative solutions and update scores/rankings on public leaderboards. Such feedback-seeking behavior for progress benchmarking pertains to the team representation activity of boundary spanning. The literature on virtual team performance primarily focuses on team characteristics, among which network closure is generally considered a positive factor. This study further examines how boundary spanning helps mitigate the negative impact of network closure. Design/methodology/approach This study collected data of 9,793 teams in 246 contests from Kaggle.com. Negative binomial regression modeling and linear regression modeling are employed to investigate the relationships among network closure, boundary spanning and team performance in crowdsourcing contests. Findings Whereas network closure turns out to be a negative asset for virtual teams to seek platform feedback, boundary spanning mitigates its impact on team performance. On top of such a partial mediation, boundary spanning experience and previous contest performance serve as potential moderators. Practical implications The findings offer helpful implications for researchers and practitioners on how to break network closure and encourage boundary spanning with the establishment of facilitating structures in crowdsourcing contests. Originality/value The study advances the understanding of theoretical relationships among network closure, boundary spanning and team performance in crowdsourcing contests

Players' Motivations to Participate the Mobile Game Design with the Game Creator

The thesis investigates the players' motivations to participate in the innovation process of mobile game design. The topics of the thesis are mobile game, online community, and user-centered innovation. Although many researchers have studied the fields, there is not enough research looking into the practice of user-centered innovation and the role of online community in the mobile game industry. Meanwhile, mobile game creators seek for players' feedback and ideas to improve games and, further, players' loyalty. Thus, the thesis attempts to present a new model to demonstrate the motivations. The model provides the insights to explore the factors of a successful innovation community. It also displays the determinants of an attractive environment for users to share ideas. The thesis uses content analysis. The data is from "Ideas & Feature Requests" of Clash Royale online community, a mobile game produced by Supercell. The thesis concentrates on card idea threads. Total 2198 threads are analyzed. A research model is built based on the previous research. "Enjoyment", "Feedback", and "Leadership" (with "Lead Member" and "Moderator") are the motivations in the research model. The analysis results affirm the motivations and give more insights. The results find that "praise" and "advice" are the essential types of feedbacks. And feedbacks could increase enjoyment. The final model consists of "Enjoyment", "Feedback" (with "Praise" and "Advice"), and "Leadership" (with "Lead Member" and "Moderator"). It indicates the influence of feedback on enjoyment as well. In conclusion, enjoyment encourages players to participate innovation; feedback and leadership draw them to share the ideas

MOTIVATIONS FOR CROWDFUNDING: WHAT DRIVES THE CROWD TO INVEST IN START-UPS?

Equity-based crowdfunding is an increasingly popular source to fund start-ups. In equity-based crowdfunding, a form of crowdsourcing, many crowdfundees collectively fund a start-up by providing parts of the requsted funding in prospect of financial returns. While extant research has provided insights into the crowd´s motives for participating in various forms of crowdsourcing initiatives, we know little about the motivations that drive the crowd to invest in start-ups via crowdfunding. In literature, there are ongoing calls to investigate this phenomenon since it is expected that motives for investing in start-ups via crowdfunding differ from motives for engaging in other forms of crowdsourcing initiatives. Against this background, this research aims at investigating why crowdfundees fund start-ups. In this research-in-progress paper we build on related literature to theoretically develop a research model and plan to validate this model with an empirical survey on an equity-based crowdfunding platform specialised on start-up funding. By giving concrete answers to this research qustions, our research will take up on a deeper understanding of the crowd´s motivation for investing in start-ups and therefore theoretically contributes to the understanding of the body of knowledge in motivations in crowdsourcing

Smart Conversational Agents for Reminiscence

In this paper we describe the requirements and early system design for a smart conversational agent that can assist older adults in the reminiscence process. The practice of reminiscence has well documented benefits for the mental, social and emotional well-being of older adults. However, the technology support, valuable in many different ways, is still limited in terms of need of co-located human presence, data collection capabilities, and ability to support sustained engagement, thus missing key opportunities to improve care practices, facilitate social interactions, and bring the reminiscence practice closer to those with less opportunities to engage in co-located sessions with a (trained) companion. We discuss conversational agents and cognitive services as the platform for building the next generation of reminiscence applications, and introduce the concept application of a smart reminiscence agent

Vertical crowdsourcing in Russia: balancing governance of crowds and state-citizen partnership in emergency situations

Crowdsourcing can be analyzed not only as a mechanism for empowerment, but also as operating a form of control over volunteers. This article applies Foucault's notion of governmentality to examine relations between traditional governmental institutions and users of crowdsourcing platforms in Russia. Through a comparative analysis of two emergency volunteering portals, Dobrovoletz, and Rynda.org, we describe “vertical crowdsourcing” as a strategy by traditional (government affiliated) actors to use crowdsourcing platforms to govern and control volunteers. This is in contrast to horizontally organized, or ground-up understandings of crowd-volunteering platforms. Two alternative discourses around the role of crowd members are further discussed: volunteers as actors who can contribute resources to the achievement of a common goal, and the crowd as a threat to central government that needs to be controlled

Crisis Mapping Community Social Media Information During and After Large-Scale Disasters in Victoria

Sponsored by the Emergency Services Foundation, this project investigates Victoria\u27s potential to increase the situational awareness of its emergency service organisations (ESOs) in large- scale disasters by harvesting community social media information. This report acknowledges that, Victorian ESOs view social media as an important communication tool. It identifies the value to ESOs of harvesting and mapping community social media information, and suggests ways in which Victoria may overcome some of the associated challenges. As its ESOs strive to be community- focused and consequence-driven , this report recommends that Victoria utilises the rich information that the community can provide, enabling it to further deliver the highest level of service to the community