Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
tor's identities are not accessible to each other and there is no possible com-
menting or cross-contributor collaboration (a hallmark of the internal
challenges). These contributors cannot by any stretch be called a community,
because they cannot know or communicate with each other. And yet we have
a power law signature, including the same exponent (
α
=
2.7
±
0.3, [9] ) as all
others observed.
Figure 6.5 refutes the hypothesis that our power laws might derive from a
network effect. It is well established that human networks show power law
statistics in their connectivity [15], and it would be reasonable to suppose that
our observations somehow derive their statistics from a driving force depen-
dent on a network: For example, I am more likely to contribute if people in
my social network contribute. It remains perfectly possible that such network
effects could amplify the contributions to a challenge, but Figure 6.5 shows
that something more intrinsic, more local is going on. A source of positive
feedback is the most likely origin of the power laws [6], and simulations
suggest that feedback comes approximately half from one's own behavior (“I
put in an idea last week, it wasn't hard or scary, I'll probably do it again”) and
half from general observations of others (“Other people are doing this, I'll
give it a try”) [9]. The difference between general (“other people”) and specifi c
(“people I know and trust”) is arguably the difference between a collaboration
process and a community-driven process.
With “community” now shown to be a tenuous concept, we have to consider
how to advertize our campaigns and induce people to contribute. We can
certainly hope that people will tell all their friends but cannot rely on it and
have data suggesting instead that contribution is more likely a private choice.
As manager and facilitator for hundreds of challenges, this is not surprising.
Almost without exception, announcements of a new broad challenge that
depend on propagated e-mails will fail: fi rst, because the e-mails simply do not
get sent and, second, because they are sent with a generic title (“Please Read”
or “On Behalf Of”), which does nothing to convey the content or opportunity.
In a world of spam and information overload, this is a bucket of cold water.
6.6
MOTIVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
If we cannot expect true community behavior, and if the specifi city of our
business needs is such that each campaign will uniquely interest different
people, how can we make large-scale collaboration work? My role at Pfi zer
brought me into a true community of peers from other companies, brought
together face to face in vendor-sponsored user groups. There are defi nitely
best and worst practices, learned over and over; for example:
Do Not Offer Tangible Prizes or Rewards
Especially for cutting - edge
scientifi c challenges, the participants you need are probably well paid and
not particularly enthused by another tee shirt, coffee cup, or $100 voucher.
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