Content Decoded

This is a quick post and more reflection than informed thinking!

Harvard University has partnered with FourSquare to help students explore the campus better. I think this is an excellent collaboration by an educational institution with a leading mobile-location based technology. Universities breed an environment of congeniality, amiability and the general desire to explore one’s surroundings and meet new people.

If Foursquare existed back when I was still in college, my social calendar and my social life would be far more interesting than it actually was without such games and technologies.

Foursquare on the campus has tremendous potential to evolve and become an all-encompassing social network for students. From knowing where your friends are hanging out after a class or where they are celebrating the results of a terrific exam — and hey – even stalking your professors to suck up to them for a recommendation for a job … Foursquare can only have a positive impact on the student life on campus. Thoughts ?

If two years ago everyone wanted their content to ‘go viral,’ now everyone wants to ‘crowdsource’ their content. Back in August of 2008, Tim Devin created a project that incorporated elements of both these buzzwords, but did it in an authentic way that generated a passionate and devoted following. His I left this here for you to read project was a true original that was created to explore the relationships between people and their environment.

Devin is a Boston-based conceptual artist and writer. His work deals with humanizing public space, and combating what he views as the negative effects of urban anonymity (such as people’s emotional isolation, and lack of attachment to their environment). Recently Tim was nice enough to answer some questions about “I left this here…”:

ContentDecoded: What was the impetus to start this project?

Tim Devin: For me, “I left this here for you to read” was an art project. I’ve done a number of projects that involved leaving things in public for people to find. And I’ve done others that involved gathering people’s stories. Another thing that I’ve tried to do is to get people to notice the other people around them, to think about all the strangers around them—and to notice their environment more. I like to think that “I left this here” combines these things; I think that’s where it came from.

CD: Crowdsourcing is the “it” buzzword of the moment, did you always intend this to be a group project?

TD: It was always a group project. I came up with the idea and the design for the magazine, and then asked people I knew to contribute material, to help edit it, to help assemble the pages, etc. After a few issues, I thought it would interesting to completely open it up, so that anyone could do any of the jobs, if they wanted to. I thought this would make the finished magazines more interesting, and maybe eventually they’d look completely different than my original concept. I also told people they could go and start their own if they wanted to. So far, two different groups have taken me up on that, and a few more people are talking about starting their own, too.

Involving other people more actively seemed like a good way to go, because then I wasn’t in complete control. Making it more open made it an Everyone Involved Project, not just a Tim Devin Project.

CD: What was the hardest things to source? The content, distribution, printing, etc.?

Getting people to submit material was really easy, actually.. The majority of the people involved in the project were writers, artists, poets… Over 100 people submitted work—maybe 150. This is probably because it’s difficult to get published, and the magazine offered to print everything it received, within certain guidelines. I think another factor is that, even if you do get published, your audience is limited to the type of person who will buy that particular type of book or magazine. The idea behind this project was that whoever found the magazine might read it. I think this last reason is why a lot of people are doing guerilla art lately—it potentially connects you with a bigger audience.

Distributing was popular too—I think because it’s relatively easy, and fun. And because most people thought leaving a gift for a stranger was a nice thing to do. About 100 people volunteered to help distribute the magazines.

Printing, editing, design, etc.—these weren’t as popular. A couple people helped with design. A half dozen helped with editing. I think this is because it’s a lot of work, and everyone was a volunteer.

CD: Do you think your model could be replicated on a larger scale? If so, how big?

TD: Coordinating all of this was a lot of work. I think what was great about the magazine was that it was completely open to everyone, but this made it a lot of work for me. If anyone wants to make a larger-scale open project like this, I wish them the best.

CD: What was the single most surprising result or learning from this project?

Most of the people who helped leave the magazine around for other people to find told me they were glad to have done something nice for a stranger. It’s reassuring that people like this exist.

CD: Would you ever try something like this again?

I’m actually working on a smaller open project right now. It’s a project about what residents of Somerville, MA think (or hope, or fear) might happen in the future of their community. It’s called “The history of Somerville, 2010-2100.” It’s a lot smaller than “I left this here,” but I’m using some of the same tactics.

There are several interesting learnings from this project. I particularly liked that the content wasn’t limited to a certain topic. People were allowed to write about things they were passionate about, not what some corporation wanted. Also worth noting is the ‘crowdsourced’ distribution model. By doing it this way, you create opportunities for discovery that becomes part of the narrative in and of itself. Clearly scale is an issue, but I would think that something along these lines could be interesting for a niche brand that is looking to connect with a specific demographic (age, location, economic, etc.).

- Interviewed by Rick Liebling, who now deserves an honorary mention and Editor Status on our website!!

In the Food Special issue of the New Yorker, is a brilliantly written piece on the Michelin Guide and its undercover inspectors.

The Michelin Guide launched in North America around 2005 but failed to drum up much response or sales from the New York population. The Michelin inspectors are under strict anonymity and confidentiality contracts, often not even allowed to reveal their employer and occupation to their families and friends. These inspectors are required to fill out detailed questionnaires and forms about their experience at any particular restaurant, recounting their experience at the restaurant from start to finish, often including lists of ingredients from the food they have.

The reason I bring up this article is to highlight a quote offered by the founder of Zagat Guide, the customer-driven food survey guides run by Nina and Tim Zagat.

“We’ve never believed that there were experts that should tell you what to do…I’d love to know what their (Michelin inspector) training is. Uusally, the experts, for example, the major critics for the major papers, you know what their background is. But this business of making a virtue out of not knowing? I question it. How are you supposed to judge their expertise if you don’t have any idea who they are? “

It was mostly in response to this mystery around the inspectors and as an effort to open up the Michelin process to drive up sales, that they invited the New Yorker reporter to spend an evening with a Michelin inspector and write the piece. Regarding their training, turns out that every Michelin inspector comes from the hotel management, restaurant, or cooking background. Fair enough.

What is interesting to me is this struggle between Michelin and Zagat to drive the market share. It’s not simply a struggle between two competitors, but it’s that of two very different ideologies. If Michelin is elite, Zagat is for the masses. If Michelin relies on a handful of expert opinions, Zagat rates restaurants based on 30,000 + customer reviews. It’s not the question of one being better over another, because clearly a high rating from either is an honor for the restaurants and a major revenue driver.

Both Curation and crowd-sourcing have their pitfalls. Curation is a reflection of one person’s tastes and crowd-sourcing is easy to game, and hence, sometimes difficult to trust. Is there room for a new model that adapts the best of these two schools to create a new, game-changing solution?

We’ll let the market decide. But do share your thoughts! Very curious to hear where you stand.