Crowdfunding Political Candidates

Just wanted to throw out a quick (and belated) link to a post in the politics and technology site, Personal Democracy Forum, about an innovative fundraising strategy launched by the Democratic fundraising clearinghouse, ActBlue. Essentially, ActBlue is allowing the public to "draft" potential presidential candidates by contributing to campaigns that may or may not actualize. If the given political figure chooses not to run, the money will go instead to the DNC. Joshua Levy, the PDF writer behind the post, calls this crowdsourcing. I don't quite agree (it doesn't replace a function previously performed by employees), but I will call it crowdfunding, and I think that like anything that provides a greater voice to the electorate, it's a sign of progress in our political system. Levy says he's spoken to Republicans who have assured him the GOP has a similar effort in the works.

Comments

[Alan]

Working Knowledge: ran an interesting piece, a while back, “Open Source Science: A New Model for Innovation.”
It includes a lengthy overview plus an interview with Karim R. Lakhani, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.
I like the term “broadcasting,” appropriate mental picture for the future when CS’ers might actually be tuned to a particular, or even not so particular wavelength or http! It is used to describe how one might introduce anyone who is interested in contributing to the various projects that scientists are working on.
Using 166 distinct scientific problems from 26 research laboratories in 10 countries, it spanned a four-and-a-half year period. This study provides evidence that a pivotal element that differentiates the independent pragmatic developer against the scientist who might have publication as the ultimate focus is that nearly one-third of the previously unsolved problems found successful solutions!
I found this particularly interesting because it led me to the assumption that independent participation brings acute focus upon the problem devoid of the usual corporate, institutional, organizational flotsam like pecking orders, politics, budgets and all the other gritty little elements that often distract, albeit often unknowingly, from the problem at hand. This piece also jolted me away from my usual focus upon dirty profiteering by the establishment to the realization that solution solving weighs equally as strong for some as does the almighty $.
I am attempting to get a copy of the paper.
Alan.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5544.html
http://spoudaiospaizen.net/

[LukePDQ]

Perceptive comments, Alan.
Solution solving is certainly what drives academics and scientists in their respective research projects. By contrast big business looks first at the projected bottom line to see if solution solving is "worth it", ie $$$ spent.

So, one attraction for many crowdsourcers (CS) might be the speculative (or academic) application of time/energy to see if they can find a solution to the CS task. The $$$ payback, if it comes is a bonus, over the satisfaction of solving the set task.

The above example of CS project = potential intellectual gratification, plus possible $$$ reward and is a win/win for both sides.

The involvement in CS by big business is driven by the ratio of least $$$ expended for a range of solutions, one of which might hit the spot.
A scatter gun approach that is not viable from within the corporate reasearch budget.

The political example in Jeff's post above is moving CS into a new area (for me) of benevolent giving, where CS's are "promoting" their favoured candidate by sponsorship, ie $$$ donations. An interesting proposition.

Leads me to think a fourth inversion of CS is the sponsorship of time or $$$. Whereby NGO's or charities can co-ordinate mass disparate inputs by volunteers for the benefit of their favoured charity or NGO project.

[Sull]

I started a Crowdfunding Wikipedia Article in July.
Please consider helping to further form the article and linking to it from your blogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding

Thanks.

ActBlue is a terrific implementation of Crowdfunding.