Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

A fair number of you have rightly wondered whether I've been abducted by aliens or deported to Moldova. I'm happy to report the correct answer is ... Neither! In fact I'm ensconced at my cubicle in Wired's New York office pounding away at my particular version of the three R's: Reading books related to crowdsourcing, writing a book that is, I hope, all about crowdsourcing, and working on a deceptively simple mathematic formula: 3+1=4. According to this equation, our family will soon welcome another arrival. My wife is due on September 10—a boy, if the sonogram is to be believed. The tricky part is that I've been assured that a second child introduces a disproportional quantity of chaos to the household, so perhaps the common formula contains a flaw. Could 3+1 actually equal 5 or 6? I've actually been told the chaos increases exponentially, but as 1X1 = 1, that can't quite be true.

But impending labor doesn't quite excuse my silence in August. I know lots of writers who use their blogs as a tool to help them with their books. I offer them my admiration and absolute bafflement. I'm having trouble wrestling this topic to the ground while maintaining anything like a normal sleep schedule (Wired's editor, Chris Anderson, once advise me that "4 AM is your friend; the Web is your enemy." He spoke the truth.), much less wasting precious words on my blog. That said, I am in the thick of it at the moment. Perhaps once I've crested the mountain am on the descent I'll be able to enjoy the luxury of posting to crowdsourcing.com.

Which isn't to say you won't hear from me from time to time, but I do want to apologize in advance for more month-long absences. Until then, please give my rival blog, the crowdsourcing directory, a read (I'm a Shark; he's the Jet, for anyone who's wondering). I'm regularly impressed with it, in those rare moments I'm able to read it.

Hope you all had a good summer ...

Comments

[Alan]

Huge congrats on the 3 + 1 = 4 news Jeff, I will say when it comes to human additions and family formulas they can get tricky!

I have triplets, 2 + 3 = instant finished family, twin girls and a boy. I discovered that the family formula is relative to so many factors that it becomes subjective illusion at best and completely lost in the joys and challenges of family life, when all is told.

Good luck on the book writing process Jeff.

Cheers, Alan.

[David Cohn]

Hooray for more Howe's!

[Val]

Congrats!
Can I ask you a banal thing? What's the correct pronunciation of your name? I will graduate next week with a thesis on Crowdsourcing but me and my professsor disagree on what is the correct pronunciation of Howe... can you help me please? :)

[Jeff Howe]

Aw, thanks for all the good wishes guys. I'm eager, if a little more than mildly terrified, for the stork's second coming, as it were.
@ Val: No problem. Whoever guessed that the "e" is silent would be correct. It should properly be Hov, from the Norwegian, but the name was anglicized (along with many others) on Ellis Island some 100 odd years ago.

[kavak yelleri]

thanks good post.

[Daren C. Brabham]

Jeff - Congratulations!!! You should name him Crowd Sourcing Howe, just for fun. Think of all those hippie names that are so memorable in popular culture! Seriously, though, congrats.

Val (and anyone else out there doing scholarly work on crowdsourcing) - would you mind emailing me your thesis title, abstract, and/or the manuscript? It's good if us few crowdsourcing researchers learn what each other has written so it can be cited by each other and so we don't duplicate efforts. Daren [dot] Brabham [at] utah.edu

[Val]

Thanks Jeff!
@ Daren: I'm very proud that someone is interested in my research but I have to tell you that I am italian and so my work is in Italian. Furthermore I have to tell you that in my work I only tried to summarize the phenomenon and explain which are its social basis and its theoretical framework. I have looked deeply into crowdsourcing in advertising (which is my principal area of interest) describing a huge quantity of case histories. If you're still interested in it, I'm at your disposal.
p.s. Excuse me for my bad English: now you know the reason why! :)

[Alan]

Hi Daren and Val. Desidero che il mio italiano era buono quanto il vostro Val inglese! Conosco soltanto una frase in italiano che non può essere ripetuto tristemente a meno che usato ad un fiammifero di calcio!

I would also be interested in any content related to CS.
Cheers, Alan.

[Alan]

Here are some related thoughts from M. Bauwens.
http://groups.google.com/group/strategic_p2p/browse_thread/thread/8cedd10740c83369/c348b94634a0b8b0?q=crowdsourcing&rnum=1#c348b94634a0b8b0

His blog: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=245

[Alan]

Click the:- Show quoted text -

[Daren C. Brabham]

I just had an idea! Crowdsource a baby!

...or is that an old idea I've seen on Jerry Springer once?

[eric y]

ala Marx, indeed! I'm not sure that Professor Whitlow would buy into your ideas and Sammie has committed himself to supporting Dr. Jay Whitlow in his latest neo-classical anthropology digs in NW Kansas.

[Health News]

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[leather sofa]

I am so glad you never put the winner on the front page anymore since that one time when I freaked out b/c the west coast didn't know that shut your mouth and say it ain't so won yet.

[jack stands]

I think you will actually find quite a few adults (even baby boomers) who were celebratory as well. It seems that you are dismissing this a youth/college-student phenomenon, when really it just wasn't. I am not of those who were thoroughly disgusted with the celebration.

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Well, the victims get the money, if at a price that might not be worth it like you say.

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Hi Daren and Val. Desidero che il mio italiano era buono quanto il vostro Val inglese! Conosco soltanto una frase in italiano che non può essere ripetuto tristemente a meno che usato ad un fiammifero di calcio!

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