Shadow election i hub nairobi 10 january 2012

finding the best candidates and solutions

Shadow Election

Richard von Kaufmann // iHub Nairobi presentation 10.01.2012

Who is Richard von Kaufmann?

Best Early-Stage Startup Barcelona 4 July 2008

Only Nordic startup selected

co-founded 2007

Media Lab Helsinki, 2006Election Machine

Intention Broadcasting presenter Graz, Austria September 2009

joined 2010

Filmmaker, 1995-2001

Creative DirectorCactus Marketing & AdvertisingAddis Ababa, Ethiopia2001-2003

“Traditional” Candidate Matcher

Shadow Election

The wisdom of crowds

Slides in this section courtesy of Zipipop, the Finnish social media agency

The Wisdom of Crowds

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

The Wisdom of Crowds

Francis Galton, 1906

Butchered weight:

Average of crowd guess: 1,197 pounds

Actual weight: 1,198

Jelly Bean JarAverage of 56 students=871

Actual amount=850

Only one student guessed better

http://www.amazon.com/Never-Pat-Bear-About-Signs/dp/B0006XX08K

Wisdom of the crowds at work

Hive Mind

image from bizzybusybees.co.uk

Crowd-wisdom on the Web

420m unique monthly visitors

20 million articles

300 languages

60% of web-servers run Linux 40 million monthly visitors

How Google uses crowd-wisdom

link = vote

Four conditions of a smart crowd:

•Diversity of opinion

•Independence

•Decentralization

•Aggregation

*Conditions outlined in The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki

Diversity of Opinion• private information

Independence• not influenced by others

Decentralization• specialist, local knowledge

Aggregate •mechanism for turning private judgements into collective decisions

Scale it up•more input produces better results

information + error

crowd error probability averaged = ~0(i.e -10+50-60+20=0)

“information” with reduced error

Crowdsourcing Solutions

The power of intuition

New findings in cognitive science are

showing that intuition (gut feeling)

can be thought of as “condensed

experience” and in many circumstances can be more effective

than in depth analytical study.

Rating parameters (intuition)

User’s comparison to the wisdom of the crowd

finding the best candidates and solutions

Shadow Election

salesforce.com, 2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracia_real_YA_Madrid.jpg

Sustained peace

Current social media limitations

How to make the message of the “crowd” understandable?

Our solution• Propose questions

• Give answers

• Rate other people’s answers

• See the people with the best-rated solutions move up the “live” chart

• Show support by indicating your vote for one of the candidates

Initial trialShadow Election was first trialled as Vaali.fi in the 2011 Finnish Parliamentary Elections.

Media content

Advocacy toolOrganizations can use it as an advocacy tool by requesting that politicians answer their specific questions.

The essence of the Shadow Election tool is to use intuition and crowd wisdom to promote the best candidates and find the best solutions.

Why’s it so important?

'The human beans is making rules to suit themselves,' the BFG went on. 'But the rules they is making do not suit the little piggy-wiggies. Am I right or left?'

'Right,' Sophie said.

'Giants is also making rules. Their rules is not suiting the human beans. Everybody is making his own rules to suit himself.”

Amnesty’s main weapons when it started in 1961 was writing letters and news paper articles.

Finland is consistently in the top 5 least corrupt countries

Transparency International

There is a strong correlation between GDP per capita and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

Despite relatively low natural resources Finland has a high GDP per capita.

Gapminder.org

http://blog.transparency.org/2011/12/07/what-makes-new-zealand-denmark-finland-sweden-and-others-%E2%80%9Ccleaner%E2%80%9D-than-most-countries/

Good laws are not enough“The capacity to facilitate commercial transactions through a system of laws fairly enforced is critical to the development of the private sector.”

Engaging politicians in more open discussions

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Better solution finding and more accountability

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Fairer laws, and the fairer enforcement of the law, so that everyone benefits

Thanks!Richard von Kaufmann

Creative Director // Chairman

Tel. 045 11 222 73

Email: [email protected]

www.realitycreatingmedia.com