Toronto DemoCamp13

After attending my first DemoCamp (number 12) and seeing the other very technologically knowledgeable attendees, I knew that this would be a great venue to talk about ProductWiki. Just a little bit of background, DemoCamp is an informal get together of tech enthusiasts, designers, etc where certain people get to present something that brings value to the audience.

I contacted David Crow, one of the organizers, to see if I could present ProductWiki at the next meetup (numero 13), and we were selected to present, woo! Now that presenters are given a earnest 5 minutes of face time, we're all required to write a blog post answering the 6 main questions that the community wants to know. Well here they are!

Have you attended a previous DemoCamp?
Yes, DemoCamp12

Who are you? Previous experience, what makes you qualified for us to listen to, etc.
I'm cofounder and CTO of ProductWiki. We've been working on this for 2 years now and received attention from a variety of media outlets including popular bloggers such as Mark Evans. And the fact that I'm good looking helps.

What does your product do?
ProductWiki is attempting to create a comprehensive resource for high quality product information. Using the power of the community, and volunteer contributions we want ProductWiki to house FREE product information: FREE from bias, FREE from baseless marketing speak, FREE to use by anybody for anything, FREE from the noise of clutter and spam, FREE from editorial red tape so that it always improves and stays relevant.

What hard problem, interesting insight, or cool feature will you be demonstrating?
The project of creating a high quality, comprehensive resource for product information is an incredibly daunting task. Information-wise: what is a product? What is high quality information? How do you have the benefits of many bits of information without being overwhelmed by the noise?

An example of an innovation that came out of answering this question is the collaborative review system, where many people can come together and review a product individually while creating one authoritative review. This is an example of what I like to call Accordion Information.

What are you hoping to get out of presenting?
Feedback and advice on how to communicate our message and techniques on how to identify the right people that can become a core part of the project. Also (and I know this is sales pitchy), if ONE person is able to see our vision and how it'll effect the world, and becomes a contributor, then it'll be worth it.

What does the community gain by hearing you present?
What is Accordion Information and what are its benefits relative to other kinds of information systems (especially the user generated kind).

Learn from our experiences in growing a community and that it's all about the core people.

Get people to appreciate the problem of low quality product information, and the possibilities that come about when high quality information is FREELY available.

FLIRTing with the community

I found a great blog post by Sami Viitamäki recounting the outline of his Master's thesis on the topic of customer collaboration.

In an earlier post, I dismiss the value of crowdsourcing. What I really was dismissing was the form of crowdsourcing that doesn't take what Sami is talking about. A major tenent of the FLIRT model that he's outlined is the idea of concentric rings of ever increasing membership, but with less involvement. He defines them as:

• Creators: those users who create original content
• Critics: those who criticize, and evangelize the work of the creators
• Crowds: confirm the work of the creators and critics through simple interaction (voting, comments) making the information accessible to the community at large
• Community (not in the diagram): everyone else

In trying to foster a community and grappling with the challenges of a collaborative website, I found this model to ring true. As I look around the web space and see a ton of UGC websites trying to make a buck off by leveraging the work of the crowd, I realize that without considering the true nature of collaboration, most will fail....