The evolution of crowdsourcing and the passion of amateurs: Jeff Howe

By Joshua BentonMarch 27, 2009  /  9 a.m.  

Our friend Jeff Howe — author of Crowdsourcing, which was the subject of our first Lab Book Club — was back in town last week to give a talk to our other friends at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. At one level, it’s about his book, which centers on what happens when jobs once done by professionals can be done by a large, indistinct group. But he also gets into what he wishes he’d gotten into in his book — the ways crowdsourcing has evolved since the book got frozen between hard covers.

Think of the book as a DVD and this talk as the bonus features. Specifically, the director’s commentary.

David Weinberger was at the talk and liveblogged it if you want a brief textual scan of what Jeff was talking about. The best line for me:

“My catchphrase is that passion is the currency of the 21st century.”

This entry was written by Joshua Benton, posted on March 27, 2009 at 9:00 am, and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback.


5 comments:

  1. Alan M. at 1:22 pm, March 27, 2009

    Thanks for posting this. A fascinating session….
    One question: Any chance you could include the embed code for this video? (Are you hosting this video, or is… Vimeo?)
    Thanks in advance…..

     
  2. Joshua Benton at 1:42 pm, March 27, 2009

    Hi Alan: You can get the embed code by clicking on the video’s headline. That’ll take you to Vimeo, where the embed button will get you the code.

     
  3. Alan M. at 1:49 pm, March 27, 2009

    As soon as I posted my question, I figured out the answer. :-) … Thanks, Joshua.

     

Trackbacks:

  1. Cover Story: The Pro-Am Divide Narrows (Again) at 12:39 am, August 27, 2009

    [...] Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing, says: “Passion is the currency of the 21st century.” [...]

     
  2. Pull Up The Drawbridge! The “Amateurs” Are Coming! at 7:43 am, September 9, 2009

    [...] of Jeff Howe’s catchphrases pops to mind: Passion is the currency of the 21st century. It’s clearly in ample supply here: _____ ≡  movie poster via [...]

     

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