Like Minds is a social coffee morning I have been attending for a while. The premise is simple; a bunch of curious, engaging people get together and talk abut anything that interests them. The coffee is sponsored by Anomaly and it's generally a pretty interesting hour or so.
Like Minds was partially set up by PSFK (I believe). There are Like Mind coffee mornings all over the world.
This has obviously created an interesting network of creators and entrepreneurs all over the world. PSFK was hoping to find a way to work with these people to get insights for brands and clients of PSFK. This had some problems as the people who attended these meetings were pretty media savvy and didn't really want to be exploited for a the price of a cup of coffee. They also enjoyed their unrelated sessions of banter which were not necessarily about work, branding or advertising.
I proposed the following to Piers of PSFK:
I see the development of Like Minds being plagued by three problems.
- People like it and don’t want it changed
- People don’t want to feel exploited by brands as most of the attendees are very industry savvy
- The skill sets present at a Like Mind group can never be guaranteed week to week. So on a given day you might not get the best possible results for a given client.
What I propose:
The hosts of LM (Like Minds) are very familiar with who comes, who is bright and who contributes a lot. The hosts then invite these people to join a tailored Ning.
Invite only.
This is then your elite poll to work with. Literally the leading edge folk from a large list of cites around the globe.
Straight off the bat you'll have a network of 1000 or so.
Any time you need feedback or work from these LM panel people you would organise sessions for them to attend (outside of the LM normal meet ups).
I would propose that on their profile page people write in their skill sets, then when jobs come in, local LM hosts (or you) could easily pick (a la Mission Impossible) the best people (agents) for the task at hand.
So you could obviously do projects in one city at a time or several at one time. Or even pick a ‘best 10 people’ from the network around the world and compile the work on a separate Wiki.
This is networked working and quality crowdsourcing. There is obviously, money in this. Paying people all over the world though is harder than you might imagine. Some people won't use certain systems or currencies. Some countries don't use certain systems etc etc. At Sense Worldwide I experienced a lot of trouble with this.
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So I had some other ideas.
Money is a pretty evil force in the world, it corrupts horribly and has destroyed countries and peoples. It creates jealousy and greed at every turn. Money though, as is well known is the best tool for making money. So could this venture be a way to make money for business that has trouble getting investment, for people who cannot go to the bank because there isn't one? There are several schemes (Kiva for example) that help businesses in less developed countries get the break they need. The 'give a man a fish' analogy comes to mind.
This is quite interesting. I thought perhaps it could be set up as a CO-OP. Monies received for doing corporate jobs would go into a pot and people would vote what to do with it. They are not loosing this money but rather investing it in something worthy. They should ideally get the money back a little further down the line.
Make a profit and help someone who needs help. Level the playing field or at least a little.
How would this work?
Deciding what to do with the money could work a few ways:
- Everyone in the network votes on what to do with the monies earned.
- An initial founding members panel of 50 (for example) votes.
Ideas could be submitted by anyone in the network. Perhaps if many ideas were submitted the network would vote on the top five ideas and the panel would then choose from the top 5, stating clear reasoning for the winning decision. Of course should there by enough money to invest in more than one idea this too could be an option.
Division of monies earned via investment
The more jobs you work on the more 'points' you earn and then that equates to returns from investment. You can choose to cash in your share or re-invest at certain times - when the investments you are involved with end.
What to do with the money
The kinds of things that could be done with the pooled funds:
Kiva style organisations
Help small businesses within the network get the start they need, from printing business cards to creating a product to take to market.
Obviously there are lots more to think about and to add in here...
I think this could be really enriching. The ideas of spreading wealth and sharing knowledge are getting pretty good exposure these days. Working for an evening coming up with ideas for £100-£200 is always engaging. I think doing that and being involved in much bigger projects would be far more rewarding. You could watch the progress of your investment and supply relevant knowledge should you have it.
Some projects submitted to Like Mind wouldn’t produce enough cash to spread around to all the people working on it. For example, if a question was asked of everyone in the network. The reward might only be £5-£10 each. This doesn't go very far but pool this money and you could have £5000. This can be used for something productive.
PSFK could obviously be skimming a percentage off all jobs for facilitating the projects.
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Having run a global network (Sense Worldwide) I suggested I could run this for them although I pointed out that it might be quite a bit of work and I might like some payment for my time!
The Purple List launched two weeks later which has all the makings of an elite network. We'll have to wait to see what happens next.
I simply thought it would be good to put it out there to see if anyone thought it was any good!
