Idea crowdsourcing, for governments

Read quite an interesting idea on Ideascale in a Techcrunch article, and how the U.S. government is using it to power 23 sites to crowdsource ideas. It allows citizens to contribute ideas and vote on them, allowing the best ideas to “bubble” to the top. It follows a trend which has long been used by corporations- most notably Dell’s IdeaStorm and Salesforce’s IdeaExchange.

The concept of crowdsourcing is still growing, and finding uses in corporations, groups, and lately governments. Here are some of the most interesting crowdsourcing tools, and use-cases by governments.

Corwdsourcing Tools:

Ideascale: (Free-$99/mth) Seemingly the “big boy” on the block, and has been used by the Obama administration to crowdsource ideas. Allows for the submitting, moderating, voting and commenting on ideas- and also allows for the wiki-editing of existing ideas.  Overall a very clean interface, and has iPhone and Twitter/Facebook support. The $99 version allows for custom branding and design.

Uservoice: (Free – $589/mth) Very much like Ideascale, but however integrates the idea of “private forums” that allow users to contribute some ideas privately. Also, philosophically, is different from Ideascale in that it limits the number of votes users get to get them to choose their top 3 ideas. Provides an easily-embeddable widget for websites.

Get Satisfaction: (Free-$289/mth) More of a helpdesk system than an crowdsourcing tool, Get Satisfaction nevertheless is one of the leading players in the helpdesk industry. Makes it easy for people to ask questions, share ideas, report problems or give praise. Offers open APIs, widgets, and support for iPhone apps. Even has an iphone app developed by a third party developer, which can be found here.

Other interesting options: Kampyle, IdeaTorrent, Fevote, Crowdsound, Voxpopuli, Google Moderator (not exactly a crowdsourcing tool, but a Q&A management tool)

Interesting Mobile Crowdsourcing Apps:

So far most of the apps I’ve looked at are more of open, mobile helpdesks than idea sourcing tools- but most have some form of allowing people to submit ideas. Nevertheless here are the most interesting ones, most of which use the iPhone as a platform.

Screenshots from the iTunes store

Citizen Connect (iPhone platform, City of Boston): Integrates a simple iPhone app with political will- users have reported getting reported holes filled within 24 hours. It allows users to report graffiti, potholes and any problems around the city, making full use of the geolocation and camera of the iPhone.

Screenshots from the iTunes store

Do-it-yourself Democracy: (iPhone platform, California only) Like Citizen Connect, it allows citizens to report problems using the camera and GPS of the iPhone- but takes the idea further by allowing citizens to do almost anything from proposing local initiatives to emailing their Mayor.

Similar applications: GORequest (California), The Extraordinaries (a fantastic crowdsourcing app that doesn’t really fall into this category, but deserves to be mentioned)
PS: If anyone is interested in building something like this in the Singapore context, please contact me here.