Much of my work so far in New Media has been focussed on gaining technological skills and expanding my own personal creativity – I am only now beginning to tap in to what we call the “new media strategies.” I have been following a sort of do-it-yourself approach, slowly learning how to do anything I need so that I don’t have to rely on anyone else to complete my work. This may be why I am so intrigued by the crowdsource strategy – it is something I have never mastered, even in a small group setting. Spreading the load to get to the completed product quicker is such a simple idea, but since I am so used to relying only on myself it feels foreign.
My first real attempt at crowdsourcing was in the NMD200 film location database project – we created a website where people could post film locations in an attempt to spur creativity here at UMaine. By opening it up to the public, we were able to collect more locations with more variety than any of us could have done alone.
I am still trying to incorporate more of these strategies in my projects, and so this semester I am starting a club with several classmates in an attempt to network with other students, allowing us to share our individual knowledge with those that need it. The opportunities for collaboration that lie in this will help me to open up to people more when it comes to my creative process, and the works we come up with as a club will utilize crowdsourced knowledge and skills to achieve more than any of us could alone. I am excited to see what I will learn from this.