Milliongenerations talk:Prize

A prize might be awarded to the most (positively) referenced contributor (or contribution). Some other mechanism in which the users themselves determine the outcome of the competitionin a pre-established (and transparent) system may also be viable.

• A prize will provide credibility and authority to the project.

• It will generate media interest for the cause and people will start to think about the assumption and questions.

• It may provide focus in the dialoge.

• It may provide a way to attract contributiors.

• It may allow to establish rules for the discussion.

• The prize should be given out on the basis of a panel judgement but rather as a result of common judgment of the users themselves.

• Such a system would require separating the contributions of different users. Editing the contributions of others would probably first require citing and copying and then publishing a modified version.

• It would also require mechanisms to prevent fraud.

• Users may be allowed to use aliases, but could only cite/reference with one unique identity.

See also:

• McKinsey's Study on philantropic prizes. They found that prizes are a powerful tool with open, competitive and media-friendly attributes, they produce change by identifying new levels of excellence and encouraging specific innovations and by changing wider perceptions, improving performance and mobilizing new talent and capital. The study identifies a number of promising practices that have begun to emerge, but also notes that designing and succesfully implementing prizes is hard work. Recommendations:
  • Start with clearly defined aspiration (= existence of future generations)
  • Translate into specific objectives that are
    • significant
    • motivational
    • actionable
    • results-focused
    • time-bound
  • design is significant and includes
    • specification of competitor pool
    • rules
    • award attributes that reinforce the strategy
  • Process is at least as important
    • attract candidates
    • manage competition
    • celebrate winners
    • publicize effort
  • Post prize activities
    • convert result into longer term impact

• X-prizes initiated by Peter Diamandis, who explained the history and rationale of the prizes at the Long Now Seminar of 12 Sep 2008. Prizes provide legitimacy to causes, draw attention and have an outstanding leverage.

It should be pointed out that the strategies above encourage competition and secrecy, rather than inclusion and having all competitors try to derive a common solution. The latter is more along the lines of crowdsourcing/community-based design or co-creation.

Perhaps a competition could be used a s a first step to define inclusion of the community who will be sourced to define an overall solution together? The prize would then be inclusion itself, plus whatever added value (i.e. monetary, status, etc.) that incurs.

The Heroes Universe is a short video that describes a proposal for an online portal for the Dance4Life organization. It provides a framework to allow a pre-defined community to support one another and contribute to a common quest (although the individual goals may vary) as well as involve governments, corporations and institutions to participate.

It is not directly applicable to Milliongenerations, but perhaps it can provide some insight.