Advice columns vs. public opinion...

Normally when i pass by a "ask amy" or "ask the expert" love column or advice column I usually turn the page. But since this is an assignment, I have actually been looking at these usually annoying articles to compare them to the usual advice I get on life, love and the pursuit of happiness from my friends and perhaps Wikipedia. There are many radio shows that also offer the help of an expert to (usually): pregnant teenage mothers, men who have sex "issues" and the ever-weepy jilted lover. Although these may be helpful to calm down people who seem to be suffering from a mix of stage fright, heartbreak and verbal diarrhea, they don't really seem to be logical to most of the public.
Most of the time these people are not "experts" but rather are just "someone to talk to". This seems logical, but in the way that calling in a third party to a junior high spat may seem logical when one is 12 years old. In matters non-medical, and non-life threatening, most people usually utilize their "call a friend" instinct. Although asking an anonymous source in a newspaper may never be answered by Dr. Phil, or Ophrah's fitness guru...your questions can be answered and polled, turned over and specialized by just asking friends or parents. Since these are the people that know you, they probably know what it is that is happening in a situation better than some random receiver. All in all I would trust the crowd more in this case, and especially since reading this book, after all the "experts" are usually just normal people just trying to sell a radio minute or block of space in a magazine.

Crowdsourcing Sites

I decided to report on the almost famous threadless.com. As my boyfriend looks at T-shirts probably every weekend looking for that perfect shirt that states that he is a "gamer/nerd/non-n00b" to random people on the street. Apparently threadless.com fits the bill.
Beyond T-shirts that offer the wearer an ever changing array of slogans and pictures, threadless.com also opens up the creative process to their customers and the public. After inspiration hits, threadless is there with a custom submission kit which includes: photos of models with blank t-shirts that the designer can add their idea for submission to, blank t-shirt templates and other features. Over a week the public/customers/anyone on internet assess each design and rate the T-shirts before threadless tallies the score and adds the winners to the site. The site also offers prospective designers the option of putting a design through the gambit of public abuse before submitting an idea to the threadless board. If chosen the winner earns themselves: $2000 cash, a $500 threadless.com Gift Certificate, $500 every time threadless reprints the design also the T is entered to win a "Bestee" Threadless Award and up to $10,000.
As threadless.com does have some pretty cool t-shirts and they seem to be pretty mainstream and have done pretty well in the wide world of internet companies. Although I have never bought from a site that uses crowd sourcing (I don't shop online a lot), I have utilized user comments on sites like amazon and target.com. Threadless did seem pretty cool, and I would probably submit something to them before I bought something though...graphic T's aren't really my think. Thankfully for them, my boyfriend is still an avid fan.

Bought the book

Wisdom of the Crowds is so far thought provoking. I like how he mentions many experiments he does in classrooms and also experiments that his friends have done. I don't know if I agree that the combined effort of a "good crowd" could necessarily match the extent of knowledge of a professional or even a group of professionals. I don't think the author says who would win that fight...the "good crowd" of non -experts or the panel of experts.
I think we face this sort of thing every day. For instance. a Judge and jury are a combination of a good crowd and an expert. The jury decides the verdict, but the Judge lays out the punishment and the options that the jury has. Perhaps this is the best mix, expert and good crowds. However, I'm not exactly sure that fits into his argument or has very many applicable uses.

El primero

HI. I'm creating this for my MCS course which (as of now) I don't know if I am actually enrolled in or not.

Either way...

My name is Kelly-Lynne and this is just a spot for me probably to rant a bit, but also get some sort of coherent, noteworthy blog material.

I think I had a "blurty" when I was 15, hopefully this will be a bit more refined...but you never know...I have a tendency to go a bit wild when i see a blank white surface.