Edgeryders: a novel methodology for social research

Meet the citizen expert: societal change seen from the trenches

Alberto Cottica

Citizens as experts

“The future is already here.It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

William Gibson

MASSIVELY COLLABORATIVESELF-SELECTEDA THINK TANKDISTRIBUTEDEXPERIENCE BASED

you you

Act 1: seed

Learning

Where did you learn your key

skills?

Campaigns

Missions

Missionreports

Take an online lecture. Does it

work?[...]

Act 2: grow

1,000 Twitter users

9,000 tweets

Citizens as a communication team: Edgeryders on Twitter, Mar-Jun 2012

1200 participants

500 mission reports

4000 comments

Act 3: harvest

1,700 pages

of high quality ethnographic data

The EDGERYDERS guide to the future I

THE EDGERYDERS GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

A HANDBOOK FOR POLICYMAKERS &

DESIGNERS OF POLICY-ORIENTED

ONLINE COMMUNITIES

The Edgeryders networkin December 2012Density 0.028Average weighted degree 10.87Average distance 2.3

The Edgeryders networkwith moderators removedDensity 0.013Average weighted degree 3.7Average distance 3.3

The Edgeryders networkwith moderators removedModularity 0.5Subcommunities are clearly visible

What are subcommunities talking about?Blue edge = more specialization on one or few topics, red edge = no specialization, all topics equally discussed

Topic treeHow “broad” and “deep” are discussions?

Topic tree (detail)A nice fractal pattern between topics, subtopics, posts and comments

So, what have we built?

Inclusive: a space for individual citizens to be heard

Diverse: be everyone to engage with everyone!

Open: anyone can join without permission

Effective: highly relevant results

truthfulself-correctingConsultancy + consultationsocial businessThe future

THANK YOU

http://edgeryders.eu

Photo credits: the yes man, Medhin Paolos, Photographic Poetry, h.koppdelaney,