I don’t know if there’s a good way to ease into this, so I’m just going to come out and say it so we can talk about it: Something Awful is launching a goon into space.
Let’s break that down. Something Awful is an internet forum whose members pride themselves on “awful posting” and can be filled with stuff you want to keep your kids away from. Like 4chan, it can be one of the darker corners of the internet. A “goon” is a member of Something Awful. Space is the final frontier.
Fully translated our statement reads: An internet forum is launching one of it’s members into the final frontier.
The whole thing reminds me of this TED talk by Clay Shirky on “cognitive surplus” and how we could utilize the existing communities online to accomplish grand tasks. It’s not clear how much involvement Something Awful had in the whole thing. It looks like it was mostly a place to raise some funds, post pictures of the progress, and generate conversation about the project. Still–what had previously been the domain of governments and millionaires is slated to be accomplished by ordinary Danish citizens in less than a week.
Some organizations are already starting to take advantage of their audience’s eagerness to help with authentic tasks. Galaxy Zoo and Moon Zoo by a group of astronomers put humans to work identifying things that computers can’t do reliably.
Is there something you’ve been trying to do but are constantly saying “where are we going to find the time?” Why not let your audience/users/constituents do it for you?