Games With a Purpose

I think Mary Poppins really nailed it:

In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job's a game

And every task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree!
It's very clear to me

And then Luis von Ahn took it to the next level. Towards the end of his session, during the Q&A, he said, "There's no procedure for coming up with an efficient algorithm to solve something ... I think it's going to be an art, much like coming up with efficient algorithms."

I thought that was very interesting to think about the ways that computers can help us to categorize, organize, draw, research, and so on, but a computer cannot know the myriad of connections a human could make between an image seen, a poem read, a conversation remembered, and put it all together into a new concept. A computer would not know that this video could, in some minds, be related to the lyrics to "A Spoonful of Sugar." And I liked the comparison between art and algorithms - both are very much centered on creativity.

But I'm having a bit of a block on thinking through usages of crowdsourcing in the field of theatre. What is the work that we need to get done that many people could help to do? I loved the video of the virtual choir that was posted at some point - and I suppose that could count as a crowdsourced performance. Social media has been invaluable as a marketing tool for theatre - the "word of mouth" aspect of getting new audience has been so much easier and further spread with platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Ostensibly, you could do a city-wide collaborative design for costumes and sets for a specific production. But then again, the effort involved in designing those algorithms would probably be better spent on something else. I think the brainstorming part of this class is where I could use a live discussion element!