Crowdsourcing Events: The Citizen Gulf Project

Submitted by Holly on Tue, 08/17/2010 - 9:24am
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Remember Live Aid?

At the time, the most impressive thing about the concert was not how much money was raised, or how many musicians were involved, but how global it was. Concerts took place mainly in the UK and the US, but also in Australia, Japan, France, and a half a dozen other places around the world.

If only for the sheer scale, it was epic, in the truest sense of the word.*

Scale like that required a massive amount of centralized work, work to bring the periphery (France) into the larger whole. It was highliy orchestrated, from the content to the signage to Phil Collins' travel.

How would Live Aid look today? Maybe a little bit like the CitizenGulf project.

The project, a national day of action to benefit gulf coast fishing families, has three calls to action to mobilize citizens:

  1. Vote in the Pepsi Refresh campaign
  2. Donate to support the families
  3. Attend OR HOLD an event

That's right. You can attend OR HOLD an event of your own.

All the event organizers ask is that you find a venues the can accomodate the following: "People, hurricanes, New Orleans themed music (i.e. jazz, blues, zydeco) and a local green or environmental expert who can say a few things about the oil spill’s impact on the marine environment and the Gulf Coast economies associated with it."

The organizers will then set up your registration page and make sure the ticket fees go straight to the appropriate charities. You'll get some logos and support, and off you run to organize your own event, with your own local flavor. So far, folks in 18 cities are doing just that.

Upsides:

  • The organizers are reaching way more cities than they would be able to on their own.
  • Local organizers mean stronger connections with the community, and potentiallly better results

Downsides:

  • These things tend to be uneven. One local organizer may rock, while another may not do much. 
  • Who knows what might happen at those events. Will people REALLY associate them with the CitizenGulf brand? 

What do you think? Would Live Aid have rocked harder with this decentralized approach?

[* Live Aid was also epic because it featured The Hooters, a band I still love today. I have a cassingle of "And We Danced" in my momento box to this day. In fact, while writing this post, I learned they have a Facebook Fan Page. They are so liked!]