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1st Quarterly Update January - March 2012 FutureChallenges.org at Social Media Week in Hamburg By Mario Sorgalla, FutureChallenges.org contributor Social Media Week is a global platform that explores the impact of social media and its role in driving economic, political and societal change. At this global event, the presentations and get-togethers take place simultaneously in more than 20 cities worldwide. Futurechallenges.org was invited to give a presentation on our efforts to crowdsource policy ideas in Hamburg on February 17, 2012. Giving consideration to the title of our session “Can a Big Network Help?� we took an innovative approach to our presentation. We asked our blogger network to contribute to the presentation by adding one or two slides with examples of using the Internet and social media tools for engaging the political sphere. We received almost two dozen slides from 19 bloggers from 13 countries. Our goal was to receive feedback on how FutureChallenges.org can improve in its engagement with readers. Is it a viable option to crowdsource policy ideas for global, complex problems? If so, how can we achieve this goal?
The two most important aspects that came out of the discussion for us are: 1. The experience of compiling a crowdsourced presentation with a truly global perspective. 2. Feedback on FutureChallenges.org: All participants agreed that it is an ambitious goal to crowdsource policy ideas on complex topics such as the correlations among global megatrends. It was suggested that the focus should be on specific policy sectors to improve engagement with the public. FutureChallenges is constantly evolving, and we take into account suggestions from readers, bloggers and network partners. The feedback that we have received was discussed at the Social Media Week. 1st Quarterly Update • January - March 2012