March 11, 2008

The Wisdom of Crowds 8:26pm

The Internet has been a means for millions to interact with each other without typical societal barriers. Innovation and creativity oozes from individuals who are valued online and have made connections that aren’t easily developed in an offline world. The history of the Internet, much like the history of football, tells the story of the masses joining forces to contribute to an activity of immeasurable importance.

Online collaboration has existed for some years but often it has been sporadic and at times accidental. Certainly in football circles, collaboration is a term that doesn’t often appear yet certainly plays a part. Messageboards, blogs and video sharing sites are all methods of assimilating, synthesising and interpreting information but often there is no explicit goal. Increased Internet capabilities in recent times have given rise to projects with ambitions based around actions.

One need only look at the much publicised example of MyFootballClub.co.uk, which offers members the opportunity to democratise decisions on the running of the football club and matters on the pitch. However, this fails to harness the beauty of online networks and at the very least makes team-specific issues such as leadership and relation management redundant. Online communities, like any organisation, are not fully democratised. Various roles are assumed, such as contributors and leaders, to fully utilise the talents of individuals. The likes of MyFootballClub.co.uk would do well to use the community to discover and exploit the pool of resources available rather than a direct democracy. In football terms, this could have very interesting implications.

Consider a team that didn’t send its scouts anywhere until they were all but certain they wanted to sign the player. Instead, they allow a network of interested fans to contribute to a scouting network. Much like the feedback systems of sites such as eBay, those who recommend players who turn out to be successful become more trusted and take on a role of responsibility within the community.

Or how about a team that instead or poring over hours of video tapes for tactical analysis, instead release the videos online for the community to develop a Wiki on the opposition?

Lower league teams in particular may benefit from better allocation of coaching resources by allowing enthusiasts to make sense of raw statistical data regarding player development and fitness levels. Even where a club views such ideas with caution or suspicion, they may benefit from the diversity of approaches from those without an agenda.

Not surprisingly for anyone who has read Moneyball, baseball is leading the way in sport for online collaboration. The St. Louis Cardinals’ “One for the Birds” scheme could certainly port to football:

“[The contest] is meant to help the team find talent at smaller, non-Division I colleges that don’t get much attention from scouts. Fans file entries by going to the Cardinals’ Web site and filling out a form, including the player’s name, statistics and a summarized recommendation of up to 300 words and other information. When the submissions are in, the team plans to send its own scouts to evaluate a handful of the most interesting prospects and…possibly select one or more of them in baseball’s amateur draft. The winning fan - the one whose entry is judged most compelling, whether a player is drafted or not - gets a trip to St. Louis to see a pair of ball games.”

Such projects might seem far-fetched and there are certainly many issues that extend far beyond what can be covered here. But there would undoubtedly be a thawing in relations between club and consumer, management and fans, and at the very least increased respect for the work done within a club.

Elsewhere on the web one of the best success stories was of Goldcorp Inc, a large gold mining firm. Facing financial meltdown, they took a huge risk in putting their geological data online for people to analyse and predict where deposits might be found. In an industry where geological data is like, well, gold dust, the company took a leap of faith (albeit under financial duress). Not only did they benefit from the power of many people working on the same project, but they had new methods brought to their attention.

“…entries came from surprising sources, including graduate students, consultants, mathematicians, and military officers, all seeking a piece of the action. ‘We had applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, and organic solutions to inorganic problems. There were capabilities I had never seen before in the industry,’ says [CEO Rob] McEwen. ‘When I saw the computer graphics I almost fell out of my chair.’ The contestants had identified 110 targets on the Red Lake property, 50 percent of which had not been previously identified by the company. Over 80 percent of the new targets yielded substantial quantities of gold. In fact, since the challenge was initiated an astounding eight million ounces of gold have been found. McEwen estimates the collaborative process shaved two to three years off their exploration time.”

Where analysis is more laborious, such as data mining, clubs could offer small rewards for completed tasks such as the Mechanical Turk available on Amazon.com. Video analysis is notoriously difficult save for those with vast amounts of money.


Online projects and initiatives are all worthy of discussion, but talk is cheap. In an age where smaller clubs have a lack of every resource available to large clubs and the stakes are increasing beyond reason, it will be a pioneering club who embraces the online community. Unlike sites such as MyFootballClub, there would be no obligation on the part of clubs to accept what is recommended to them, which makes the interactions so valuable. Like any other organisation, the good work is rewarded and efficiency improves.

Even more interestingly, an independent website could find that findings they produce through their online community have significant financial value. Whilst one team scouting the opposition is useful, an organisation scouting every team is invaluable. It would even have the potential to diminish the power of money alone that so dominates the upper echelons of football.

Who’s with me?