Tangible Goals

Poets vs. Naturalists

Neal — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:34:12 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

School Of Hard Knocks

Neal — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:07:12 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

You Want What You Can’t Have

Neal — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:48:22 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Three Types Of Workers

Neal — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:47:26 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Crowdsourcing Revolutionizes Labor Costs

Neal — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:23:14 +0000

I’m always interested in news ways of getting work done. Crowdsourcing is definitely new. It employs the power of the internet to find thousands (even millions) of workers to complete large but simple projects. Example are:

sales force example: add twitter links and company names to a list of contact leads
website example: removing explicit images from a website
ecommerce example: improving product recommendations based on what users have bought in the past

All of these example are better done by human workers than by algorithms. They are large scale and repeatable with little no changes in the steps from one task to the next.

The two alternatives to crowdsourcing are insourcing (i.e. traditional hiring) and outsourcing. One big reason that crowdsourcing is better is because it’s very reactive to the amount of work that has to be done. With crowdsourcing we pay workers by the task, not by the hour. This means we only pay for workers when we need them. We can scale-up and scale-down very elastically to demand. Hiring full-time or contract workers takes 2-4 weeks to on-board, and outsource companies bind customers to minimums requirements that.

The graphs below describe this concept:

Crowdsourcing is not perfect. There are downsides too. Firstly, large scale crowdsourcing today is for simple and repetitive tasks only. No one has figured out how to guarantee quality for large scale projects with difficult tasks. An example of difficult tasks would be diagnosing a broken bone based on an x-ray. Perhaps this is a long way off. Secondly, crowdsourcing is a nascent industry and the supply of workers is not infinite. Even the best companies in the space are challenged to scale to customer demand.

Eco-friendly Ways To Get Around Town

Neal — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:13:21 +0000

This graph created at Dolores Park while watching Tenzing play.

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Likelihood of Unavoidable Delay

Neal — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:11:16 +0000

This graph inspired by a delightful meal with Megann Young in San Francisco.

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Lethal Encounters

Neal — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:55:36 +0000

This graph was inspired by Liz Stine and her inked crew at a delightful brunch this morning in San Francisco.

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Getting Started Is The Hardest Part

Neal — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:06:16 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.

Thank You Mom

Neal — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 21:30:53 +0000

About Project Graph: At Wharton we’re taught that everything can be graphed. This is my attempt to graph my goings-on.