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January 21, 2006
The Bottom-Up $100,000 Pyramid
Posted by David Weinberger
Zephyr Teachout and Britt Blaser, both veterans of the Howard Dean Internet campaign, reflect on how to fix what’s going wrong at the well-intentioned Since Sliced Bread contest. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is sponsoring the contest, offering $100,000 to the person who comes up with the best idea for improving the lives of working women and men. 22,000 ideas were submitted which “a group of diverse experts” winnowed to 70, a process some felt was too top-down.
This is a fascinating case in which a bottom-up process is supposed to squeeze out a single winner, the contest is intended to advance the social good, and the reward includes a hefty chunk of change.
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1. Kevin Langdon on February 2, 2006 1:20 PM writes...
The winning idea and two runners up in the SinceSliced Bread contest sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (ironically this contest was open only to U.S. citizens) were announced on February 1, 2006; see the SinceSliced Bread website:
http://www.sinceslicedbread.com
This idea, like the other 20 "finalist" ideas displayed at the SSB site, fails to comply with the contest rules (also available at the SSB site, in their third or fourth version) requiring ideas submitted to be original. The contest sponsor, SEIU, has induced thousands of people to hand over their intellectual property on the premise that they had a chance to win $100,000 or $50,000 on the merits of their ideas--not on their correspondence with the previously well-publicized political agenda of SEIU--but the latter criterion was the actual principle of selection. All the "finalist" ideas can be found at the SinceSlicedBread website.
While there are many actually original and creative ideas in the ideas database of over 22,000 ideas, the selected ideas have all been published in public policy discussions over the past few decades and some of them even duplicate legislation which has been introduced in Congress.
Additionally, the contest rules established priority of submission as the tie-breaking criterion in the event of multiple submissions of the same or substantially similar ideas. Many of the ideas in the 21 "finalists" list have been shown to have been duplicated by lowered-numbered (and therefore earlier) submissions.
At least one lawsuit has been filed against SEIU, and several complaints have been lodged with the attorneys general of the states of residence of participants.
SEIU has failed to admit to any responsiblity for having compromised the contest and ripped off participants who actually followed the rules.
Hundreds of pages of complaints about this situation have been posted to the SinceSlicedBread blog--which was abruptly removed from their site a few hours before the winners were announced.
The blog includes a great deal of evidence for SEIU's failure to follow its own rules and for the nonoriginality of the selected ideas. I have backed up all the blog threads begun since the "finalists" were announced and I can make these documents available on request.
Sincerely,
Kevin Langdon
Permalink to CommentP.O. Box 795
Berkeley, CA 94701
(510) 524-0345
kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com
http://www.polymath-systems.com
2. Benito Sanches on November 1, 2006 2:25 AM writes...
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Permalink to Comment3. Kolton Garza on November 1, 2006 7:57 AM writes...
sgbxux
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