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Folk wisdom usually takes the number of participants as an often necessary and sufficient condition for identifying a crowd. This assumption has diffused among academics interested in crowdsourcing and collective intelligence as well. Yet, consider 50 people located in a small area such as the counter of a kiosk in a park. One could arrive at a threshold effect of the density of the number of people per square meter that would give the impression of having a crowd. Consider now 50 participants in an idea competition discussing online. In this case, the density of crowding could be related to the number of contributions generated by the crowd, and the ability of the organization to handle the contributions of the crowd in terms of the number of data scientists, the storage capacity of database management systems, as well as the availability of analytics tools. As pointed out by [Viscusi and Tucci 2015] high density within provisional boundaries together with other characteristics such as growth rate, equality among members, goal orientation, and seriality of the interactions distinguish a crowd from groups or communities, with consequently different implications for their management and planning of related initiatives. The purpose of this study is to explore the emergence of different types of crowd dynamics in small teams. An interpretive framework based on a typology of crowds considering the above-mentioned characteristics guides the analysis. To this end, we discuss a summary of the results from a pilot study of a crowdsourcing exercise in higher education.

Symbole de « l’avènement des loisirs » (Corbin), la partie de campagne fait figure de nouveau rituel au xixe siècle, dont nombre de romanciers s’emparent. La banlieue verte devient ainsi le décor où se déverse une foule particulière : foule urbaine où se mêlent ouvriers, prostituées, bourgeois en quête de délassement, mais foule du dimanche, qui entend bien rompre avec les contraintes sociales de la semaine. Cet article se propose d’étudier cette foule, éminemment parisienne alors même qu’elle échappe à la capitale. En insistant sur le nombre et la densité de la foule qui envahit chaque dimanche les communes limitrophes de Paris, Zola, Maupassant, les Goncourt soulignent l’inadéquation entre l’idéal attaché à la nature, au plein air revigorant et régénérateur, et la réalité vécue, c’est-à-dire l’impossibilité d’échapper à la foule, la proximité subie, l’herbe souillée, l’air irrespirable des auberges et les mauvaises fritures. La banlieue verte se transforme ainsi sous la plume des romanciers en caricature de cadre bucolique, illusion de nature réduite aux dimensions d’un sentier balisé ou d’une bruyante guinguette. Le cadre autrefois idyllique, propice aux rêveries et aux amours champêtres, devient celui d’une explosion de vulgarité conformiste où se concentre toute la bêtise abhorrée par les grands romanciers du siècle., A symbol of the “advent of leisure” (Corbin), the day in the country became a new ritual in the 19th century, which many novelists seized upon. The green suburbs thus became the setting for a particular kind of crowd : an urban crowd of workers, prostitutes, and middle-class people looking to relax, but also a Sunday crowd, which intended to break away from the social constraints of the week. This article proposes to study this crowd, eminently Parisian even as it runs away from the capital. Zola, Maupassant, and the Goncourt brothers highlight the number and density of the crowd that invades the communes bordering Paris every Sunday, to emphasize the disconnect between the idealistic vision of nature—the invigorating and regenerating open air—and the lived reality, i.e., the impossibility of escaping the crowd, the suffered proximity, the soiled grass, the unbreathable air of eateries, and the poor-quality deep-fried food. Under the pen of the novelists, the green suburb is turned into a caricature of bucolic setting, an illusion of nature reduced to the dimensions of a marked trail or a noisy open-air café. The once idyllic setting, conducive to daydreaming and rural romance, becomes that of an explosion of conformist vulgarity where all the stupidity abhorred by the great novelists of the century is concentrated.

Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin , Germany today drew a crowd of “ 200,000, according  to the Obama campaign, which cited local officials.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Beer drinkers must unite to keep John McCain out of the oval office, or else there will be no more beer in America: [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hillary Clinton accepted a key endorsement from N.C. Governor Mike Easley on T. Kicking off his endorsement, Easley said: [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

I was going to add this to my Sunday Late Night post below , but I think it deserves a post of it’s own. As I noted in the post below it was hot, hot, hot in SoCal this weekend, but the heat was really turned up in the desert when Prince took the stage at the Coachella Music Festival last night… [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]