Crowdsourced — Who should I meet in Brisbane?

Mike Davis
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Over the weekend, my wife and I headed to Brisbane for her physicians exams. I was there for moral support and as an occasional meal date. Fearing many days with nothing to do in a city I’ve never visited, I followed a tip I’d heard once on a podcast-

I felt this was a bit of a gamble and suspected that this post may just get ignored and subsequently absorbed into the LinkedIn ether. But instead I got 4 private responses, found myself in 3 * 2 person conversations on LinkedIn and Facebook and ended up with some great suggestions and introductions.

Did I just crowdsource my weekend away into the productive wisdom of crowd-brokered meetings? Yes, yes I did…

It’s a bit like how people now ask Facebook for recommendations on all things ranging from contractors, to nannies to wedding bands. You just type the question and empower your army of social contacts to group hack your current need!

In the end, it was only my finite time that was the biggest barrier in meeting a stack of fascinating people. I ended up recording 2 podcasts, one booked in advance and one after a great first meeting. I spent the day with an olympian come entrepreneur, software developers and pillars of the startup and social enterprise community.

I checked out a couple of great co-working spaces, spending the day in one and got some great tips on where to eat and which areas to explore.

So if you have some free time- it turns out that you can and should use the wisdom of the crowd to help you decide who to meet, what you should discuss with them and what you might achieve in those meetings!

LinkedIn turned out to be perfect for this and you can expect a similar post from me and a scheduled ‘crowdsourced’ day to be weaved into future itineraries.

“Nothing makes the earth so spacious as to have friends at a distance” — Thoreau

Sign up for The Purpose here and for the Humans of Purpose podcast here.

Mike is Founding Director of Purposeful, an ethical consultancy helping organisations to measure and report on social impact. He is also Creator and Host of the Humans of Purpose podcast and a Director of SIMNA.

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