Post @ISBE2016 Reflective Write-up
What is the problem area your work addresses?
Reward-Based Crowdfunding is my area of focus, particularly looking at impact to the “industry” in broader terms from different perspectives. What makes your take on the problem situation unique/interesting and helpful?
Current literature looks in the main at very general trends within the overall Crowdfunding sector with little focus on the individual projects or creators. My work is approaching this from the ground up looking specifically initially at projects from the perspective of the backer and then taking this forward with creators. This allows for a more nuanced interpretation of the process and its implications as well as allowing for identification of industry specific trends and variables that might not otherwise be apparent.
How do you engage with practitioners for your research?
I’m an active participant in crowdfunding within Tabletop Games and have been a part of over twenty projects to date. Due to the community driven nature of the crowdfunding process there is significant engagement between creators and backers in many projects and this has provided numerous opportunities to engage with both the users and participants within the process. Project creators go out of their way in many instances to be accessible to the crowd to try and encourage trust and an increased motivation to fund. I have made connections both in person and through social media with a number of them.
What findings/conclusions did you want to get across?
This is a very early stage of my work but I have looked at identifying several areas of importance to backers that can be used to develop a framework for analysis eventually. The four areas were based upon Pledge Levels, Perceived Value, Stretch Goals and Add On Content and Communication. Each area will be further expanded but I proposed a model for classifying pledge levels within Tabletop Games to aid in understanding them and their overall purpose.
Tell us about feedback? What impact did you have at the conference... What is the benefit of sharing your research in this context?
The feedback I received has been fantastic, on both a practical and a critical level. Many of my fellow research students have said I gave a very good performance in my presentation and in general the other delegates have all said I clearly show great passion for my topic area. People actively engaged in the area gave me guidance to take my work forward and have offered support to help me make the most of it I can while generally praising the overall quality.
Even among a conference track with other papers looking at Crowdfunding my work is different and shows the inner workings of an otherwise generally overlooked industry, a key example has been most other projects focused on amounts of funding in the 10k to 150k range whereas the projects I look at can range from 300k to 8.7m something which surprised some of the other researchers
In terms of sharing my work this is the ideal forum, as previously mentioned other people are working in a similar area so they can give a different perspective on my work than may be immediately apparent to me. More importantly to be recognised as having achieved something by your peers is a good confirmation that your work is going in the right direction. Peer esteem is very important particularly for a neophyte researcher such as myself. More importantly the networking opportunities inherently provided allows the potential to identify external examiners for the future stages of my work.
In the longer term what do you hope to achieve? Where do you want to take your ideas? How do you want to make a contribution...to practice, teaching and learning, theory building?
On a personal level I can see a greater contribution I would like to make at ISBE, I volunteered my services as the conference photographer and I would love to try and go further than this and become a bigger part of what I see as a great organisation. It’s a very positive environment where criticism is balanced with respect and people genuinely want to see you do well.
I’m aiming high for next year, colleagues managed to achieve prizes and I want to have something publishable at a serious level that can be a contender for best paper. Eventually I would like to take the central aspects of my thesis and publish on them, gaining the critical feedback needed to improve my work as well as building a solid base for my future academic career.
In terms of contribution well:
Practice – When this stage of the work is complete it should help project creators as well as crowdfunding platforms gain a better understanding and a nuanced approach to the crowd and develop a stronger and more effective means of engaging with them.
Teaching and learning – Having a body of work to discuss at a very base level provides a strong context to work with for students as well as for the teacher and can provide the contextual framework needed for many issues. Using crowdfunding as a vehicle is also convenient to develop personalised data sets for assignments and in class tasks as there is a surfeit of ready information ripe for utilisation and understanding.
Theory Building – While I am loath to think I will be a great theory creator I do think I have a good chance at contributing to the development of emerging crowdfunding theory. My prime example would be the amendment of the Typology of Backers proposed by Ryu & Kim (2016), their inclusion of Philanthropic Intent as a main variable would appear to be less relevant when the reward is the prime motivation of participation. In my paper I have briefly looked at a possible replacement of the two backer types that utilise this with two of my own that more accurately reflect both reward-based crowdfunding and my data and observations of Tabletop Games.
RYU, S. & KIM, Y.-G. 2016. A typology of crowdfunding sponsors: Birds of a feather flock together? Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 16, 43-54.