Collaborating with amazing reviewers I met from Amazon Mechanical Turk
This is one more post from my Mechanical Turk series — probably the site that I have most used and loved ❤ so far.
In this post I will share a bit about a review work that I was able to get from, or interact with, a collaborator named Susan. Yes, I met Susan via Mechanical Turk, so she was not Susan before. She was a system ID A3CMKKYGKHSBLJMKT (actual id was slightly changed).
It all started when I posted a job, a task. And it was something like 3 USD for a review to an article. The said ID-person appears and does a review. And I was able to approve and pay, or refuse and not pay.
Susan was not the first person that I had a great amount of good interaction. But I confess I lost many opportunities before. So here it is my case to be clear about it — also to myself. As I am writing I am actually making it evident, firs to me but also to us, that we should always look for creative ways to extract opportunities beyond the interfaces as they are today. So here it goes, a bit from my interaction:
And I sent an e-mail through the system and wondered if I could send extra works. She accepted and we exchanged emails and I sent new proposals and the work is going on. By now I have sent additional 4 works.
Those e-mails sent are not for bureaucracy, of course. But I confess I have even paused the work to say thanks this week:
I know that this is only the surface and I believe that all these extra interactions are much important; not because I want to get to a touchy feely experience out of the professional relationship. In fact, I believe that beyond the surface, of systems like Mechanical Turk, there is an amazing opportunity for improvement.
For now, I will close this essay with a the following images which are contrasting between one of the originals I have sent to her; against her suggestions, on the right hand side in green.
Again, these contrasting images, are examples of my attempt to go beyond the system, not to be confined by its constraints. None of this is part of Mechanical Turk, of course.
In fact these are results of experimentation and analysis mixing the experience with new kinds of interfaces that could be helpful for a professional collaboration relationship.
What I want, which is now much more clear, is to expand the opportunity and discover new interfaces that could enable people to learn and help each other, and to professionally evolve at the same time. I believe that interfaces should exist for that purpose, in first place.
Also check my prior post on this subject
And again, I would like to say thanks to Susan. I know that I am doing my part but of course it all started from the other side. It was the other side, Susan in this case, that enjoyed reviewing for me. She made the decision, amidst a very cold interface and proposal, to offer additional interaction opportunities to me. Good opportunities will always happen when all the sides are willing to make it happen.
