Human Brain Cloud – A collaborative game

Human Brain Cloud is a neat little idea.

On the main page is a word association game - a word appears and all you have to do is write the first word of phrase that comes to mind. As you do it, you can see how many other people have associated the same word.

The next page shows a 'cloud'. This cloud is an aggregation of everyones word submissions. It shows how different words are related. The more times a word has been associated with another, the closer they are to each other.

All the words associated to 'dub' in the world of the Human Brain Cloud

Kyle Gabler knocked it up as a little experiment, putting nothing but the word 'volcano' in at the start. All other words have been added by users over time. In its own way, it is completely user-designed. He recently posted a blog of the most popular words and phrases that have been added to Human Brain Cloud (no surprise that sex tops it!). It makes for interesting reading and goes to show how something complex and insightful can develop from of a single word.

Why I blog this
The Human Brain Cloud is a bit of fun and that's exactly what I like about it! So many digital services miss out on this simple little idea - if something is playful and fun, people are more likely to engage with it.

I also really like the use of the 'cloud'. I find this way of expressing data an engaging type of 'Knowledge Expression Tool'. In its own way, the Human Brain Cloud builds an interesting and engaging profile of its user. The Human Brain Cloud concept could easily be adopted as a simple crowdsouring tool. For example, as a quick and easy research and insight tool for testing out new ideas and concepts.

The 'cloud' concept itself is nothing new - have look at TouchGraph and many other examples - but the specific use of the concept is - well done Kyle.

Categories: Co-creation, Crowdsourcing, Data Visualisation.