Your voice matters

Be passionate about making a difference

WikiCurve is based on two fundamental principles:

1. People care about issues that impact their lives and want to be able to engage meaningfully; and
2. Issues evolve and develop over time through key events shaping societal acceptance of change.

The rise of social media has made it easy for everyone to voice their opinion on important issues. The problem is, organisations find it difficult to get a sensible picture of community attitudes from the noise of social media. WikiCurve provides a framework that creates a ‘sensible picture’ of the evolution of the issue.

The theory behind WikiCurve draws from a range of disciplines including technology maturation, sociology and network theory. It has been shown to give robust insights for even the deepest specialist in any given topic.

The status quo is difficult to change and when the first ideas emerge the status quo isn’t impacted. But through activism, issues evolve and can become themselves issues that are part of the mainstream way of thinking. WikiCurve shows the key events that have shaped community attitudes and opinions. The position on the curve shows how developed (or ‘mature’) the opinions are on the issue.

During each phase, critical events happen that helps to shape our attitude. They could be as dramatic as an oil spill, an upcoming global Summit or a political event. Media interest in a visionary leader, could spark discussion of an issue or sway public opinion. Even the release of a popular movie can have an impact on opinion development.

The stages are:

1. Catalyst – a few people notice something new or have different ideas about the status quo and start talking/writing about it.
2. Theory Development- different theories are developed by “fringe” groups of activists, academics or others. Specialists talk about the issue and become engaged in theory development, but it doesn’t have much public profile.
3. Popular Interest – the issue starts to come into public awareness, media coverage about the issue starts to spread and bigger more mainstream groups begin to form to advocate on the issue.
4. Public Debate – the issue is becoming important to people and they are talking about it with their friends and family. Advocacy and pushback from different groups is happening and opinions are being formed through debate. Different political parties may have policies on how to address the issue and early laws might be made.
5. Policy and Regulation – policy is developed and contested, industry groups might put voluntary regulation into place and attitudes are becoming more fixed.
6. Mainstream Acceptance – the issue is in the mainstream and has become a “norm” and those who hold alternate views are sanctioned for not adopting the requisite values, behaviours, and practices expected.

WikiCurve is designed to encourage individuals to identify events that have shaped their attitude and ideas on an issue. The rest of the community can comment on these events, create new events and log their opinion. Through involvement the understanding of an issue will deepen and broaden for better policy-making and industry decision-making.