Some days you can get to see that something big has shifted in the way the world works. Twenty years ago it was the sudden and unexpected collapse of the Berlin Wall and when things happen on that scale seeing the change is easy, but sometimes the change needs to seek you out and slap you awake. Like this. I’ve Got Nothing: Crowdsourced Song Created by YouTubers

I’ve Got Nothing is a song that’s been entirely crowdsourced. A youngster called Charlie McDonnell, together with three other teenagers, have created the project as part of BBC’s ChartJackers, an attempt to break into the UK music charts without…well, pretty much everything: money, producer, studio, even musicians.Here’s the official description of how the song was created:

“The lyrics of the song are made up of YouTube comments, compiled into a song by another YouTuber. The lyrics were released and then YouTubers wrote a melody for the lyrics, and we picked our favourite. We held YouTube auditions via video response to pick the band, found the producer of the song through YouTube, and the music video is made up of literal interpretations of the lyrics, clapping and singing along, by YouTubers!”

The resulting song and the video, which you can see below, follow the “standards” for a viral hit: extremely catchy melody and a happy video with young people singing along. While it’s hard to predict if it’ll become a huge hit, it definitely has the ingredients, and the community to support it. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how far can such an effort go, competing with professionally produced songs and videos that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

This is not just about people wanting to raise funds for a good cause, it is more like Gandhi's stricture that we should be the change we want to see. Here is an unknown number of young people who didn't know each other but, because they inhabit the same spaces on the Internet, feel they can ask each other to contribute to something and that it will happen.

Notice that they didn't need to use any specifically "collaborative" tools to get the job done, whatever was at hand was sufficient, all that mattered was the desire to work together to make something. Those who talk about collaboration need to take note, what matters is the will and the desire to work together, without that no amount of clever technology or corporate mission statements will make an iota of difference.

The really interesting part is that those who say they "support" the cause don't matter either, only those prepared to give some of their time and creativity to the enterprise actually matter.

Will someone decide that writing songs over the Internet is the next big thing and try to monetise it? Certainly. Will they succeed? Not a chance.

This is not about writing songs or making videos or producing posters or manifestos; the specific result is incidental to the project.

How about your organisation? Could it dio this or something like it to meet its own objectives? If "Yes", how, if "No", why not? Answers in the comments please.

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