The collective wisdom of CMGT 536 (Team Communication and Leadership) produced a finalist in this week's New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.

Communication professor Andrea Hollingshead's entry was the result of a class activity where she challenges her students to devise a method for producing the winning entry in the popular New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.

"The activity requires students to apply principles from course readings on collective intelligence and team creativity to a real but fun problem," Hollingshead said.

The New Yorker cartoon depicts a raft on the open water with two men eating fruit and talking to each other. A skeleton is also on the raft, dressed in a gown and a hat made of fruit.

The caption reads: "I didn't expect to gain weight on this cruise."

Online readers can vote for their favorite caption. There are two other finalists.

The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest is published on the last editorial page of every issue. A cartoon is provided without a caption, and readers can enter their caption ideas into the contest. Only one submission is allowed per person. Editors select the top three captions, and then readers are invited to vote online for the best caption. The winner receives a framed picture of the cartoon with their caption.

Hollingshead gives teams of students one hour to develop a method for producing creative cartoon captions. Each team presents their method along with a rationale, the class votes on the best, and then the winning team implements their method for the last hour of class.

This semester's winning team (Natalie Erdelt, Julia Hartwig, Shivaun Jones, Enid Lai, Nadine Malek) proposed an individual brainstorming session where the class generated caption ideas on slips of paper individually followed by a collective idea selection session where the class voted on the creativity of every caption using clickers. The team then ranked the captions based on votes, and randomly assigned one highly ranked caption to each student. Each student had an opportunity to revise and improve their assigned idea before submitting it to the New Yorker contest. Hollingshead also participated in the class activity.

"This was truly a team effort, and I don't think I could have produced a winning caption without the help of my class," said Hollingshead. "The class eliminated my bad ideas (including the one I thought was best). Seeing their ideas sparked my imagination and enabled me to improve the caption assigned to me. This class exercise clearly shows how crowds can be used to stimulate the production of creative ideas."

"We are half way there. Now I hope we can demonstrate the power of crowds by winning the contest."

Click here to vote for Hollingshead & CMGT 536's entry.