According to Jeff Howe, crowdsourcing is "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.“
Its simplicity lies in the fact that you ask those in your network to help you out and therefore you tap into their collective (network's) intelligence resulting in the by-passing of expensive third party vendors/consultants. With more and more people logging onto the internet and using social media everyday, this was bound to happen.
However, quantity may not always relate to quality. Putting yourself out there to the wrong audience won't lead you to gather great insights. Instead, crowdsourcing may be just the tip of the iceberg, perhaps a testing ground or starting point to narrowing your target audience.
"We need to nurture and fund inventors and give them time to explore, play and fail. A false idea of the crowd reduces the motivation for this investment, with the supposition that companies can tap the minds of inventors on the cheap." (Woods, Dan. The Myth of Crowdsourcing)
For in-depth analysis and valuable insights, companies need to develop relationships and engage with the RIGHT audience that will lead to their PARTICIPATION in the process. That'll be the differentiating factor between firms that are merely data collectors and those that see the inventors in the outside world as a their partners.
Articles:
Howe, Jeff. Crowdsourcing. Youtube.Image from: Social Signal
Woods, Dan. The Myth of Crowdsourcing. Forbes.com
Crowdsourcing to the "right" audience makes sense. One possible disadvantage, though, is that it could cost you. As soon as you tell people they are the ones you need and call them "right", their rate is likely to go up.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that the right audience is essential; but don't you think that a diverse perspective could lead to a unique solution in certain situations?
ReplyDeleteJames Surowiecki (author of the "The Wisdom of Crowds") says in a Q&A on his web page at randomhouse.com:
"There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd's answer. It needs a way of summarizing people's opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks."
Y'all make great points, ones that I agree with to some extent. However, I feel that crwodsourcing is in some way like recruiting. You want to make the most of it, and while you want a diverse pool of applicants, ultimately you want quality in your applicant pool. It is not your job to dictate the crowd's answer, but it is your job find a crowd, the best crowd that will hold itself to a high standard.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of the Men in Black quote when I think about crowdsourcing: "A person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
ReplyDeleteCrowsourcing can only take you so far, I think. Good for idea generation, but not so good for idea iteration.