So far this year I’ve spoken at two conferences with my co-worker Tonya Peters, and we conduct a “social media terms quiz” to assess the level of knowledge of the audience. The one term that consistently throws people off is “crowdsourcing”.
Crowdsourcing is basically what it sounds like: outsourcing to a group. Or according to John Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business:
Crowdsourcing is when a company takes a job that was once performed by employees and outsources it in the form of an open call to a large, undefined group of people, generally using the Internet.
For those who have read or heard of Jonathan Surowiecki’s Wisdom of Crowds
Crowdsourcing is interesting for an organization from the perspective that it makes it possible to tap into the true desires of the consumer. Dell opened themselves up using when they launched IdeaStorm “to gauge which ideas are most important and most relevant to” the public. The same platform was used by Starbucks when they launched My StarbucksIdea. (which, I’m always surprised to learn, is not as well-known as I would have expected).
My Starbucks Idea allows passionate caffeine-quaffers to share their ideas for Starbucks. Similiar to the model on digg.com, ideas are suggested and then the community make vote them up or down. This gives Starbucks an idea of what the community sees as important. Those little green stir-sticks with the stoppers on top? That idea didn’t come from someone inside the company; that was a suggestion from the site. In the first six months, over 75,000 suggestions were made. In their annual Groundswell awards, Forrester Research gave MyStarbucksIdea a big thumbs up in the Embracing category.
I find this an incredibly intriguing model, and more and more companies are turning to this community model of soliciting feedback. Both Dell’s IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea are powered by salesforce.com, but there are a few other providers in the mix. Organizations can sign up with Get Satisfaction for a fee, and there is even a free version available from UserVoice.
According Forrester social technographics research from October 2008, 37% of U.S. adults fall in the online behavior segment known as ‘critics.’ These folks may not blog or upload videos, but they will comment and rate/review content from others. Crowdsourcing is a great way to engage these folks who have opinions and simply are looking for that outlet to share them.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Crowdsourcing is great if you’re trying to please the masses, normalize your thinking or find a common point that appeals to many. Unfortunately it also diminishes the “outliers” and has the ability to ignore the brilliant or the different. I have to wonder if Gallileo, Edison, Einstein or Hawking would have had their day in the sun if their brilliance or thinking would first been vetted through the crowd? I’m sure the concept is to draw on the brilliance of everyone in the crowd but suspect that it will be used to squash outliers and build consensus instead.
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To some extent, you have a point. If we consider the Pareto Principle (aka the 80-20 rule) while prioritizing our efforts, we are definitely making the choice to exclude certain minority groups or opinions.
But I’m not convinced that crowdsourcing is inherently a negative thing. If I hire one person to design a logo, they may not “get it”. If I can throw the same task to one hundred people, I have a better chance of getting something acceptable. Yes, there are exceptions, and that initial person may have nailed it, but why take that risk if we have the option to get a second opinion?
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I suppose it also has to do with where the crowd comes from as their social background may influence the overall decision. Do they source them from a particular area or from a group of people, as in the Starbucks group, that like a particular food or beverage. Even then their social background will influence the outcome of any study and will have to be taken into account when analyzing the results.
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well, the starbucks idea is open to anyone who wishes to contribute, it could be people who’ve never actually visited a starbucks in their life.
While the crowd is used to generate ideas, in the end starbucks has the decision of which ideas to implement; they aren’t giving up complete control.
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I suppose if they feel it works for them then the system is cool but it also seems that they take from it whatever they think will enforce whatever idea they had in mind in the first place.
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I find this overall concept of Crowdsourcing intriguing: when does sourcing from the crowd become contracting out to the crowd? Do individuals who’s contributions are voted on and selected for implementation, into very commercial strategies, have any control over accreditation of effort or remuneration? Do ‘they’ even care? The July 09 UK edition of Wired features an article ‘The New Socialism’ written by Kevin Kelly (Wired’s founding executive editor) within it he outlines the productive power harnessed by those willing to work for free and how the collective opinion of the (online) masses is beginning to have ‘real’ influence over political processes – my.barackobama.com recently won a Grand Prix at Cannes. How a (successful) social online movement was awarded by the jury of a traditional commercial advertising festival is not the question. The question is: What qualified it for submission in the first place? Have votes become ‘products’ and could it be that the meeting point of digital communication with economic necessity will result in the doom of the commercial media production industry? Why pay when you can source!