Crowdsourcing (O’ please bringeth me great profits)
Following on from the lecture today, we touched on using the wisdom of the crowd to enable organisations to solve large and complex problems that they otherwise would not be able to.
‘Crowdsourcing’ is generally the act of removing the task of an individual (employee) and outsourcing it to the masses. Simple in its design; crowd sourcing attempts to leverage the vast knowledge of the masses to solve problems or present ideas back to the initiator.
To illustrate the power of crowdsourcing i have included a link to CrownPublishing’s Croudsourcing Trailer
Alternatively, watch it below:
As you can see Web 2.0 is the platform that has accelerated the adoption, development and success of this new strategy. However, there are controversial issues surrounding crowd sourcing. A comprehensive insight into these issues can be found at the Crowdsourcing Wikipedia entry.
For instance, we discussed that Lego harnessed the advantages of crowd-sourcing when it ran out of product ideas. It then went to market and asked the general population to submit new Lego ideas. The winning design naturally received a prize + the ‘honour’ of the design becoming commercially manufactured. A win-win situation for Lego and the budding designer!
…but was the prize equally proportionate to the profits that Lego received in return?
In my opinion, not really, no!
We can see now, Lego have once again harnessed the power of Crowdsourcing and Web 2.0 to produce your Lego creations on demand.
How about other firms? take a look at the Starbucks crowdsourcing strategy that they are implementing.
The question is: “Would I use crowdsourcing as a strategic tool to leverage knowledge, boost my business revenue and increase competitive advantage?”
Answer: “Absolutely!”
Brett Mifsud
August 12th, 2009 at 6:02 am
Hi Brett,
Its good to see this post…
~ Jason
August 13th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I think crowdsourcing and the Power of the Army of Davids http://www.amazon.com/Army-Davids-Technology-Ordinary-Government/dp/1595550542 and the influence of individuals(even when it is outsourced) is relevant and overlaps.