Crowdsourcing

Definition

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining information, ideas, or services by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, typically an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Crowdsourcing allows organizations to tap into a diverse pool of knowledge, skills, and ideas that may not be available within the organization.
2. It can be used to generate new product ideas, solve complex problems, or perform tasks that would be difficult or time-consuming for a single individual or small team.
3. Crowdsourcing platforms often leverage the power of the internet and social media to engage a large number of participants, known as the 'crowd'.
4. Successful crowdsourcing initiatives rely on effective task design, clear communication, and appropriate incentives to motivate the crowd to participate and contribute.
5. The quality and reliability of crowdsourced contributions can vary, and organizations must have mechanisms in place to evaluate and curate the input received.

Review Questions

• Explain how crowdsourcing can be used as an external source of technology and innovation.
  • Crowdsourcing allows organizations to tap into the collective knowledge, skills, and ideas of a large, diverse group of individuals outside the organization. By engaging this 'crowd', companies can source new product ideas, solve complex problems, or access specialized expertise that may not be available internally. Crowdsourcing can be a powerful tool for driving innovation and accessing external sources of technology, as it enables organizations to leverage the creativity and problem-solving abilities of a wider community.
• Describe the role of collective intelligence in the context of crowdsourcing.
  • Collective intelligence is a key principle underlying the success of crowdsourcing. By aggregating the knowledge, skills, and perspectives of many individuals, crowdsourcing platforms can generate solutions or ideas that exceed the capabilities of any single contributor. The diversity of the crowd and the ability to tap into a wide range of expertise are what make collective intelligence so valuable in a crowdsourcing context. Organizations can harness this collective intelligence to solve complex problems, generate novel ideas, and access a broader range of knowledge and capabilities than what is available within the organization.
• Evaluate the potential challenges and limitations of using crowdsourcing as an external source of technology and innovation.
  • While crowdsourcing can be a powerful tool for driving innovation, it also comes with potential challenges and limitations. Ensuring the quality and reliability of crowdsourced contributions can be a significant challenge, as the crowd may include participants with varying levels of expertise and motivation. Organizations must have mechanisms in place to evaluate and curate the input received to ensure its accuracy and usefulness. Additionally, managing intellectual property and protecting sensitive information can be more complex in a crowdsourcing environment. There may also be concerns around the scalability and sustainability of crowdsourcing initiatives, as maintaining engagement and participation from the crowd over time can be difficult. Careful planning and execution are required to overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits of crowdsourcing as an external source of technology and innovation.

Related terms

Open Innovation: A paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology.

Collective Intelligence: The combined knowledge and abilities of a group of individuals, especially when this exceeds the capabilities of any single member of the group.

User-Generated Content (UGC): Any form of content, such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts, podcasts, digital images, video, audio files, and other forms of media, that was created and published by users of an online system or service.