Crowdsourcing: Consumers Are Participants

Is Crowdsourcing just another marketing buzzword or a valid approach to business operations? Just a few years ago, it may have been easily dismissed, but when Jeff Howe popularized the term in a June 2006 Issue of Wired Magazine, it became a recognized tactic for problem solving by leveraging the power of the internet. Now marketers are beginning to look for where Crowdsourcing fits into their strategy. Where will it fit for you?

Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and/or production model. Problems are published to a group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users (also known as the crowd) tend to naturally organize into productive units, and submit solutions. For production purposes, requests are made to the crowd to supply content (photos, video, etc.) and that content is then publically displayed and promoted through the website (think YouTube). Jeff Howe from Wired describes Crowdsourcing as "when a company takes a job and outsources it in the form of an open call to a large undefined group of people generally using the internet." In other words, consumers are now active participants. It is essentially an open-source software principle applied to fields outside of software.

The concept grew organically online through the availability of Web 2.0 tools and social networks that provided the perfect platform for collaboration. Participants of social networks and online groups self-organize into productive units. A few examples of how the collective views from the crowd are changing the way we do business include:

So how can you take these principles and apply them to your own business? You don’t have to create your own social network; just use the Web 2.0 tools available to you. First, set up an online presence in several communities and proactively invite interested people to join. Once you have gathered a large crowd in a few forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Ning, or your blog, send out your inquiries and don’t be afraid to be persistent. Responses are not guaranteed, but with an effort on accumulating a relevant audience and posing thought-provoking questions you are more likely to see results.

The key to Crowdsourcing exists – not surprisingly – in the listening. Listening to your audience cannot be underestimated. It is with this knowledge that you can understand your consumer base and make their ideas valuable and attainable. As interactive web tools make progress and multiply, look for more and more companies finding new ways to leverage the creative insight of the crowd.