Joseph Rueter

The chatter around crowdsourcing has been growing of late. At least in my mind it has. Some of the stand outs include John Winsor is writing a book about crowdsourcing called Flipped. He’s actually crowdsourcing the some of the writing via a wiki. Edward Bouches points out that you can join Starbucks’ crowdsourcing platform. You can source logos designed from the crowd via crowdSPRING which I pontificated about over at Skip Wisconsin awhile back.

What do you think of the rising notion and reality of crowdsourcing? Here are some of the landmarks my mind has been walking among.

One, crowdsourcing for ideas simply validates the significance of the lateral thinker. Can that be crowdsourced? Two, can an environment necessary for innovation on a social level be replicated in the digital world? Three, none of it matters unless it’s helping achieve a goal which is most often cash. Therefore, isn’t the crux selling? Can crowdsourcing source it’s own buyers?

There seems to be a number of dynamics to crowdsourcing. A clear player is that of ideas. We all have them. Right? It’s the easy part, e.g. stick up a site asking for them and have people stop by via whatever means available to you (i.e. paid or earned media).

Ideas don’t seem to be the real value of crowdsourcing. Am I way off here? They’re a plentiful resource. If crowdsourcing is primarily seen as a quick way to more ideas, isn’t that simply valuing the synthesizers of the information all the more. The insight there seems to be that if you can get the strategists/planners more of the “right information” then crowdsourcing is the answer. Yet it’s only a bettering of a component in an existing system by supplying the mechanism something of richer value. You’d guess the product would be better then too, right?

I wonder about the synthesis of the crowdsourced ideas. It seems to my mind that the lateral thinking done with the business objectives and the end user objectives all in mind while looking at the opportunities in the data is where a whole lot of innovation happens. How can we crowdsource lateral thinking like that? Is it a UX problem? Is it possible in a digital world? If so, has it been done in ways that are intensely more interesting and social than a simple binary value assessment (a yes/no poll)?

In one way I am wondering if it’s possible to recreate an innovative studio the likes of Benjamin Franklin or Edison or or or in the digital world? How do we create web based environments as immersive and as social as the physicality of a work shop? And if it was not enough to get the talent gathered and working well together how do can a digital environment be one where its all these things and constantly engaged? It has to be predictably more interesting than Hulu or surfing the web, right?! It has to be returned to vastly more often than an email reminder to engage.

Doesn’t creativity and innovation thrive where all parties stand to benefit? I guess what I am getting at is that there is something intensely unsatisfying about having an idea alone, pushing it to the ether of the interwebs and standing by as it develops and simply getting a cash compensation. Isn’t part of the magic of innovation the committed context of a team that it happens within? How does crowdsourcing and the social dynamics of a team coexist?

Isn’t the crux of any sourcing the same as it’s always been? Namely how does the synthesis of a resource (in this case information/research/ideas) lead to insights such that a strategy can be built (a direction forward in a context) so it can be sold to an eager buyer and then actually built?

Yet, maybe here is real crux of crowdsourcing’s success or lack there of… buyers. Can it source itself some buyers?

So? Your turn? What landmarks do your thoughts pass amongst when it comes to crowdsourcing?