Category: Monica Hamburg

by Monica Hamburg

This is Part 4 of my 4 part Crowdsourcing series. Check out Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3  if you missed them.

(Thank you, Miro Slodki and Alex Orlando of InnoCentive, for your "crowdsisting")

Ah, so we’ve come to the “conclusion” part.  (If you’ve read any of the others in this series, what do you think the odds are that I will be brief… ?) 

Although it’s clear that soliciting input is not new in and of itself, the internet has broadened the scope of consultation and collaboration, and innovative companies are rapidly throwing their hat into the ring.  Great strides are being made by tapping into the collective and connecting nature of the internet.   And Crowdsourcing companies such as Cambrian House and InnoCentive are expanding (respectively) “into business, engineering and computer science, among other things” and “to accommodate projects across a broader range of industries”.)

Certainly concerns about the process are valid, but the assumption that Crowdsourcing generally involves a bunch of people collaborating to arrive at a decision is somewhat false.  Such “complete collaboration” does exist but, by and large, Crowdsourcing companies tend to apply the “public agreement” phase mostly to the voting concept (if they apply it at all).

Further, going outside the 4 walls of a company is not (necessarily) a comment on the lack of efficiency or innovativeness of the company or its employees.  No one business can have staff that possesses every possible skill.  And allowing “an outsider” to look at a problem can sometimes produce innovative solutions.  Goldcorp and Colgate-Palmolive both used Crowdsourcing to find solutions to problems they were not able to solve in-house.  They understood that someone “out there” could look at their issue from another angle.   (If you’ve ever asked anyone to proofread something you’ve read 40 times only to have them notice a glaring error you understand this situation exactly.)   Jeff Howe, in his upcoming book, “Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business”, describes this concept:

"The untrained are also untainted. Their greatest asset is a fresh set of eyes, which is simply a restatement of the truism that with many eyes, all flaws become evident, and easily corrected." 

Doin’ Good

Activism has always been a matter of gathering people with similar viewpoints for a cause and the Internet is ideal for bringing people with similar interests together.  Crowdsourcing allows for uniting and adds more opportunities to take action.  For instance, the National Resources Defense Council has created “Beat the Heat” which encourages people to “fight global warming – one person at a time”.  (And humanitarian organizations have also applied Crowdfunding to fund charitable ventures, e.g. Kiva).

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by Monica Hamburg

This is Part 3 of my 4 part Crowdsourcing series. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.

I wonder how this genetic gold rush effects the search for infectious agents? After all, we now know that whatever genetic predisposition there is towards ulcers it’s the Helicobactor pilori that accounts for the vast bulk of the cases. Also, it’s becoming clear that bacterial infections in the walls of blood vessels plays a roll in arteriosclerosis and infarcs. Schizophrenia seems to have an infectious component as well. With everyone tumbling into the genetic gold mine how much science is going to be done searching out infectious diseases?

– From a comment posted on Wired.com by arpad

I began the last article with a rant about the quality of comments posted to YouTube (as an example of why it’s understandable to fear the crowds).  As evidenced above, the crowd can respond wisely.  And comments on sites such as Wired.com can produce more astute feedback, than say YouTube.  (Note, I’m biased here, I can’t love Wired more than I already do – were it a guy, I would blush and wave at him, as I do firemen.)

The attention span component certainly plays a large role in the quality of comments: YouTube viewers are looking for a quick fix (I watch it too, so I’m not judging), while Wired readers often aim to delve deeper into the pot and hence stick around long enough to make often well-articulated, well-thought-out comments.  This can sometimes be true as well for the level of participants in crowdsourcing projects, especially when their motivations are primarily based in passion.

And, in a subtle way, we all tap into the wisdom of crowds every time we search for information on the web – initially by using a search engine (Google "which organizes websites based on how they link to each other" or Wikipedia founders’ Wikiasari) and then when we, among other things, assess the poster’s/site’s reliablity. 
 
Wondering how to insert a Windows Media player into your blog? (I was) – well the information is out there, posted by someone who knows more about the subject than you (OK, me).  And, just like the companies who employ crowdsourcing, we must filter the information (in our case, choices) to find the best answer (e.g. this site explains it all clearly and is clean and organized:  I think I’ll trust it, rather than one that looks like Geocities circa 1998).   

Only a select few of the comments on Wired.com, in fact, make it into the actual magazine.  Filtering is critical and not everyone’s contribution is focused, relevant or equal.

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