What is Crowdsourcing?

Coined by Wired magazine contributing editor Jeff Howe in June 2006, "crowdsourcing" refers to an online, distributed problem solving and production model that utilizes the collective intelligence of online communities. Companies such as Threadless and InnoCentive, competitions such as the Goldcorp Challenge and user-generated advertising contests, and public applications such as Peer-to-Patent and Next Stop Design are all good examples of crowdsourcing.

In crowdsourcing, an organization tasks an online community - a "crowd" - with solving a problem or producing a good. The crowd then provides possible solutions or ideas to the organization. In some cases, the crowd even vets the ideas of their peers to determine the best ones. In the end, the organization that sponsored the crowdsourcing venture benefits from the crowd's ideas, and the winning individuals in the crowd are rewarded (though not always with money). Depending on the scope of an organization's challenge, crowdsourcing may reduce time to solution, lower costs, and generate superior ideas than traditional in-house work and outsourcing. All the while, too, crowdsourcing allows an organization the opportunity to develop better connections with customers or the individuals they serve.

Many individuals and firms promote themselves as experts in crowdsourcing, but few have actual experience or in-depth knowledge of what even constitutes crowdsourcing. Maxfield-Brabham & Associates are among the leading experts on crowdsourcing, having conducted original studies and published scholarly research on the topic. They also have first-hand experience directing a crowdsourcing application, Next Stop Design, from start to finish. Crowdsourcing is not suited for every organization or every problem, but when it is appropriate and executed correctly, it can greatly improve an organization's R&D, product development, and public relations activities. Maxfield-Brabham & Associates is the best consulting choice for all things crowdsourcing.