{"id":142046,"date":"2020-03-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qmarkets.net\/benefits-of-crowdsourcing-does-it-need-rethinking\/"},"modified":"2024-07-18T09:56:19","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T07:56:19","slug":"benefits-of-crowdsourcing-does-it-need-rethinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qmarkets.net\/fr\/resources\/article\/benefits-of-crowdsourcing-does-it-need-rethinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Crowdsourcing Need \u201cRethinking\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my previous post<\/a>, I gave a working definition of crowdsourcing and described two major crowdsourcing approaches: adding capacity<\/em> and accessing expertise<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also argued that although numerous organizations \u2013 including corporations, governmental agencies, and nonprofits \u2013 have used\u00a0crowdsourcing<\/a> to solve complex business problems, its wider adoption in the marketplace has been relatively slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the reasons for the slow adoption of crowdsourcing are rooted in the very nature of the method. There is widespread uncertainty regarding which business problems crowdsourcing can and cannot solve. Besides, many organizations \u2013 especially those new to the approach \u2013 have trouble \u201cmatching\u201d their specific problems to the crowdsourcing platform best suited for solving them. I\u2019ll address these issues in future posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"benefits<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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This infographic from ‘The Horizons Tracker’<\/a> offers an overview of what crowdsourcing activities are best suited to particular business and government needs. However, many companies still struggle to match crowdsourcing to their specific requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adopting crowdsourcing also implies change \u2013 most importantly, change in the organizational culture \u2013 and the change management process is never easy. In the following, I\u2019ll cover this aspect of adopting crowdsourcing, as well highlight the common misconceptions you need to be aware of when dealing with this effective method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts vs. Crowds – Which are More Reliable?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a few cultural factors slowing down the adoption of crowdsourcing as a practical problem-solving method. One of them is the lack of trust in the intellectual power of the crowd and its ability to tackle complex problems. Everyone would seem to agree that the proverbial \u201cwisdom of crowds\u201d can be applied to a \u2018simple\u2019 task \u2013 such as reporting potholes<\/a> in the City of Boston, or creating a corporate logo. However, when it comes to answering a question that requires specialized knowledge, the benefits of crowdsourcing are called into question. Thus, many organizations prefer to turn to experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general reluctancy to replace experts with a crowd naturally sits well with the experts themselves. The latter are often scornful<\/a> of the idea that someone with no immediate experience in their field could solve a problem that they couldn\u2019t. This sentiment was eloquently expressed in a 2010 Visions Magazine article<\/a> by James A. Euchner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One author went as far as calling crowds stupid<\/a>, citing Brexit as a clear example of crowds\u2019 \u201cstupidity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundamental flaw in the notion that people participating in crowdsourcing campaigns are just a bunch of \u201camateurs\u201d lies in the fact that, in real life, crowds are composed of experts. They might not be experts working for your company, or in your industry, or in your country \u2013 or be proficient in your area of expertise. But they\u2019re experts, nonetheless. Moreover, academic research <\/em>shows<\/a> that<\/em> a contributor\u2019s likelihood of solving a problem increases according to the distance between his or her own field of technical expertise and the problem\u2019s domain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitting \u201cexperts\u201d against \u201ccrowds\u201d when speaking of crowdsourcing is completely counterproductive. Experts represent an essential part of any crowdsourcing campaign. Only experts can identify and properly formulate problems facing organizations. Only experts can evaluate incoming external submissions to select those that make sense. Only experts can successfully integrate external information with the knowledge available in-house. It\u2019s at this midpoint in the problem-solving process \u2013 at the stage of generating potential solutions to the problem \u2013 that crowds are usually superior to experts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Crowdsourcing and Brainstorming – What are they So Often Confused?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, the popularity of crowdsourcing in business literature and social media has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, along the way, the definition of crowdsourcing has lost its original meaning<\/a> (see the previous post<\/a> for more discussion on the definition of crowdsourcing). It became synonymous with just about every event happening online, especially if the event engaged a substantial number of people. Mixing crowdsourcing with online networking<\/em> is a frequent mistake. That\u2019s why we have oxymorons like \u201ccrowdsourcing on Facebook<\/a>\u201d (or Twitter, or Yelp).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another frequently recurring mistake is the confusion of crowdsourcing with brainstorming. Although the two techniques share similar features, they\u2019re far from identical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the main differences:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brainstorming<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n