{"id":4918,"date":"2014-12-01T12:50:48","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T20:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/?p=4918"},"modified":"2014-10-25T14:29:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T22:29:27","slug":"crowdsourcing-harnessing-the-strength-of-the-masses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/crowdsourcing-harnessing-the-strength-of-the-masses\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowdsourcing: Harnessing the Strength of the Masses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea behind crowdsourcing is that collectively a group can produce information and ideas that rival what could be created by an expert, and can often do it more quickly and significantly more cheaply than what could be done by an expert.\u00a0 While businesses can bring group employees together to brainstorm in an \u2018internal crowd\u2019 to come to mutually agreed solutions to problems, the power of an \u2018external crowd\u2019 is far greater, and grows along with the size of the participants.<\/p>\n

Kevin Boudreau<\/a>, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at London Business School, wrote<\/a> in Harvard Business Review, that \u201calthough internal, crowdlike approaches to creativity and idea generation, such as \u2018jams,\u2019 \u2018idea marketplaces,\u2019 and \u2018personal entrepreneurial projects,\u2019 may increase the scope for exploration and flexibility inside companies, they are qualitatively different from and fall short of the full capability of external crowds.\u201d<\/p>\n

While using crowds can generate a high volume of innovative ideas, ultimately a decision needs to be made about which of the ideas that were created are the \u2018best\u2019 or the \u2018winner\u2019.\u00a0 Without employing open mindedness it\u2019s often easy to overlook some ideas that may be truly innovative because they seem unfamiliar or unlike what has been done in the past.<\/p>\n

Linus Dahlander<\/a>, associate professor at the European School of Management and Technology, said <\/a>\u201cdon\u2019t be lured or lulled by the crowds. Innovation is not about how many suggestions you receive, but which of the ideas you give attention to. Companies need to either change how they filter such material or perhaps be more selective in the pool of external sources they draw from.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The idea behind crowdsourcing is that collectively a group can produce information and ideas that rival what could be created by an expert, and can often do it more quickly and significantly more cheaply than what could be done by…<\/span><\/p>\n

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