Crowded Ideas

13 July 2010

By Eloise Bond

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If one person can write ‘Hamlet’ or design an iPod, surely a million people can come up with an idea a million times better?

For those of us who have sat through countless committees and meetings in order to make a decision, the idea of crowdsourcing can be a nightmare.  Meeting minutes, calls to form sub-committees and email chains all to select a theme for the office Christmas party?  No thanks!

However, there have been some successful examples of people collaborating for a greater project.  Wikipedia continues to grow with people recording entries based on their interests or areas of expertise.  But can businesses and organizations rely on a structure that gives so much power to the public?

Recently, BP offered the public to send in ideas on how to clean up the oil.  While some may see this as an act of desperation, I think this is a clever way to gather ideas from an audience who wants to help solve the problem at large.  Although it may take time to go through the thousands of suggestions (particularly the really bad ideas), surely finding that one solution will make the crowdsourcing idea a success?

What other ways do you see crowdsourcing as a viable business solution?  Or should crowdsourcing be restricted to the realm of entertainment programming?

 

And for a clever video on crowdsourcing...



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