2. +
What is crowdsourcing?
Crowd + Outsourcing
Merriam-Webster:
the practice of obtaining
needed services, ideas, or
content by soliciting
contributions from a large
group of people and
especially from the online
community rather than
from traditional employees
or suppliers
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Crowdsourcing, a Brief History
The term, “crowdsourcing” was
created when Jeff Howe and
Mark Robinson, both of Wired
Magazine, had a conversation
about how businesses were
using the internet to outsource
work to individuals.
Howe later defined crowdsourcing
by stating:
"Simply defined, crowdsourcing
represents the act of a company or
institution taking a function once
performed by employees and
outsourcing it to an undefined (and
generally large) network of people
in the form of an open call. This can
take the form of peer-production
(when the job is performed
collaboratively), but is also often
undertaken by sole individuals. The
crucial prerequisite is the use of the
open call format and the large
network of potential laborers.”
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Types of Crowdsourcing
according to Brabham
1. Knowledge discovery and
management
2. Broadcast search
3. Peer-vetted creative production
4. Distributed human intelligence tasking
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Types of Crowdsourcing
according to Crowdsourcing for Dummies
1. Crowdcontests
2. Macrotasks
3. Microtasks
4. Crowdfunding
5. Self-organized crowds
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Crowdcontests
Enable you to identify the
best worker for your job
A single job description that
asks for one item
Many people proposing or
creating item
Only pay one person
Graphic design
Answering questions
Testing software
Creating films
Other creative projects
Features Usage
Information from Dummies.com
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Macrotasks
Enable you to get a
specific skill for a job or
project
Hire worker from crowd
for single task
Communicate over the
Internet
Worker paid by task
General business work
Web design and other
forms of design
Assistance with writing
and editing
Application
development
Features Usage
Information from Dummies.com
9. +
Microtasks
Enable you to use human
intelligence on
large, complicated jobs
Divide big jobs into small
units
Put units on the Internet
Let members of crowd do
tasks
All workers get paid
Transcribe business
cards, medical records
and other documents
Tag photos and handle
non-textual data
Find business
information
Features Usage
Information from Dummies.com
10. +
Crowdfunding
Engage social networks to
raise money
Put a request for funds on
an Internet platform
Create messages and
videos to promote request
Recruit crowd to donate
money
Offer crowd gift or benefit
Support non-profit
organisations
Raise funds for artistic
endeavours
Get cash for companies
by offering goods or
services
Raise equity for company
(under the right
circumstances)
Features Usage
Information from Dummies.com
11. +
Self-organized Crowds
Post a challenge on the Internet
Recruit crowd to work on
challenge
Crowd organizes itself into a
team
Teams compete to provide best
answer for challenge
Winning team compensated
Team decides how to divide
compensation
Innovation – creating new
products or services
Finding and collecting
information
Processing information
and offering judgement
Solving challenges
Features Usage
Information from Dummies.com
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Benefits of Crowdsourcing
Benefits to Companies
Problems can be explored at
comparatively little cost.
Payment is by results.
The organization can tap a
wider range of talent than
might be present in its own
organization
Turn customers into
designers
Turn customers into
marketers
Low Cost
Large quantity of
diverse professionals
Large quantity of ideas
No travel cost/time
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Problems with Crowdsourcing
The crowd is not a part
of your business
You are not able to fully
control
Trust and confidentiality
Quality
No time constraint
Not much control over
development or
ultimate product
Ill-will with own
employees
Choosing what to
crowdsource & what to
keep in-house
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Six Steps to Successful
Crowdsourcing
1. Design the job and divide the labor.
2. Write clear instructions.
3. Choose a web platform to serve as your
crowdmarket.
4. Release the job and recruit the crowd.
5. Listen to the crowd and manage the job.
6. Assemble the work of the crowd and create the
final product.
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Examples of Crowdsourcing
Firefox or any open software
Shutterstock.com
General information
Crowdsourcing.org
Daily Crowdsource
Crowdcontest sites
99 Designs
DesignCrowd.com
Freelancer.com
General macrotasking
oDesk
Elance
TaskRabbit
General microtaking
Mechanical Turk
CrowdFlower
Tagasauris
Crowdfunding sites:
Kickstarter, When You
Wish, Indiegogo
Self-organized crowd sites for
innovation:
Chaordix, InnoCentive
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Boston Marathon: Crowdsourcing
Data to find the bomber
Short Video
Pros
Large amounts of data
Much faster
Cons
So much data to organize
“Internet detective” – blaming the wrong guy
From our readings, what do you think crowdsourcing is?Essentially, Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model.This definition was created by Daren C. Brabham, years after the term was originally coined.Users--also known as the crowd--typically form into online communities based on the Web site, and the crowd submits solutions to the site or produce its contents. The crowd can also sort through the solutions, finding the best ones. These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place--the crowdsourcerThe winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded.Many individuals in the crowd participate just for intellectual stimulation or because of emotional ties to product or service(www3.nd.edu/~kmatta/MGT30660/Lectures/Crowdsourcing.ppt)It’s interesting to note that there are lots of definitions for crowdsourcing because it’s a very broad idea and encompasses a lot of ideas – some that are very new and some that are very old.
Crowdsourcing is a term coined by journalist Jeff Howe
Daren C. Brabhamlateddefined "crowdsourcing" in a Convergence article as:”…an online, distributed problem-solving and production model.http://www.clickadvisor.com/downloads/Brabham_Crowdsourcing_Problem_Solving.pdfHowe went on later to say in that article:Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers, working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization.Crowdsourcing has been used throughout history:In 1714, The English were looking for a way to navigate the ocean more safely and held a contest. John Harrison invented the marine chronometer and won the contest and a prize.The Old English Dictionary started out like Wikipedia in 1858.Thousands of volunteerscontibuted to the creation of the Old English Dictionary, but was history's first massively-crowdsourced collation of English knowledge. Drawing on that same idea, Wikipedia was created some 100 years later and is now an online crowdsourced dictionary of sorts that serves around 152,000 million users a month accroding to Wikimedia stats.Family records and genealogical researchCompetitions in generalhttp://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOrigins.htm
Knowledge Discovery & Management – which is used for information management problems where an organization uses a crowd to find and assemble information. Ideal for creating collective resources.Broadcast Search – which is for ideation problems where an organization uses a crowd to come up with a solution to a problem that has an objective, provable right answer. Ideal for scientific problem solving.Peer-Vetted Creative Production – which is for ideation problems where an organization utilizes a crowd to come up with a solution to a problem which has an answer that is subjective or dependent on public support. Ideal for design, aesthetic, or policy problems.Distributed Human Intelligence Tasking - for information management problems where an organization has a set of information in hand and mobilizes a crowd to process or analyze the information. Ideal for processing large data sets that computers cannot easily do.
If you’re looking for a logo design, you can tell a crowd of designers what you want, how much you will pay, and your deadline. All interested designers will create a finished design specifically for you. You’ll receive 50-300+ different finished logo designs, and you can keep whichever design you like the best. By doing design this way, crowdsourcing actually increases the quality & decreases the price, compared to online freelancing.Crowdsourcing can also be used to get designs for furniture, fashion, advertisements, video, & product design. Just about anything that can be designed can be crowdsourced.With that being said what are the negative effects of crowdcontests on freelancers? Do you think that the crowd will replace the freelancer?(http://www.dailycrowdsource.com/crowdsourcing-basics/what-is-crowdsourcing)
Macrotasking is a type of crowdsourcing that is distinct from microtasking. Macrotasks typically have the following characteristics: -they can be done independently -they take a fixed amount of time -they require special skills. Microtasking projects can also be small pieces of a much larger whole, which workers never see, while macrotasks could be part of a large, visible project where workers pitch in wherever they have the required skills
Microtasking involves breaking work up into tiny tasks and sending the work to a crowd of people. If you have 1,000 photos on your website that need captions, you can ask 1,000 individual people to each add a caption to one photo. Break up the work and decide the payment for each completed task (typically .01¢ – .10¢ per task). With microtasking, you can expect to see results within minutes. Microtasking can involve tasks such as scanning images, proofreading, database correction and transcribing audio files.Work is done faster, cheaper, and usually with less errors (when validation systems are in place). Additionally, microtasks can often be performed by people in less fortunate countries, including those with SMS capabilities but without computers. (http://www.dailycrowdsource.com/crowdsourcing-basics/what-is-crowdsourcing)
Crowdfunding involves asking a crowd of people to donate money to your project. For example, if you want to raise $10,000 to pay for studio time to record a new CD, crowdfunding can help you raise that money.. You find a crowdfunding platform, set the goal amount, deadline, and any rewards offered to donors. You must raise 100% of your goal before the deadline, or all the donations are returned to the donors. Deadlines are typically less than 60 days.Crowdfunding is mostly used by artists, charities, & start-ups to raise money for projects such as filming a documentary, manufacturing an iPod watch, cancer research, or seed money.
Crowdsourcing, a real-life instance of human collective intelligence, is a phenomenon that changes the way organizations use the Internet to collect ideas, solve complex cognitive problems, and build high-quality repositories (e.g., Wikipedia) by self-organizing agents around data and knowledge. (https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/alife/0262297140chap20.pdf)
What do you think the benefits of crowdsourcing are?The pros and benefits of crowdsourcing are the low cost, efficiency, large pool of professionals as part of your project team, large quantity of ideas for your project, high quantity and diversity of talented professionals and collaboration is online without travel cost and travel time required. (http://smallbiz1.com/what-is-crowdsourcing.html)Benefits of Crowdsourcing to Companies (www3.nd.edu/~kmatta/MGT30660/Lectures/Crowdsourcing.ppt)Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost. Payment is by results. The organization can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organizationCrowdsourcing’s biggest benefit is the ability to receive better quality results, since several people offer their best ideas, skills, & support. Crowdsourcing allows you to select the best result from a sea of ‘best entries,’ as opposed to receiving the best entry from a single provider. Results can be delivered much quicker than traditional methods, since crowdsourcing is a form of freelancing. You can get a finished video within a month, a finished design or idea within a week, and microtasks appear within minutes. (http://www.dailycrowdsource.com/crowdsourcing-basics/what-is-crowdsourcing)Turn customers into designersTurn customers into marketers
Going with the “crowd”, while always a popular decision, might not always be the best one. Even a book written in 1841, titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, can see that when asking for popular opinion, you might not get the best results.The major crowdsourcing cons, risks and disadvantages come from the fact that the crowd which is part of your project is not part of your business – they are not your employees and you are not able to fully control the project as you are able to do with traditional jobs and projects. Another con of crowdsourcing is the trust and confidentiality issues when you work with a large team of people you don’t even now – this is a big risk and challenge for some projects. (http://smallbiz1.com/what-is-crowdsourcing.html)QualityIntellectual property leakageNo time constraintNot much control over development or ultimate productIll-will with own employeesChoosing what to crowdsource & what to keep in-house
When you crowdsource, you go through a series of six steps that prepare the job, get the job to the crowd and collect the final work product. Many of these steps are supported by crowdsourcing platforms – web services that guide you through these steps. Most of these platforms give you an easy connection to crowds and handle all the details of compensating the crowd. (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/crowdsourcing-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-uk-edition.html)
Do you have any examples of crowdsourcing?
I thought this was a good video to conclude with.Questions for you: Do you know anyone who’s ever crowdsourced anything?Tell them about Lafe’s logo on Design Crowd.Will you crowdsource now that you know what it is?Do you think you would ever crowdsource designs if you got too busy? Tell them about how Ian works as a manager and crowdsources all of his work.