I read the book Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe a few months ago, and I heartily recommend it. The full title of the book is Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. Howe is a contributing editor at Wired magazine, and he gave some great examples of companies posting projects or problems on the Internet, with a reasonable monetary award being paid to the person who comes up with the best solution. Thousands of people from all over the world enter some of these competitions. Large corporations have started using Crowdsourcing to find solutions that formerly eluded them altogether, or which would have cost them much more than the “award” ultimately paid to the winner of the Crowdsourcing contest.
I have just taken the Crowdsourcing plunge. I mentioned in a previous post that I’m working with others to create a blatantly pro-consumer news site: ConsumerNews.com. About 36 hours ago I posted a request for a logo on crowdSpring.com, a popular Crowdsourcing site that has lots of creative people such as web designers and graphics pros. The results so far have been impressive. The site lets me rate the submissions and provide comments or suggestions to the creative folks. It also lets members of the public vote on which design they like the best. At the end of a 4-7 day period (you pick the number of days), you choose the design you like best. It’s not unusual for a project to receive more than 80 proposed designs.
If you have the time, head over to crowdSPRING.com and vote on which logo you like best for ConsumerNews.com. You may even decide you would like to try a little Crowdsourcing with your next project.
About Michael J. Evans
