Girls In Tech

Crowdsourcing is a cool, somewhat new concept that allows companies to “outsource” work or gather focus group ideas in an open call format. It’s a relatively inexpensive and resourceful way to collect data, stats, trends, create new technologies or designs, provide feedback on a company or concept. The only issue is the credibility of the work that is produced. Where is the control? What are the metrics or measurements on the outcome? Well, as crowdsourcing continues to grow and transition from a fad to a practice, I think we’ll be noticing bigger, better innovations, ideas and information from these free-spirited cyber-players.

Here are two solid crowdsourcing definitions that I found on crowdsourcing.com:

The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.

Below are some great resources and recent articles on crowdsourcing:

• http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/28/yelp-lets-businesses-fight-back/
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/crowdsourcing_million_heads.php
• http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002422.htm