Open Technologist

What I Learnt About Crowdsourcing

This year I have mainly blogged about crowdsourcing as it was the research topic for my masters thesis which I have now completed. I thought it would be appropriate to write my last post for the year about crowdsourcing summarizing what I learnt. I conducted case studies on two crowdsourcing platform operators;  TopCoder and InnoCentive and these were my conclusions: Three important areas emerged People Processes Technology Crowdsourcing has 3 role players Client...

Innovation in the Age of Global Collaboration – Crowdsourcing

I have uploaded my masters thesis about crowdsourcing that I completed earlier this year to slideshare (see below). Here is an abstract: The rapid development of new technologies has given rise to new forms of collaboration. Organisations are able to collaborate on a global scale with individuals around the world, in order to conduct R&D activities as a result of Web 2.0 tools and technologies. This study focuses on three areas relating to global collaboration; people, processes and...

The Crowdsourcing Process of Problem Solving

Crowdsourcing is a process that involves different role players in order for the task to be completed successfully. The process has three role players; the client organization with the problem, the platform operator and the community who provides the solutions to the problem. The process is started when a client organization recognizes that it has a problem that could be solved by the process of crowdsourcing. The client organization approaches a platform operator who then...

What is Crowdsourcing?

Here is a video explaining what is crowdsourcing?:...

Crowdsourcing Platforms

A crowdsourcing platform allows a organization to collaborate with a community to provide solutions to a project. When organizations decide on crowdsourcing a project they can either attempt to attract the crowd themselves, creating their own platform in the process, or make use of an existing crowdsourcing platform with an established community. The main difference is that an exisiting platorm will have an established community. Opting to create your own platform will require investment in...

Crowdsourcing Books

Below is a list of great books covering the topic of crowdsourcing. Click on the images for further info.   Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything          Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business       We-Think         Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations      The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice) ...

Facebook’s Crowdsourcing Translation Reward System

Last year Facebook turned to crowdsourcing to translate Facebook into other languages with great success. Latest statistics provided by Facebook show that over 300,000 people have since participated in the translation process making Facebook available in more than 70 languages. Facebook have now launched a system that rewards translators who will receive special icons when they reach certain milestones in the Translation application in order to highlight recognition. The awards are grouped in...

Crowdsourcing Example – People Participation in Crowdsourcing Platforms

Crowdsourcing is a topic that has gained popularity in the last few years with companies such as InnoCentive, CrowdSpring and Amazon Mechanical Turk providing platforms for companies to engage with community members to provide innovative solutions which is why I have decided that crowdsourcing will be my topic for “My half time pep talk for 2009". Crowdsourcing as defined by Jeff Howe is “the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it...

5 Crowdsourcing Websites

Crowdsourcing is a business practice that has become popular in the last few years. Since the term was coined by Jeff Howe author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business a number of valuable resources have appeared on the net. Below is a list of websites that provide valuable information about crowdsourcing that I regularly scan: Crowdsourcing - Jeff Howe - Jeff Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" and published a book about the topic. The blog covers...

Crowdsourcing Definition by Jeff Howe

A while back I blogged about how Facebook used crowdsourcing to translate Facebook into other languages and mentioned that the term "crowdsourcing" was coined by Jeff Howe author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. I recently came accross this video from Jeff giving a brief overview of what crowdsourcing is...