Standout with the Crowd!!

How many of you have had an idea, opportunity, or just been stumped and needed some advice? If I took a random survey, I would be confident that 99 percent of people would say at one point in their life they needed advice. Typically the best way to get this is to poll your friends, family or coworkers. Now, with social media driving our everyday life, I see more and more people use this avenue as an opportunity to get the answers they are so desperately seeking. I can’t tell you how many times I have pulled up Facebook or Instagram and notice that someone has posted a picture and asked for feedback. Some of the feedback is positive, some negative and some just plain comical. But the result is based on how the recipient values the feedback that is being provided. Did you realize that there is a technical term for this type of interaction? It is called Crowdsourcing, and it is being utilize more and more throughout the business and technical worlds.

In today’s world businesses need to stay ahead of the game in order to maintain their competitive edge. Hiring creative and innovative people is a must, but sometimes ideas can become stale or stagnant when you are too close to the product. Crowdsourcing uses the input of individuals external to an organization to resolve strategic problems or complete tasks once assigned internally to an explicit corporate individual or department. The use of this method allows for non-bias and candid feedback that will elevate the level of thinking within an organization. But when you ask the crowd for their participation, you better be ready to act. The natural response of the public is to be heard and see the see the results of their engagement.

When deciding to utilize a method like crowdsourcing, you should always build a proactive and results driven strategy around it.

1.      Set goals. Articulate the problem and give your audience a specific challenge or clarity around the end goal. Framing the questions is vital to success.

2.      Practice cross-fertilization. Executive sponsorship is important at the onset to gather crowds, but don’t limit participants to a single area of expertise or department within a business. Bringing together different thinkers results in bigger, better ideas.

3.      Make it fun. There needs to be a social recognition and a game quality to make what is ultimately a problem-solving task attractive to participants. Integrate game mechanics and voting, or prizes to motivate the crowd.

4.      Be committed. Be prepared for a continuous feedback loop – to provide an answer, take action or just simply acknowledge the crowds contributions.

5.      Allocate back-end resources. On the front-end, things like communication and motivation are critical. Once the ideas start rolling in, there needs to be curation and filtering, along with plans to put the contributions into action.

While there are great benefits to crowds, without a plan of action, control and understanding, they can become herds and reinforce group think. It is critical that these strategies and processes provide incentives, fairness in evaluation, transparency and an ability to bring the results back into your organization. Without this, experimenting with the crowd can create substandard results or even backlash against the organizers.

There definitely needs to be a balance with crowdsourcing. If you rely too heavily on the public opinion and suggestions, it could result in a disastrous failure. You would probably  want stay away from letting the masses name a product or help define a campaign slogan. One example of such a disaster, according to the Business Insider,  is when “NASA decided to let a popular vote name a new section of the International Space Station, they at least had the sense to start with a pool of their own suggestions. Unfortunately, they decided to include the option to write-in an alternative. Someone told Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert told his legion of devoted fans. The next thing NASA knew, Colbert had six times more votes than any of the options they had provided. NASA was not amused, declining to honor the contest winner.” Everyone loves a good practical joke, and an opportunist is always waiting to make their mark. This should be accounted for when you decide to go to the general public for an idea.

Using crowdsourcing makes great financial and creative sense, but just like any other strategy it should involve proper planning and the understanding of the pro’s and con’s. Crowdsourcing should be used in conjunction with other strategies in order to maximize its success. Businesses can boost their brand and keep on their company on the competitive edge if they are engaging. Public engagement can provide constructive feedback (positive and negative) and help create new processes and consumer responsiveness. A more personal relationship can be obtain with their consumers by allowing them to feel as if they were a part of the improvements or new strategies. However, businesses should always era on the side of caution because there's no privacy in crowdsourcing. Customers, competitors and the interactive world will all be aware of your motives. Invariably, there will be many entries or suggestions that are just not realistic to implement. And always keep in mind that sometimes you get exactly what you pay for.

 

References

Apps | Technology | The Guardian. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/apps

Does crowdsourcing innovation work? Yes, and here’s how. | Spigit. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.spigit.com/spigit-in-the-news/does-crowdsourcing-innovation-work-yes-and-here%E2%80%99s-how/