Jeff Howe, the man who coined the term "crowdsourcing" with Chris Anderson in 2006, has created a series of "how(e) to crowdsource" videos for American Express' Open Forum (itself a kind of online collaborative platform for small businesses). Here are Howe's five tips.
#1: Pick the right crowd
#2: Pick the right incentive
#3: Keep it simple
#4: Keep the pink slips in the drawer (i.e., don't expect to save money)
#5: Ask what you can do for the crowd
These tips are posted on a major credit card's website. Which begs the question: has crowdsourcing been so co-opted by corporations that its potential has been stunted? The first instances of crowdsourcing (distributed computing) typically involved solving a complex problem (mapping the human genome, searching for extraterrestrial life) that had an impact on humanity. I'm not sure that a crowd-generated commercial for Heinz Ketchup can do the same.
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