Crowdsourcing in Application and Its Challenges - Assignment Example

CROWDSOURCING Introduction This is the process of transferring and executing a task(s) traditionally performed by an expert/employee and outsourcing it to a random large group of people normally in an open call (Jeff Howe). The large group of people contributes a large number of ideas that are diverse and real. The information processed from this activity is then used in making decisions. Crowdsourcing does not have a solid definition since it is a wide field with different applications. Many businesses, parties, researchers, scholars and institutions have different definitions and uses of this business term. Crowdsourcing is also known as; fan sourcing, mass collaboration, crowd funding, collective customer commitment, open sourcing, open innovation, outsourcing, and wikinomics. It is a kind of a model whereby, people (crowd) helps a business firm in problem solving, generating ideas, consultancy, feedback and other services. The people, in most situations will not receive any considerations for their job. The group is usually undefined for example, people from all over the globe commenting on a topic highlighted in a blog. This makes the number of responses to be large and the data collected to be diverse. The wisdom of the public is mainly the main goal. In the modern world, crowdsourcing is considered to be a cheap way of diagnosing problems in a more informed way to grow and develop business firms. Some years ago, crowdsourcing was not common and organizations did not realize the importance of such a process. Today, project managers have to be fully equipped with knowledge about the practice in order to perform competitively. CROWDSOURCING STRATEGIES There are four main types of crowdsourcing strategies: Crowd funding- also known as crowd financing or crowd sourced capital. This is a strategy whereby the people (crowd) commit their funds to solve a particular problem. The funds may be contributed to support campaigns, to provide relief, to provide school bursaries, to provide scholarships, to establish a body, to support an artist, to appreciate a person, for disaster management, to support a team in sports, to insure against a risk, to support a project and many other purposes. This method is cheap and efficient. It is usually done via the banks, ATMs (automatic teller machines), internet, media, phones, public gatherings and institutions. These are places where you can find a lot of people and gain their attention. The most common type of crowd funding is charity activities like sweepstakes, national walks and campaigns. Sometimes, it is an appreciation by the public for creative work or impressive work done by the crowd sourcing individual/party. The crowdsourcing party may offer prizes, awards and/or kudos to promote the crowd to make more contributions. The firm organizing the crowd sourcing may look for supporters and hosts to attract more crowds. They may also apply models such as a pledging system, thank you cards/messages to promote more contribution. The SMEs (small and medium enterprises) could highly benefit from crowdsourcing. The project managers need to alert the public the kind of services they offer and the importance of the services. Most people are very willing to support SMEs provided they are aggressive in providing services/solution for a public need/problem. Crowd creation- this is the act of making awareness to the crowd that a certain problem exists and needs their assistance. One needs to have clear evidence of the problem to earn unquestionable trust from the public. The party organizing a crowdsourcing project should be highly trusted and reliable in order to succeed in the project. The firm organizing such a project must have a properly laid strategy on how to involve the people in decision making. It should make the public to feel that they are part of the problem and hence a part of the solution. Several crowd creation models may be applied, for example, open dialogue with the public, involving a public figure like a famous politician, using entertainment sites, using social networks, using games and sports etcetera. A project manager needs to commit some funds at least to motivate the public to participate in crowdsourcing his project. Crowd voting- this is the act of acquiring wisdom from the public through votes. A problem is normally formatted in form of a question and then the public is asked to vote against various alternatives of action. The votes may be accompanied by strong evidence. There are organizations that act as agents to such voting processes and analysis of such votes. They include media groups, social groups in social sites, blogs and entertainment pages. The votes of the public are acquired and taken according to popularity and evidence raised. Samples of supportive information are printed with the results to show the effectiveness of the decision model applied. The crowd may be segregated in terms of gender, origin, residence and occupation. This makes analysis even better. For an unbiased crowd voting, it should include all interested people i.e. open. It should also highlight its questions in simple language and broadcast them fast in a vivid way. The crowd should also be thoroughly informed on how to contribute i.e. number of votes per person, maximum number of characters required, group votes and rewards if any. This helps ensure best results. Crowd wisdom- this is the act of considering a crowd’s or a group’s collective opinion when making a decision rather than the decision of an expert. This is a field whose application is gradually growing in the whole world. Organizations collect the opinion of a group of people or rather the public and use for decision making and other purposes. The crowd should be large and form diverse origins. Respondents should not be similar in any way. A crowd with similar characteristics tends to give a biased solution to the problem. A good example of crowd wisdom strategy in application is democratic journalism, news are listed on a web page and the crowd votes which ones are mare important. The top rated ones are then aired to the full public. The wisdom gained from the crowd is normally free thus; it’s a resource that is highly gaining popularity due to its low cost. Other organizations will normally collect crowd wisdom based on various areas of study, analyze it and integrate the information generated in a database. They then sell the information to interested parties especially researchers, analysts and business firms. Many countries regard the information generated as intellectual property of the people which should not be sold but they fail to implement such rules. In real sense, crowd wisdom is intellectual property and is very valuable. The contributors’ ideas are not protected against plagiarism thus they may be stolen and used by other parties especially when the data is open and public. CROWDSOURCING IN APPLICATION AND ITS CHALLENGES This method of problem solving and decision making is cheap and efficient especially with the availability of cheap internet, media services, telecommunication services and money transfer services (Darren C. Abraham). However, it is faced with various challenges in application. We have seen icons make impact in the world through this practice. A good example is the Haiti campaign that helped the victims recover form the disaster they faced. The public (crowd) contributed money and other assets through money transfer agents, credit cards, banks among other sources. This made a social impact that brought the world closer into a common group for the overall good. This idea brought about the existence of freelancers all around the globe thus; there is increased employment all over the world. People will actually join crowds online and receive payments for their contributions (Kelly Thompson) There is also the negative effect that professionals are ignored and their opinions disregarded. This may waste more talented brains that may make unbiased decisions. The factor called experience is also ignored since a large group of people have so much of experience that they may base their contributions on it. The crowd’s experience may be irrelevant to the business in using the data or even have a negative influence to the business. This shows that a business firm basing its decisions on crowdsourcing may be risking a negative effect from the crowd’s experience (Eric Walker- crowdsourcing) The people involved in crowd outsourcing are of different kinds and characters. When crowdsourcing, one should be ready for answers/comments that are diverse, wild and funny. The great disadvantage is that one cannot control the kind of feedback you want. Some respondents may also mislead others such that the following comments are biased to a latter comment. The other disadvantage is that whether you get a good or bad result, the funds you have committed are not recoverable. The prizes you have promised must be awarded. The governments are also widely using crowdsourcing when laying down policies and projects (Stanley Ojadovwa- Ideas 2020). This includes metropolitan development plans, rural development plans, bills development, industrial policing and disaster management activities. The parliament could also be viewed as a traditional way of crowdsourcing where each representative’s comments are in consultation with his juniors and his juniors his juniors until the common man. Crowdsourcing could give rise to a movement, where a group participates in several types of similar problem solving and then meets to formulate policies for more action. This could be humanitarian movements, political movements, business firms (industry) and Facebook groups. References: Abraham Darren C. Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases Retrieved 10.10.2011 Eric Walker 2008- Crowdsourcing Retrieved 10.10.2011 Kelly Thompson (2008) The power of crowdsourcing. Retrieved 10.10.2011 from Stanley Ojadovwa- Ideas 2020: http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Technology/5744806- 146/crowdsourcing_ideas_one_at_a_time.csp Read More