KNOWLEDGESTREAM AT-A-GLANCE
The Future of Crowdsourcing Platforms
ABSTRACT
The future of crowdsourcing. Currently there are a number of different ways to engage external groups of people to complete work. We'd like to engage experts that know something about what companies are creating platforms that make crowds easily accessible, how corporations are engaging in crowdsourcing, and how new technology will keep making it easier and easier to engage experts, consumers, and people with niche skill sets from around the world to complete work in a more innovative way than current models companies incorporate.
PARTICIPANTS
OBJECTIVES
1. Understand how corporations are using crowdsourcing: Large corporations are starting to adopt crowdsourcing models to solve problems and we want to learn more about what problems they are trying to solve using crowdsourcing, how they are engaging the crowd (through their own platforms or through external ven
2. Successful Incentive Models: We want to understand what experts think are the best incentives to offer the crowd to participate in projects to drive the best result.
3. What is the role of Blockchain and Crytpocurrency?: Blockchain promotes decentralization of work and increased individual responsibility for individuals to complete tasks successfully. We want to understand what people think the role of Blockchain will be in the space and how cryptocurrency will transform i
4. Crowdsourcing Busi: There are a number of companies in the crowdsourcing space but no unicorns yet. Understanding different successful crowdsourcing models and how to engage the crowd in the most effective way. Do people think you should leverage the crowd through one single
End Date: Oct 9, 2018
CONTRIBUTIONS
ACTIVITY
210 Days
9 Themes
44 Contributors
817 Posts
806 Comments
455 Followers
OUTPUTS
6 Slide Deck
2 Video
THEME #1
How do you define crowdsourcing?
THEME #2
How are large corporations using crowdsourcing
THEME SUMMARY
Large corporations are using crowdsourcing in a myriad of ways including developing new products/digital assets, gathering consumer insights/data, accessing external talent and generating new ideas
- Companies are leveraging crowds to solve internal challenges and take products through development
- Companies are leveraging crowds to gather consumer data and understand consumer insights
- Companies are utilizing external talent to assist in internal tasks
- Companies are leveraging crowds to generate new ideas
Companies are leveraging crowds to solve internal challenges and take products through development
Innocentive was created by Eli Lilly precisely because they had more chemical engineering problems than engineers to solve them. They've now sourced thousands of solutions to technical challenges---www.innocentive.com.
Many of you talked about using crowdsourcing to gather inputs .... consumer research, idea gathering .... etc. To me, a bigger opportunity is to leverage crowdsourcing to create the final product ... for an ever changing outcome (e.g., Wikipedia, GNU, etc.)
Companies are leveraging crowds to gather consumer data and understand consumer insights
PopulusLive. Many corporates and FMCG organizations used this service for consumer pulse review , feedback collection and even understanding their products ranking against competitors
When appropriately managed and design, crowdsourcing is a great way to leverage the masses to test and validate health related hypothesis. 23andMe and Ubiome are great examples of start-ups taking this approach to collect and build biological and physiological databases to discover new insights in the health and medical fields.
Companies are utilizing external talent to assist in internal tasks
Amazon Mechanical Turks or iMerit allow task owners to post very small and extremely simple tasks, such as identifying items in a photograph, that wouldn’t be efficient or cost effective to do in-house.
Applause and Bug Bounty try to tap into specific skills such as mobility testing, data security or bug hunting on demand. Kaggle and InnoCentive on the other hand offer incentives to highly-skilled resources to crack arcane scientific and technology problems that regular employees may fail to solve.
Companies are leveraging crowds to generate new ideas
A few companies have engaged with their customers directly to gather ideas, the most well know example is probably MyStarbucksIdea which is now shut but there is quite a lot to read about it on the web.
Lay’s the potato chip manufacturer, used the crowd in a clever campaign, called “Do Us a Flavor”, to come up with a new chip flavors. Loyal fans pitched ideas for a chance to win $1 million.
THEME #3
What is working and not working with crowd based solutions?
THEME SUMMARY
As crowdsourcing models continue to evolve, there are clear pros (e.g., access to distributed talent, mass ideation, cost efficiencies, etc.) and cons (e.g. privacy, inconsistency, low payouts, etc.)
- Several different models have shown signs of success (e.g. crowd ideation, market testing, design/development/data science competitions, etc.)
- Broad issues like privacy and output inconsistency have caused limitations on mass adoption of crowdsourcing
- New models continue to emerge, blending competition, collaboration and higher incentives
What is working?
Pool of ideas - You have thousands mind for one solution. Not all leads to the end but gives you a better view from different angles. Co-Creation - This helps especially in productivity. Low cost - It's always cheaper than hiring a 10K consultant to design a portal homepage.
Category 2 - Co-construction or Co-creation Works well when: 1. You are building a software or something where anybody can contribute from anywhere in the world (i.e. Wikipedia) 2. You are building things that involve physical testing (e.g. DNA or biological test) from the crowd (i.e. epidemiological studies) 3. Experts or people with information to offer find your project exciting and become self-motivated and want to be part of the solution to create a bigger thing that one person cannot own 4. You are trying to achieve a big social cause that will benefit many ....(who has solution to the California Drought, for example)
What isn't working?
With respect to privacy - Unless companies are willing to enforce CDA's and go after the folks who violate them...I don't know what you can do. I have heard of stories of companies that run online crowdsourced panels and users do screen grabs and post them on Instagram and the like under private identities.
One challenge that I see coming back consistently over all different type of crowdsourcing applications is a lack of- or inconsistency in quality. To some extent this challenge is inherent to the model; asking a crowd for help, means you get the help of everyone, qualified or not.
What current models drive the best results?
Crowd based solutions work best to hire a unique freelancers when the job is well defined and normal hiring as employee is not an option. Now companies able to hire best freelancers programmer and algorithms inventors worldwide.
The company allows users to design new products, and at the same time, test the demand. Any user can submit a design that other users are able to vote for. The idea with the most amount of votes gets moved to production and the "creator receives a 1% royalty on the net revenue."
What are new models and capabilities that could work?
A good solution [for inconsistent quality] is a sort of curation, Convetit does this by having people state their track record and apply to a board. Gengo, a translation service lets everyone who wants to become a translator first take an exam and a company (forgot the name) that lets consumers test and review new food product gives the option from testing among 'regular consumers' or to select a trained professional panel, who can accurately indicate the level of sweetness, fattiness and are trained to acurately describe a taste.
I believe an effective & efficient incentive model(s) for Crowdsourcing is a combination of incentives & motivators (motivations). In a capitalistic society, no surprise that incentives (perhaps monetary) might be a component of the equation, though, there are other factors to consider as well.
THEME #4
What factors will drive the adoption of crowdsourcing in the future?
THEME SUMMARY
Spreading awareness and willingness to experiment will drive crowdsourcing adoption in the future.
- As awareness is often a barrier to entry, socializing relatable case studies will be key
- Mindset is everything when experimenting with a new way of doing things
THEME #5
Theme #5: What are the best incentive structures that drive the most valuable outputs?
THEME SUMMARY
There are a number of different types of incentive approaches one can use to engage a crowd effectively
- Social / Community Incentives: reputation and community support or engagement is a large motivator to get people excited about participating in a project
- Educational and Certification Incentives: many people participate in projects to learn and gain insights into a specific topic. Receiving a certification for their learning is an additional motivator
- Monetary Incentives: payment for people's time is one of the most common and easy incentive structures, but they are most effective when paired with another incentive model
- Gamification: everyone loves winning points or rewards for accomplishing something but these need to be tied to something they are interested in participating in, otherwise they have little value
Gamification
recognized as having the intellect to add value and for being a regular, high quality contributor. Points certainly are like cheese for the mice
in gamification almost every respectable expert will tell you that without a clear objective and knowledge of your target audience this is like shooting in the dark
THEME #6
How do you use freelancers?
THEME SUMMARY
Freelancing is a large and growing component of the "future of work;" organizations who are able to successfully harness this opportunity will be poised to reap significant benefits
- Future drivers of the freelance industry include increased corporate cost pressures, need / desire for flexibility, and a growing workforce of boomers and millennials that embrace the "gig" model
- There are both pros and cons to using freelancers, which need to be balanced when selecting the appropriate staffing model for a given situation
- Despite the growing number of freelance platforms, many organizations / freelancers still rely on a network model to connect with each other
- Corporations can optimize the use of freelancers by focusing on clear objectives, consistent communication, standard processes, a single gatekeeper / point of contact, and investment in training
Future drivers of the freelance industry include cost pressures, increased need for flexibility, growing workforce of boomers and millennials that embrace the "gig" model
we should anticipate a future of diversity of employment / engagement contract terms. These will better meet the needs of organisations
Cost pressure and growing need for flexibility triggers that many expert positions get not replaced anymore. As consequence, positions can be filled with less experienced employees and experts hired on demand or for two days a week.
There are both pros and cons to using freelancers, which need to be balanced when selecting the appropriate staffing model for a given situation
Pros are that they could be flexible, you can choose the ones that better suit to the work and could be cheaper. Cons are the commitment as at the end they are out of the company, lack of control and problem in managing confidential information.
Finding freelancers is problem 1. Problem 2 is contracting and getting them in the system. Then problem 3 is training to be functional.
Despite the growing number of freelance platforms, many organizations / freelancers still rely on a network model to connect with each other
Corporations can optimize the use of freelancers by focusing on clear objectives, consistent communication, standard processes, a single gatekeeper / point of contact, and investment in training
Errors when working with freelancers: Selecting the cheapest and/or most available (rather than the best quality) Setting unrealistic objectives (e.g. timing) Not communicating clearly and regularly Not helping with integration Paying too slowly
Perhaps there needs to be a gatekeeper within the company who can help ensure the freelancers have the resources they need. Could be a person or an FAQ with a virtual help desk.
THEME #7
What roadblocks have you encountered within your organization when working with crowdsourcing platforms and how have you overcome those roadblocks?
THEME SUMMARY
Legal and business obstacles are numerous when using crowdsourcing but they aren't insurmountable
- Business stakeholders are often deeply entrenched in their current way of working and can present obstacles that are the most difficult to overcome
- Obstacles from groups beyond the business team extend far beyond the traditional confidentiality and intellectual property concerns
- A strategic approach to choosing the first crowdsourcing projects and engaging employees throughout the process are important factors in overcoming many business and legal obstacles
Business stakeholders are often deeply entrenched in their current way of working and can present obstacles that are the most difficult to overcome
It is hard for an organization who has done the right things for a long time, has been growing and marketing itself quite successfully, to accept the fact that the crowd can bring further value.
[A] transaction mindset where it [is] difficult for decision makers to foresee and commit resources because they [are] so much in the daily transactions
Obstacles from groups beyond the business team extend far beyond the traditional confidentiality and intellectual property concerns
A strategic approach to choosing the first crowdsourcing projects and engaging employees throughout the process are important factors in overcoming many business and legal obstacles
[Start with] small, low-risk experiments that you are almost certain will succeed. Always showing a track record of past success is quite useful, and slowly scaling up to larger, slightly "riskier" (in the organization's scheme) experiments can make it an easier path to achieve this.
Employee handholding is critical during this transition and the change to Crowdsourcing should be presented to them as an opportunity... We saw that the moment we did this, the attitude of these employees changed and they became more productive and apostles of open-source.
THEME #8
Where do you see enterprise crowdsourcing in 3 years?
THEME SUMMARY
There is no consensus re: how crowdsourcing will mature and where it will go.
- While folks agree capabilities will aggregate, there isn't solid speculation re: which platforms will step up.
- Freelancers will become a stronger part of the gig economy, and may overtake outcome-based platforms.
Platform
Freelancers can provide specific value in niche areas as affordable prices which will continue to be valuable to firms to get intensive research and data outcomes.
Given that, I do see qualitative and quantitative platforms merging with each other to offer enhanced capabilities. We recognize that both aspects are valuable for informed strategy and platforms that offer a seamless interaction of both will work best in the future.
Outlook
I also foresee Enterprise knowledge to be Selectively OpenSourced so the on boarding of virtual or gig workers can become easier, online tools integrated with internal organisation tools to deliver better results and better collaboration.
Remote Consultants and these are a pool of resources who are tied to us for a certain no of hours per month and are available for troubleshooting, on demand work, training and knowledge transfer to our employees.
THEME #9
Walk me through how you would integrate crowdsourcing into a big corporation
THEME SUMMARY
In order to develop a crowdsourcing capability inside a Fortune 500 company, one must appoint a project sponsor, build a thorough strategy and lean on external vendors to enable success
- There are several important process steps to consider - including understanding the vendor landscape, assessing available internal talent and matching project requirements to supplier capabilities
- There is a large need for crowdsourcing capabilities within Fortune 500 companies
Important Process Steps
1. Understand Landscape 2. Understand Supplier Offerings 3. Faster/Better/Cheaper 4. Match Project to Supplier 5. Request for Proposal
A first starting point could be to analyze if the actual talent is really needed full-time or also, if we could use additional talent, at least for temporary projects.