Crowdsourcing

Slide 1: Crowdsourcing “The Rise of the Amateur” Colonia Nova Theatre, Nov 13th, 2006

Slide 2: “The Rise of the Amateur” Like outsourcing, crowdsourcing is a model that depends on work being done outside the traditional company walls, but while outsourcing is typically performed by lower paid professionals, crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D. (source: Wikipedia)

Slide 3: Jeff Howe’s Rules of the New Labour Pool 1. The crowd is dispersed. 2. The crowd has a short attention span. 3. The crowd is full of specialists. 4. The crowd produces mostly crap. 5. The crowd finds the best stuff.

Slide 4: Non-centralisation • Crowdsourced labour is spread around the globe • There is little or no hierarchy • All work is done remotely

Slide 5: Little individual time adds up to a lot of total time • Crowdsourcees do their work in tiny chunks, at their leisure • Efficient break-up of the be completed workload is required for a project to • Each “micro-chunk” might be time negligible in terms of individual (minutes to a few hours), but with thousands of collaborators, this adds up

Slide 6: The user is clever! • The principle behind crowdsourcing is that the users of a product are often more clever/knowledgeable/ professional/specialised than most of the employees of the company • The company provides structure and overall organisation; the crowdsourcees provide the know- how

Slide 7: “90% of everything is crud” • This rule is known as Sturgeon's Revelation and it applies to all creative work (and obviously also to crowdsourcing) • Crowdsourcing does not increase the quality of the work produced • A clever company will design filters to deal with all the junk and worthless work submitted

Slide 8: Let the users choose! • users themselves select what works An effective alternative is to let the for them and what does not! • Ratings and comments tend to point users to the things “most liked” (or sometimes even the “best” things) • Companies can leverage on these methods to separate the wheat from the chaff

Slide 9: In-house Crowdsourcing development - (usually) open but - closed company keeps IP - internal employees - no employees - fixed teams - no notion of a “team” - inflexible management - management is crucial - high costs - negligible costs Outsourcing Open Source - (usually) closed - open - external employees - no employees - teams can change - directed development on demand with team flexibility - more flexible mngmnt - no costs for devlpmnt - less higher costs

Slide 10: Questions for today • Key features of crowdsourcing — what it is and what it isn’t • Does this model work for every company? • What is the cost of changing to crowdsourcing (in terms of corporate culture and financial costs)?

Slide 11: Web 2.0 and Crowdsourcing • One could argue that all Web 2.0 sites (“the social Web”) are successful crowdsourcers — they provide the tools, the users provide all the content • How to make money out of Web 2.0 content? • How to pay crowdsourcees?

Slide 12: Web 3.0 and Crowdsourcing • If the “metaverse” (Second Life?) is Web 3.0, it seems to show that it is all crowdsourcing — all users collaborate in the content production! • SL shows a way where user-created content is profitable and has a place in the corporate business • What is the role of the company producing the “metaverse” platform?

Slide 13: References • Jeff Howe’s blog at http:// www.crowdsourcing.com • Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Crowdsourcing • Wired (and also several independent blogs) • BusinessWeek (http:// www.businessweek.com/innovate/ content/jul2006/ id20060713_755844.htm)

Slide 14: Thanks and acknowledgements • To Poinky Malaprop and the Kuurian Expedition in Second Life, for organising the event • To Jeff Howe for creating the concept and his presence here today • To the Colonia Nova/CDS’s government for allowing this event to take place here