Crowdsourcing involves using an open call to a crowd of people either internal or external to an organization to provide ideas, solutions or support. It can be a viable research methodology when looking for expertise from diverse sources with limited funds or time. Examples show how companies like Dell, Quirky, Threadless, and Fiat have successfully used crowdsourcing for product development, idea generation, and research. Best practices include choosing the right crowd and incentive, monitoring content, keeping questions clear and simple, and providing follow up on crowd contributions.

1. Crowdsourcing
Using the crowd and social media to
drive innovation and engagement
Paul Dombowsky

2. Opening
“…the world is becoming too fast, too complex and too
networked for any organization to have all the answers inside.”
Yochai Benkler, Yale University from the Wealth of Networks
“Peer production is about more than sitting
down and having a nice conversation… Its about
harnessing a new mode of production to take
innovation and wealth creation to new levels.”
Eric Schmidt, Google
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3. Agenda
Definitions
Is Crowdsourcing a viable Research Methodology?
What can the crowd do for you?
Listening to conversations that are already happening
Examples of the crowd in action
Best Practices – using crowdsourcing in your organization
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4. Crowdsourcing
Defined
An engagement process whereby organizations seek input from either open
or closed communities of people, either homogenous or not, to contribute
ideas, solutions, or support in an open process whereby the elements of
creativity, competition and campaigning are reinforced through social media
to come up with more powerful ideas or solutions than could be obtained
through other means.
Why Bother?
Organizations have a difficult time engaging with their communities to
strengthen their relationship and be crowd focused. Internal or external, the
community has ideas that can be harnessed that come from diverse
backgrounds, experiences and education.
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5. When does Crowdsourcing Work?
• When looking for expertise from a range of sources.
• When funds and/or time are limited.
• When your target audience is largely online.
BMW’s Virtual Innovation Agency
Received over 4000 ideas within 7 days for
products and designs at minimal cost
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6. Social Product Development
The opening up of innovation to internal and external input for
the development of products in various stages of the product
development lifecycle.
Crowdsourcing can be part of an open innovation or social
product management strategy – just as Research is.
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7. Why Social Matters?
According to Forrester Research (2010),
71% of people say they trust the opinions of family,
friends and colleagues (their crowd or their tribe) as
a source of information on products and services.
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8. Where the conversations are happening?
Official & Unofficial
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google Groups Why not tap into the
• Forums conversations that are
• Wiki’s already happening?
• User Groups
• Podcasts Get the crowd
• Blogs working for you.
• User Voice
• Epinions
• Cnet
• Reviewsarena
• Buzzillions
• Tribe Smart
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9. Where the crowd comes from
Internal Does participation require
R&D a reward?
Other
internal
Customers
team Do people contribute for
members
the good of the brands
they like?
Sources of
Innovation
How do you democratize
Prospects Experts
the input?
Suppliers Partners
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10. The Emerging Expert
Internal
Experts
Emergent Experts
(online community leaders,
Engagement product advocates)
Targets
Everyone Else
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11. Where Innovation / Crowdsourcing Fits
Open Space
How we gather
Open
Innovation Social Media
Crowdsourcing Community How we talk
Where ideas come from
Leadership
How we inspire &
enable
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12. Growing Online Participation
Millennials (born ’91 and after)
Gen Y (born ’81-’91)
Gen X (born ’65-’80)
Boomers (born ’46-’64)
Civics (born ’45 or earlier)
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13. Product Roadmap
Discovery Exploration Scoping
Crowdsourcing or
Testing Development Build Biz Case
Ideation
Launch Discovery…
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14. The Appeal
• Crowdsourcing surfaces new perspectives
• Invites participation from nontraditional
sources
• Infuses real energy into the process of generating ideas
• Empowers people when they feel their voice is being heard
• Technology can enable participation by disenfranchised
(ie. PCs in libraries can help those not connected at home)
• Builds engagement and relationships with new audiences
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15. Example 1: Salesforce
What do your current
customers want to see on
your roadmap?
What features are needed
to turn prospects into
customers?
Democracy?
1 vote = 1 customer
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16. Example 2: Dell
IdeaStorm was created to give a direct
voice to Dell’s customers and an
avenue to have online “brainstorm”
sessions to allow them to share ideas
and collaborate with one another and
Dell. Their goal through IdeaStorm is to
hear what new products or services
you’d like to see Dell develop.
In almost three years, IdeaStorm has
crossed the 10,000 idea mark and
implemented nearly 400 ideas!
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17. Example 3: Quirky
Quirky is an all in one
product development
shop for inventors.
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18. Example 4: Threadless
Threadless’ business
model is social product
development and they run
regular campaigns to
select designs that are
then produced and sold to
a ready-made market that
participated in the product
selection.
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19. Example 5: Product Selection by the Crowd
Starbucks uses the same platform as Dell and
Salesforce.com for their social product development.
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20. Example 6: Open Innovation with Citizens
City of Ottawa
Have a Say Sustainability
Campaign
• No. of Engagements = 6700
• Goal: 1500
• Drivers: Twitter, Facebook, Media
Event (related)
• Number of ideas: 200
• English and French
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21. Example 7: Citizen Engagement
San Francisco Engage4change
Citizen Engagement Program
(2 weeks)
• No. of Engagements = 2252
• Referrals = 64% from Twitter
• Cost = 500 ice cream cones ($1,000)
• Humphry Slocombe’s Crowd
= 320,000 twitter followers and
Facebook Friends
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22. Crowdsourcing as Part of Research Strategy
• Reach customers & prospects where they live – join in the
conversations that are happening already
• Capitalize on valuable customer and prospect insight
• Develop a culture of collaboration
• Implement the right social technology to get the job done
• Communicate results and intentions and be open as
possible
• Let conversations happen in the open
• Be crowd friendly on an ongoing basis
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23. Crowdsourcing and Social Media
• Work together to ensure contributions are:
– Quality assured
– Work with larger data sets
– Use interfaces or tools that reduce complexity
– Open to two way conversation
• The appeal:
– Cost
– Speed
– Viral nature of audience building
– Dialogue vs One way conversation
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24. Crowdsourcing vs Traditional Research
Crowdsourcing Surveys
• Lends itself to diversity of participation • More expensive
• Fewer barriers – people participate to • Takes time
the level they feel comfortable • Perception of being very controlled
• Drives innovation – new ideas from left • Great for solidifying preconceived
field can have merit ideas or directions
• Easy to interpret – the crowd helps • Requires interpretation
make things clearer • Doesn’t encourage creativity
• Comments are focused
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25. It all starts with a Question or Problem
• Needs to be:
– Clear and compelling
– Not leading
– Allow for open innovation
– Encourage participation
– Allow for outliers to feel comfortable
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26. Platforms and Tools
• Ideavibes
• Facebook
• Charodix
• BrightIdeas
• Spigit
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27. Best Practices
• Pick the right model
• Pick the right crowd
• Offer the right incentive (being heard is #1)
• Don’t replace employees with the crowd
• Benevolent Dictator
• Monitor ideas and content to mitigate risk (liability)
• Keep in simple – break things down
• The crowd is generally right – if you are accessing the right
crowd with the right question
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28. Things to watch for
• Excessive lobbying and promotion
• Narrow crowds product narrow results
• No follow-through causes creditability hit
• If you say you are generating solutions for X, communicate
what happened and why
• Broad ideation campaign descriptions will result in less
focused
• results BUT too narrow will restrict creativity
• Dismissing ideas that seem far fetched
• Ideation often requires refinement – understanding what your
crowd is saying by ‘x’
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29. Fiat Mio – Research /Product Development from the Crowd
See how Fiat used the crowd and the desire to be ‘involved’ to
research and build the Mio…
http://youtu.be/hg0b8Z51YC0
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30. Thank you
Paul Dombowsky | 613.878.1681 | paul@ideavibes.com | www.ideavibes.com