How are firms using crowdsourcing? Its adoption has been widespread and companies are finding many new uses for the technique. Ideascale have published a white paper on crowdsourcing which you can download.
Here are the ways that are identified in the paper which also contains many examples and links:
1. Solution Finding.
This is when you use crowdsourcing to find the solution to a difficult or complex problem.
2. Opinion Seeking.
This is the classic way to use crowdsourcing to improve a product or service. Soliciting the opinions of customers, prospects, or the public will help you see your offerings in a new way and give you many ideas for improvement.
3. Design Competitions
Allow you to get ideas for a new logo, store layout, or website. You can host your competition and build your brand while simultaneously getting a host of free input. You can pick a winner and reward that person financially or otherwise.
4. Data Collection
is a great way to handle big data without a big price tag. Instead of
having your staff research competitors or find out information about your market, pay
small amounts to enterprising individuals to get the information for you.
5. Manual Tasks.
Similar to data collection, this involves crowdsourcing onerous tasks that would take your employees too many hours to count. Break up your work into bite-sized pieces and get people to do the work for far less than you’d pay an employee.
6. Testing.
People love to find fault, so put that to work for you! Use crowdsourcing to invite people to “break” your product or service. You can stress test it, test for security issues, and much more. People love pointing out something you missed.
7. Customer Service.
Tech companies have come to realize the value of letting power users provide much of their customer service. From user-created bulletin boards to knowledgeable fans answering questions on Twitter and Quora, you can crowdsource part of your customer service and dramatically improve your speed of answer and quality of service.
8. Programming.
When programmers compete, your company wins. Similar to design competitions, crowdsourced programming lets a variety of individuals offer ways to code and frame your websites, apps, and more. You choose a winner, implement and test the design, and save time and money.
9. Crowdfunding
is one of the most popular and well-known versions of crowdsourcing for individuals, but it works well for companies. You can gauge customer interest and rack up pre-orders before you spend time on development of a new product.
I would add two more
10. Customer engagement
Crowdsourced competitions are a great way to involve your most loyal customers and turn them into evangelists. Lego is a good example of this.
11. Recruitment
Active participants in hackathons and other crowdsourced events prove their worth. Many companies find this a rich source for the recruitment of talent.
—
Previously published on Destination-innovation.com.
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
—
Photo credit: istockphoto.com
.