Sustainable Crowdsourcing

I just read a very insightful article on Business Week, Crowdsourcing is Broken: How to Fix it. The author makes several interesting points that have long been overlooked:

- Crowdsourcing can often result in people feeling exploited by organizations. Everyone does the work, but only a handful get rewarded.
- Companies are inundated with options, most of which may lack professionalism, and end up becoming skeptical of the value of crowdsourcing
- If crowdsourcing is conducted in more contolled and systematic ways, both parties may benefit
- Have experts gauge the quality of crowdsourced work instead of judging by public votes
- Add another step- after judging the initial brief submissions, filter the best ones and compensate the shortlisted participants to work on a more detailed solution
- Distinguish clearly between fun competitions and work contests that are simply seeking free labor
- Build relationships with and career opportunities for participants
- Focus on long-term sustainability over one-off gains

These points resonate strongly with the research we did last year. One of the striking findings was that students are more keen on intangible benefits (relationships with potential employers, career opportunities) than tangible ones (cash rewards). We built our model based on the ideology that students whose work has not been shortlisted should also have the opportunity to distinguish themselves and interact with our partner companies.

By incorporating the Idea Bank, we are focussing on ideas rather than on creative work. Through the Idea Bank, potential employers are able to assess the originality and structure of a student's thought- something that's usually not reflected in a resume. Such a system, where students are looked upon as sources of ideas and feedback instead of menial labor, may help enhance sustainability of crowdsourcing,