This post is not a deep dive into the definition of crowdsourcing but rather a quick mental note for myself.
Jeff Howe, who coined the term crowdsourcing back in 2006, offers this “white paper version” of a definition in the sidebar of his blog:
Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.
His “soundbyte version” appears to be slightly broader in scope:
The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.
Howe’s original article appeared in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine: The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Here’s the list of examples that are mentioned in the article:
- Stock photography — The National Health Museum in Washington needed pictures of sick people and licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto – for about $1 each.
- TV shows recycling user-generated content — Various TV shows have come up with the concept of featuring user-generated video content that has shown to be particularly popular (viral) among internet users during a given time period.
- Online marketplaces for R&D — InnoCentive has a network of (then) 90,000 amateur researchers that work on solving scientific problems the participating companies and R&D labs throw at them, with successful contribution earning considerable rewards.
- Amazon Mechanical Turk — Amazon Mechanical Turk is a web-based marketplace that “helps companies find people to perform tasks computers are generally lousy at” (e.g. image identifying, transcribing podcasts etc.)
Along with Wikipedia and Open Source in general, these are some of the most-commonly referenced examples in the discussions around crowdsourcing and public participation. However, as per my previous outline, I am not convinced they really apply.
At least at the involve/collaborate/empower level of IAP2’s Spectrum of Public Participation (PDF), public participation at the core is an integration process. The question remains if and to what degree this process can be crowdsourced.
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Daren Brabham takes a very solid stab at defining the term crowdsourcing in this editorial on Crowdsourcing.org: Reining in Crowdsourcing
“Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities for specific management goals.”