It’s the next big thing nowadays: Crowdsourcing. Al lot of specialised agencies pop up to ride this bandwagon (Creative Crowds, The Crowds, Favela Fabric to name a few) or either developing it. And all the media are talking about it. Lately also Dutch radioprogramme Radio Online (TROS) was broadcasting an issue on crowdsourcing. And even presenter Peter de Bie (normally very sceptical) was enthousiastic. Well, the blogs are buzzing, and congress/seminar organizers have a topic again to fill the rooms with. Do I sound negative? That’s not my intention. Because I do believe in the principles behind crowdsourcing. What I do not believe in however – let’s say that I doubt the effect in the long run – is the way many corporations are using crowdsourcing nowadays.
There is simply no true dialogue going on. When a company like KLM is asking clients in their BlueLab-initiative to bring up ideas to better their product, this could be defined as advanced and sensible market research. When KLM implements one of those idease and makes 30 million euro with it, then I start doubting. Because KLM – in this example – is using Open Source techniques to gather ideas, but KLM did not transform it’s business model to Open Source-principles. In the end their performance is measured on the stock exchange: their shareholders are profitingĂ‚Â from the ideas clients generate. Those clients ‘only’ profit because they see their ideas implemented and get the attention and recognition.
Apperantely that’s enough for current customers. More than happy that they are to have at least some way to talk back to companies that rested in ivory towers in relation to their clients. I believe that this way of using crowdsourcing (please do read the disclaimer at Dell’s IdeaStorm-website!) will work. But not for long. When companies one sided exploit ideas from crowds, these crowds someday will aks for their fair share. Or they switch to a competitor that does deliver on the dialogue. Other initiatives – like Sellaband – do share the profits with their crowd. In fact: it’s part of their business model. So: be Open Source when using Open Source principles. Or just pay for ideas that you can’t come up with yourself.
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