SocialStrategy Talk #1 on Crowdsourcing

Yesterday I visited the first SST on crowdsourcing. The organisors (Sogeti’s VINT and CreativeCrowds) lined up two speakers: Menno Douwes (director legislation of the Ministry of Justice) and Jeff Howe (author of the book and ‘inventor’ of the term crowdsourcing). While Douwes’ talk was rather boring in form, the content was rather interesting. The Dutch government is going to crowdsource all it’s future legislation. To be clear: the normal procedures in which a new law is formed will not be altered. But in the consuling phase, crowdsourcing already proofed to be a welcome addition to other form of consulting.

Jeff Howe was the typical American keynote: relaxed, jetlagged and a good storyteller. One of the insights I gathered from his speech is one of the important things in crowdsourcing: the diversity of the individual members in the crowd. Also, his answer to a question was interesting: while asked if crowdsourcing was about finding the five needles in the haystack, Howe answered: “It is more a thing of not knowing wether or not you need a needle to solve a problem. Then looking at what kind of needles show up in the process.”

Compliment to the people who organised this meeting. Please read on at the appropiate places:

MeetUp
SocialStrategyTalk (Dutch)

mei 23, 2008 | Filed Under creativity, digital life, marcom 

Comments

One Response to “SocialStrategy Talk #1 on Crowdsourcing”

  1. Freek on oktober 14th, 2008 %H:%M

    Hi Wim,

    Crowdsourcing, een goede manier om bijv. marketeers uit hun cocon te lokken 9of beter gezegd: krijgen). Niemand heeft alle wijsheid in pacht. Informatiehyaten etc. Staat men ervoor open, dan kan het zeer waardevol zijn voor het bedrijf.

    Een tip, maar welke je waarschijnlijk al kent, is ‘The wisdom of crowds’ van James Surowiecki. Hierbij gaat het om de mediaan van de meningen van een grote groep. Deze zit in de meeste gevallen het dichtst bij de waarheid.

    Zie voor een ander voorbeeld voor het inschakelen van een grote groep (welliswaar op commerciele basis) http://99designs.com. Pick and pay your winner!

    Groet’n,
    Freek

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