Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business

By Jeff Howe

Book Overview

"The amount of knowledge and talent dispersed among the human race has always outstripped our capacity to harness it. Crowdsourcing ?corrects that-but in doing so, it also unleashes the forces of creative destruction." -FromCrowdsourcing First identified by journalist Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired article, "crowdsourcing" describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few. Howe reveals that the crowd is more than wise-it's talented, creative, and stunningly productive.Crowdsourcingactivates the transformative power of today's technology, liberating the latent potential within us all. It's a perfect meritocracy, where age, gender, race, education, and job history no longer matter; the quality of work is all that counts; and every field is open to people of every imaginable background. If you can perform the service, design the product, or solve the problem, you've got the job. But crowdsourcing has also triggered a dramatic shift in the way work is organized, talent is employed, research is conducted, and products are made and marketed. As the crowd comes to supplant traditional forms of labor, pain and disruption are inevitable. Jeff Howe delves into both the positive and negative consequences of this intriguing phenomenon. Through extensive reporting from the front lines of this revolution, he employs a brilliant array of stories to look at the economic, cultural, business, and political implications of crowdsourcing. How were a bunch of part-time dabblers in finance able to help an investment company consistently beat the market? Why does Procter & Gamble repeatedly call on enthusiastic amateurs to solve scientific and technical challenges? How can companies as diverse as iStockphoto and Threadless employ just a handful of people, yet generate millions of dollars in revenue every year? The answers lie within these pages. The blueprint for crowdsourcing originated from a handful of computer programmers who showed that a community of like-minded peers could create better products than a corporate behemoth like Microsoft. Jeff Howe tracks the amazing migration of this new model of production, showing the potential of the Internet to create human networks that can divvy up and make quick work of otherwise overwhelming tasks. One of the most intriguing ideas ofCrowdsourcingis that the knowledge to solve intractable problems-a cure for cancer, for instance-may already exist within the warp and weave of this infinite and, as yet, largely untapped resource. But first, Howe proposes, we need to banish preconceived notions of how such problems are solved. The very concept of crowdsourcing stands at odds with centuries of practice. Yet, for the digital natives soon to enter the workforce, the technologies and principles behind crowdsourcing are perfectly intuitive. This generation collaborates, shares, remixes, and creates with a fluency and ease the rest of us can hardly understand.Crowdsourcing, just now starting to emerge, will in a short time simply be the way things are done. From the Hardcover edition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307396207
• ISBN13: 9780307396204
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Crown Business
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.2" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Must Read Book about a Significant Trend

Jeff Howe covers one of the most significant trends enabled by the Internet: crowdsourcing, or the practice of engaging the masses in achieving an objective. I think Howe's argument is convincing that this trend will become a significant way of doing business. The book has great examples of both successful and failed crowdsourcing attempts, and describes the critical elements that comprise crowdsourcing. Although crowdsourcing will not be ubiquitous - clearly there are some products and services that will not benefit from outsourcing to the masses - there will be increased and improved uses of crowdsourcing in business. I would have liked to see some examples of crowdsourcing in government, but I suppose there aren't many out there yet. This book is a great addition to the current works that study and analyze the way new technologies, particularly the internet, are permanently changing the way we play and work.

Crowdsourcing is transformational.

Anyone who produces or consumes information should read this. Yes, that means essentially everyone. Understanding crowdsourcing will impact the way you view your work, your organization, your opportunities (and that of your children). Traditional structures of production and consumption are being replaced. There is a newly massive potential for applying crowds to problem solving, including the big, scary problems of our age.

Excellent Look at Collective Intelligence

Personally, I find the whole "Wisdom of the Crowd" theme fascinating. One of the major outcomes of the internet is that it has allowed more participation by the average person which can be tapped by solutions and companies that recognize that there are people willing to contribute (often times for free). This isn't new, it's just that the internet breaks down barriers to entry. While I read, and enjoyed, The Wisdom of Crowds, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, by Jeff Howe, provides more detail and also shows both sides of the "crowd mentality." Contents: Introduction; The Rise of the Amateur; From So Simple a Beginning; Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier; The Rise and Fall of the Firm; The Most Universal Quality; What the Crowd Knows; What the Crowd Creates; What the Crowd Thinks; What the Crowd Funds; Tomorrow's Crowd; Conclusion; Notes; Acknowledgements; Index Jeff Howe, a contributing editor for Wired magazine, first discussed the phenomena of "crowdsourcing" in a June 2006 article for the magazine. Taking that subject and expounding upon it, he has created a very engaging book. His premise, that people don't want to consume passively, is shown in many anecdotes throughout the book. Where companies, and people, recognize that others would like to comment on, enhance, and contribute to, a particular product or service, those items gain more market share and better relationships with their customers. Instead of the internet isolating people, it has, in the hands of the right people, created unprecedented levels of collaboration. It also has, with services such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and others, allowed for meaningful relationships that otherwise could not have occurred. However, Howe researched this book for two years, and provides the other side of crowdsourcing; failures, lack of participation; and the effect that Google has had on it. Throughout the book, you realize that there is a fundamental shift in the way that business is being conducted. Where once business operated within a silo, many are now opening themselves to the billions of people with internet access and the using their wisdom for products, testing, and as employees. Comparisons of this book to James Surowieck's, The Wisdom of Crowds, are natural. While Surowieck's book is an excellent look at the crowd, Howe's book goes further. Both are great looks at the use of crowds to spark innovation, but Howe provides more information about tapping the right community, how companies have leveraged the crowd, and what a possible future will look like. In addition, he provides the reader with some rules for crowdsourcing, which help to solidify the contents of the book. Howe has created an extremely readable view of this phenomena. He provides insightful comments from the gaming community, where the companies really care about what they have created. So much so, that they tap their communities not only for traditional feedback, but also

Crowdsourcing

There are few book that actually exceed your expectations, this is one of them. If you are at all interested in the future, and trends and how you might find you place in it, I would recommend this book.