What do you conjure up when you think of “crowds”? Close quarters, personal space violations, body odor, hot breath, traffic jams, noise, stress … ? It’s pretty safe to say that many of you aren’t crazy about crowds, particularly at malls during the holidays, and especially when you’ve got to use a restroom.
But in the case of crowdsourcing, crowds can be a good thing.
Did you know close to three million “everyday” people have joined the effort to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 plane? This is a perfect example of crowdsourcing. A satellite operator organized this effort by making an open call to anyone interested in reviewing satellite maps in hopes of identifying wreckage and unlocking this mystery.
First used in June 2006 by journalist Jeff Howe in an article he wrote for Wired magazine, called “The rise of crowdsourcing,” the concept demonstrates the power of a networked world and is a shift in the ways companies and societies will work in the future. These self-organizing communities have a collective intelligence that can solve problems that a company or government would normally pay employees to solve or “outsource” to a third-party provider.
Remember last week’s term, collaborative consumption? The rise of crowdsourcing is another step in the direction of shifting from “compete” to “collaborate.” Crowdsourcing elevates the collective sharing of resources and efforts to a new level of discovery.
Just imagine larger challenges to which solutions would benefit all of society — like increasing our collective knowledge or even finding a cure to cancer. Maybe, if we can harness the work of many, we can help put an end to one of today’s greatest mysteries: the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone
. If you want to go far, go together.” — African proverb
Jacqueline
Jacqueline Botting is the founder and a contributing writer to WiseTribe. She is a technology business developer in the U.S. and overseas for start-ups and Fortune 1000s. She’s a proponent of owning less to live more and believes greater contemplative practices in our daily lives and social institutions make our world a better place. She splits her time between LA, NYC and Florida. Connect with Jacqueline on LinkedIn, Twitter or Google +.
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