Crowdsourcing – 10 lessons I’ve learned.

by John Cataldi | Aug 26, 2013 | Crowdsourcing

Learning from my successes and failures in over a decade of crowdsourcing

In today’s interconnected world asking for help is just a click away. I am always amazed at the vast intellect, knowledge and expertise available 24/7 on any given day. In my previous analog business practices, I would rely on such resources as an in-house staff, advisory board, on site consultants, industry analysts or my own rolodex to get the answers I sought for many complex projects I found myself involved. This was until I discovered the power of crowdsourcing.

What is crowdsourcing you may ask? You could very easily be defined as distributed problem solving. It is distributing tasks across a large group of people which allows you to mine the group’s intellect as a collective. The benefits of becoming a proficient outsourcer, unlocks global opportunities with limitless potential. However, like any resource, if deployed unwisely, it can cost your time, wasted efforts and potentially your intellectual property that I can attest to from personal experience. Thus, I wish to give a little sage advice so you could avoid the same pitfalls that I have fallen prey to and enjoy the success of a crowd sourced work environment.

Over the past decade, I have crowd sourced technology, think tank, financing and creative projects around the globe. I estimate my savings to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Moreover, crowd sourcing within a lean / agile development methodology and rapid execution model has led to many success stories for both clients and myself.

Though I believe I could write a book on crowdsourcing; below are the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned from my successes and failures in crowdsourcing.

1. Start with a plan, not just an idea. – If you have a plan that means you’ve investigated your vision to see what possibilities are true and which ones are idealistic. Crowdsourcing can only amplify the seeds that you plant. If you have not done sufficient research for planning, how can you tell the good ideas for producers from the bad? This step should take most of your time outside of managing the overall project.
2. Be selective on whom you crowd sourced too. Select those that you feel can add value and has a solid portfolio, which is representative of your endeavor. The quality of ideas or talent is much more important than the quantity.  Be sure to read all of their reviews, research their portfolio, read their LinkedIn profile and even request references depending upon the project.
3. If you’re looking for creative inspiration, start with a brief without too many defined parameters. If you’re looking for ideas, then don’t stifle them in bureaucracy. Produce the frame and canvas by which the art will paint, and allow your artist to paint.
4. Set a realistic crowdsourcing budget. Quality work isn’t necessarily cheap. So make the discernment early between quantity of work and quality of the end product.
5. Don’t be the source of scope creep. If you ask people to invest their time and efforts be sure that you start with a strong vision. Changing your mind or scope constantly will create doubt and lack of desire for those initially willing to work with you.
6. Recruitment is never as easy as you think. Attracting your stakeholders, employees, customers, partners, and funders will take a lot of time and planning. Be sure that you identify your target audiences. Remember, humans procrastinate, so it helps to create a sense of urgency to participate sooner rather than later.
7. When crowdsourcing, especially creative or technical projects, plan incentives based upon short-term deliverables. Never incentivized based upon a waterfall delivery schedule. You will always be disappointed. A lean development and incentive program is always best. This allows you to determine early on if the project is going out of scope. Plus, don’t be cheap with your incentives. Make your participants feel special.
8. Protect your intellectual property. For anything considered intellectual property, I highly recommend you patent the idea prior to crowdsourcing. If you crowd sourced to another country, ensure that your international, intellectual property rights are also protected. Lastly have anyone participating within the crowdsourcing exercise to sign the proper legal documentation to protect your interests. For example: nondisclosure agreements and vendor agreements with intellectual property provisions.
9. Always manage your network. Remember, you are the moderator. Crowdsourcing should not hinder your productivity it should enhance it. Ensuring solid communication, quality assurance and other planned considerations to your crowd sourced networks will give your project a great chance of overall success.
10. Always live up to your end of the agreement. Though you may have several disappointments in crowdsourcing a project, be sure that your end of the agreement is always upheld. Your online credibility is everything in the crowd-sourced world, especially if you’re using an established network that  may rate your trustworthiness, communication or overall work effort as a crowd sourced client. Bad ratings make lead to a smaller, less qualified and potentially a more expensive resource pool to crowd source. Moreover, at the end of your crowd sourced project, be sure to thank your for participants. A good reputation starts with an overall good perception of your work ethic. In the end this will perpetuate community trust and goodwill that will make your future crowdsourcing activities a much easier process.