Crowdsourcing is all about accessing the crowd for new information (and innovations) regarding your business. Sounds closely associated with the collective consciousness I keep jamming down your throat, doesn't it? It is, but with a slightly more aggressive bent—on your part. If you are already paying attention to where the culture is going, then why not be more proactive? Don't wait for the culture of the crowds to tell you where it's going; boldly ask that very question.
Crowdsourcing is a way for you to connect with the part of the culture that already knows you: your fans. Admit you don't know everything and ask for their help in developing new products or services. They will probably be able to tell you whether you're relevant or not. All you need is a response mechanism—a way for your particular crowd to talk to you. A forum or website is infinitely better than a boilerplate customer-valuation form.
Even if they don't know you (yet), you can entice them to get acquainted. Apple demonstrated the power of crowdsourcing when it opened its source codes—and then paid out $2 billion dollars to ordinary people who could create applications for its iPhones and iPads. But you're not Apple, so maybe you'll be inspired by some other models of listening to (and engaging) the crowd for innovation.
On October 1, 2006, Netflix offered $1 million to the first developer of a video-recommendation algorithm that could beat its existing one. An AT&T research team called BellKor combined with software company Commendo's team BigChaos and others to win the 2009 grand prize of $1 million. Similarly, coffee giant Starbucks uses the website www.mystarbucksidea.com to solicit new innovations and ideas. After 200,000 submissions, one brilliant innovation emerged from the crowd: the splash stick, a little green stopper for cups that keeps coffee from splashing out. See? Even the people who work at Starbucks and know that coffee spills from the tiny little hole on top needed some independent eyes on the problem.
UTest is a network of independent, international testers (aka “the crowd”) who can be mobilized to test your web applications, mobile devices, gaming, and desktop solutions. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Intuit, BBC, Groupon, MySpace, Thomson Reuters, and dozens of others hire UTest to improve quality, shorten time-to-market, or to help curb the costs of testing new products. Even corporate giant General Electric is getting involved with this movement by creating its EcoMagination Challenge, an initiative that invites businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to submit breakthrough ideas for home energy creation, management, and use. That's right, GE offers money in exchange for great ideas from the crowd! GE will award each of five innovation challenge award recipients $100,000 in cash, for a total of $500,000. GE is anxious to promote these entries as examples of outstanding entrepreneurship and innovation.