At the root of crowdsourcing is the saying “ two heads are better than one.”
In other words by using social media and the internet to cast an even wider net of participants the amount of data and possible ideas becomes limitless.
Take for example Lay’s Do Us A Flavor Challenge. After a successful run in 2012 in which the company received millions of submissions nationwide the contest is back again. What made this contest so successful were three key aspects:
- Innovative Content; crowdsourcing is like one big think tank. In regards to Lays the result of the competition was that the company was able to come up with innovative flavors that they might not have come up with on their own.
- Ultimate Focus Group; Even if the company came up with the flavors themselves,
efore launching the new flavors they were market test by all types of demographics by having participants vote on their favorite submission - Increase Engagement; whether or not the submission was good, by reaching out to the public it creates bonds between the company and its customers
While crowdsourcing provides many benefits, the caveat is that quality control is much harder and more manpower is needed to filter out the good ideas.
However, these negatives play less of an affect with this newly popular use of crowdsourcing in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Over 3 million people have volunteered their time searching through satellite images via Topnod.net in order to scan for the missing flight.
So when you think about it the idea that crowdsourcing give us ability to come together and engage with the larger global community whether it is for something so mundane as a new potato chip flavor or as a major search party is a pretty nice sentiment.
Rachael Rose Calmas 