For this week's blog, I have chosen to comment on the following articles:
Before reading these articles, I bet many people would have thought that crowdsourcing dealt with a crowd of people collaborating on a project and everyone who contributed would have received a fair share of money compensation. Well, that is hardly the case!
Crowdsourcing is a fancy term for a competition or contest. Think about a food eating competition, a kid's coloring contest, and/or designing a banner to promote a music band. Each individual who entered into the competition or contest may have put forth a great deal of time and effort knowing that he or she has only a slight chance of winning. For the most part, there is only one grand prize winner who gets his or her name recognized and receives the grand prize, usually money or luxury good like a trip for two to a hot spot.
I think crowdsourcing is good for today's businesses but not so good for future businesses. With all of the submissions, not only do businesses gather great ideas for future logos or multi-purpose designs, they also reap tremendous cost savings on the design effort. However, there are two drawbacks for future businesses regarding the disruption to the design industry and the reduction in creative ideas. First, professional designers will lose their jobs to amateurs or recent grads with similar capability (in terms of talent and skill). Some of these designers may even have to change career. Second, when the winner's design is reviewed, many will interpret what businesses is looking for and want to imitate the winner's design style for future projects. In doing so, design ideas will converge and become less creative.
To avoid conformity and induce creativity, one possible consideration is for businesses to make their "competitions" private - soliciting ideas, announcing the winner's name but not displaying the winner's design.
Articles:
Howe, Jeff P. "Is Crowdsourcing Evil? The Design Community Weighs In | Epicenter | Wired.com." Wired News. 10 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.
Woods, Dan. "The Myth of Crowdsourcing - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.
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I completely agree with you on the fact that professional designers could possible see possible layoffs due to amateur ideas. Do you think its possible that ideas will be outsourced just as labor has been for a long time or do you think its a fad?
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to tell if crowdsourcing will sustain just like outsourcing. Although the two offer different incentives in that people who work under outsourcing contracts are better able to make a steady living than those receiving irregular (and minimal) pay through crowdsourcing. As the landscape for social networking continues to change, so are people's behavior and how they respond to incentive. Further, under crowdsourcing, by offering a small reward, the host company cannot control the quantity and quality of submissions. It may not end with a good solution.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that crowdsourcing will grow to the extremes that traditional outsourcing has. The first reason for this is that crowdsourcing often requires a number of people to work dedicatedly on a project that they may or (chances are...) may not be compensated for. This is bound to limit the number of people involved because people aren't going to want to waste their time. Another reason is that only a very limited number of projects make crowdsourcing an acceptable solution -- in general these come when companies require a degree of creativity that is best satisfied by reaching out to external resources.
ReplyDeleteAll things considered, though, it is fair to call crowdsourcing the outsourcing of the Internet. We'll see how far-reaching it actually becomes!
After reading about crowdsourcing, I thought it was a great solution if the company was unable to solve their own problems. An objective person or an outsider could bring new ideas and add creativity to the company. However, I do agree with you that professionals stand the chance of losing their jobs to amateurs.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a chance crowdsourcing can become something more than a fad though. I don't however see many professionals losing their jobs to amateurs. For the most part, a professional company isn't going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an open call project, with the chance they could get a poor design if no results turn up. They will pay professionals professional grade money while businesses that are just starting up and don't have money to spend on advertising will crowdsource to see where they can spend the least amount of money while getting the most designs.
ReplyDelete