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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