Crowdsource, why not?
My term of the year will be crowdsourcing. I even just bought a few books on it.
So what exactly is the term crowdsourcing? It is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task. (Wikipedia)
What an interesting concept to us. This phrase wasn’t really used until 2006 because the internet was still testing the waters on this type of business models. Well the two most well known companies that have defined this term are istockphoto.com and treadless.com – These two companies have built their businesses around the community of creative individuals. How can us entrepreneurs use the crowd to help improve our services and products while helping us sell them too.
My business partner and I recently won a business plan competition called FastPitch Nashville, and utililized this idea of crowdsoursing to win the votes of our crowd. We simply made it public that we would be speaking at this competition and needed the support of those close to us.
So ask yourself and your business. How can I begin to crowdsource my product? You would be suprised with what you think of.
