Crowdsourcing For Dummies

Crowdsourcing is an innovative way of outsourcing tasks, problems or requests to a group or community online. There are lots of ways business can use crowdsourcing to their advantage: be it crowdsourcing product ideas and development, design tasks, market research, testing, capturing or analyzing data, and even raising funds. It offers access to a wide pool of talent and ideas, and is an exciting way to engage the public with your business.

Crowdsourcing For Dummies is your plain-English guide to making crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and open innovation work for you. It gives step-by-step advice on how to plan, start and manage a crowdsourcing project, where to crowdsource, how to find the perfect audience, how best to motivate your crowd, and tips for troubleshooting.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

What You’re Not to Read 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organised 4

Part I: Understanding Crowdsourcing Basics 4

Part II: Looking at the Different Forms of Crowdsourcing 4

Part III: Building Skill 4

Part IV: Getting All You Can Get from the Crowd 5

Part V: The Part of Tens 5

Icons Used in This Book 5

Where to Go from Here 6

Part I: Understanding Crowdsourcing Basics 7

Chapter 1: People Power: Getting a Feel for Crowdsourcing 9

What is This Thing Called Crowdsourcing? 10

Seeing how crowdsourcing works 10

Looking at crowdsourcing forms 11

Considering Why People Crowdsource 13

Introducing three key strengths 13

Benefitting from crowdsourcing 14

Considering reliability 15

Being a Crowdworker 16

Becoming a Crowdsourcer 17

Chapter 2: Getting to Know the Forms of Crowdsourcing and Crowdmarkets 19

Harnessing the Power of Divided Labour 20

Keeping the job whole 20

Splitting the job into big pieces 21

Dividing the job as small as you can 22

Letting the crowd divide the job 23

Using crowdsourcing to raise money 24

Looking at the Rules that Govern How Crowdmarkets Work 25

Distinguishing between contract and contest markets 27

Understanding collaborative and independent crowdworking 27

Combining the two rules 28

Chapter 3: Infiltrating the Crowd 29

Following the Crowdworker’s Steps 30

Taking Lessons from Your Time as a Crowdworker 32

Lesson 1: Crowdworkers have names and reputations 32

Lesson 2: Crowds need training 33

Lesson 3: Crowds want clear instructions 34

Lesson 4: Crowds are free to move 34

Joining the Staff of Wikipedia 35

Registering as a worker 35

Choosing a task 36

Completing a task 36

Submitting a task 36

Leaping into the Market with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk 37

Registering as a worker 37

Selecting the task 38

Qualifying and completing the task 39

Donning the White Lab Coat: Zooniverse 41

Chapter 4: Joining the Crowdforce 43

Deciding to Join the Crowdforce 44

Considering Your Options 46

Looking at microtasks 47

Competing for the contest 48

Lining up for macrotasks 48

Wading into self-organised crowds 49

Searching for careers in crowdfunding 50

Getting Up and Running on a Macrotask Crowdmarket 51

Choosing a market 51

Setting yourself up on the market 52

Building your portfolio 53

Protecting Yourself as a Macrotasker 53

Making the Bid in Macrotasking 54

The proposal 55

The covering letter 55

The résumé 57

Setting the price 57

Learning from the process 58

Completing the Macrotask 58

Remembering the goal 58

Communicate, communicate, communicate 59

Working across cultures 59

Keeping good records 60

Getting an extra recommendation 60

Part II: Looking at the Different Forms of Crowdsourcing 61

Chapter 5: Creating Crowdcontests 63

Reaping the Benefits of Crowdcontests 63

Deepening understanding 64

Faster, better, cheaper 65

Understanding Types of Crowdcontest 66

Running a Crowdcontest 67

Stating the goal 68

Writing the rules 69

Publicising the results 72

Improving the Crowdcontest 73

Splitting the contest 74

Building a stronger crowd 75

Running a series of contests 76

Considering an Example: The Business Logo 76

Running a logo contest yourself 76

Using a contest service to run the contest for you 77

Chapter 6: Raising Money with Crowdfunding 79

Knowing the Basics of Crowdfunding 80

Seeing crowdfunding as a community activity 80

Using the crowdmarket 81

Deciding between all-or-nothing funding or partial funding 82

Understanding the fee 83

Running a Crowdfunding Project 84

Writing the budget 84

Describing your project 85

Setting a deadline for a decision 86

Contacting the crowd 87

Considering an Example: Creating a Playground 88

Building a budget 89

Writing a letter 89

Setting a timeline 89

Getting the crowd 91

Accumulating Equity for a Company 91

Making a pitch 92

Using a platform 93

Paying the fees and getting the funds 93

Attracting the crowd 95

Waiting for results 96

Examining the results 96

Using non-equity funding 98

Chapter 7: Making Use of Macrotasks 99

Getting to Grips with Macrotasking 100

Seeing the Benefits of Macrotasks 101

Identifying Macrotasks 103

Thinking process, not organisation 103

Identifying independent tasks 105

Choosing what’s important 105

Finding a fixed deadline 106

Requiring special skills 106

Preparing the Macrotask 107

Naming the manager107

Putting together a statement of work for macrotask workers 108

Beginning the Macrotask 110

Choosing a site 111

Posting the project 111

Inviting workers to your job 112

Choosing a Macrotasker 112

Reading the covering letter 113

Reviewing the proposal 113

Assessing the portfolio 113

Checking the reputation 114

Judging qualifications 114

Interviewing 115

Making the selection 116

Managing the work 117

Protecting intellectual property 118

Ending the Macrotask 118

Paying the macrotasker and closing the books 118

Assessing the experience 119

Considering an Example: Creating an App 119

Checking that your task is a macrotask 120

Writing the statement of work 120

Posting the job 121

Hiring the macrotasker 122

Following the work 122

Ending the macrotask 123

Chapter 8: Managing with Microtasks 125

Identifying Tasks That You Can Microsource 125

Knowing How the Microtasking Process Works 127

Keeping tasks short and simple 127

Creating the basic task 128

Finding the basic data 128

Writing the instructions 130

Pricing the tasks 131

Training and validating workers 132

Checking the results 132

Assembling the work 134

Working through an Example with Mechanical Turk 135

Creating the task 135

Laying out the work 138

Starting with a test run 142

Reviewing the work and retrieving the results 143

Reviewing the prices of your microtasks 144

Chapter 9: Combining the Intelligence of Self-Organised Crowds 145

Getting to Grips with Self-Organised Crowds 146

Determining What You Need the Crowd to Do: Information Gathering and Decision Making 147

Gathering information 148

Making a decision 150

Gathering and deciding 150

Designing the Process 151

Finding the crowd 152

Preparing clear rules 153

Motivating the crowd 154

Looking at the results 155

Organising a Prediction Market 156

Finding prediction markets 157

Establishing the rules 158

Laying down the rules 159

Assessing the result 160

Part III: Building Skill 161

Chapter 10: Engaging the Crowd with Your Project 163

Getting Started with Crowdbuilding 164

Knowing what motivates the crowd 164

Identifying the talent and resources you need 165

Adapting your strategy for public and private crowds 165

Inviting People to Join Your Crowd 166

Seeding the crowd 166

Engaging on YouTube 167

Granting bragging rights 168

Fostering Community Spirit 168

Building an online base 169

Showing how tasks contribute to the overall goal 170

Identifying benefits 170

Updating the crowd on progress 171

Sustaining the Crowd’s Interest 171

Teaching and Training 172

Showing the outcome 172

Leading the crowd through the tasks 173

Engaging on YouTube (again) 173

Chapter 11: Instructing the Crowd 175

Preparing the Fundamental Message: Writing a Statement of Work 176

Structuring carefully 176

Making clarity your goal 179

Looking at an example statement of work 181

Connecting the Kneebone to the Thighbone: Creating Instructions 182

Thinking about who does what to what 183

Deciding the order of instructions 184

Getting Feedback on Your Guidance 185

Chapter 12: Crowdsourcing with Social Media 187

Knowing the Benefits and the Limitations of Social Media Crowdsourcing 187

Building a Private Crowd with Social Media 189

Doing Simple Crowdsourcing with Social Media 191

Crowdfunding: Fundraising with Facebook 191

Macrotasking: Looking for freelancers with LinkedIn 192

Crowdcontests: Turning to Twitter 193

Microtasking: Translating via a blog 194

Turning the Process Upside Down: Using a Crowdsourcing Tool 195

Crowdfunding: Going fundraising 195

Crowdcontests: Modifying marketing methods 196

Microtasking and crowdsurveys: Asking for Opinions on Facebook 197

Microtasking: Reading the tweet leaves 198

Recognising the Difference between Social Media and Social Research 200

Chapter 13: Picking Your Platform 203

Getting the Benefits of a Platform 204

Raising the crowd 204

Knowing what other people know 205

Using standardised crowdsourced services 205

Getting a helping hand with bookkeeping 207

Cutting the risk factor 208

Finding the Right Crowd 208

Reviewing products 209

Checking out individual portfolios 210

Looking for the Right Support 210

Guiding your project 211

Acting as mediator 211

Protecting intellectual property 212

Deciding How Much You Want to Do 213

Reading the Fine Print 214

Understanding the cost 214

Expecting a refund 215

Knowing your responsibilities 215

Doing a Little Comparison Shopping 216

Checking out the contest providers 217

Connecting with the macrotaskers 217

Looking at options for microtasking 217

Finding the best funders 219

Chapter 14: Managing Your Crowd 221

Starting with the Right Balance of Skills 221

Choosing the Right People 223

Managing the Crowd through the Project 224

Using a consistent voice 224

Keeping in touch 225

Tracking milestones 226

Giving the crowd space to work 227

Respecting Workers’ Rights 228

Keeping on Top of the Details: Payroll and Accounting 229

Incentivising to Build Quality 230

Rewarding best practices 230

Taking inspiration from gamification 231

Recognising Trouble 232

Knowing your options 233

Computing the price of failure 234

Treating the cause, not the symptom 234

Stopping a Project 234

Exiting firmly and gracefully 235

Protecting your intellectual property 235

When Crowds Attack: Dealing with Angry Crowds 236

Assessing the situation 236

Handling a discontented worker 237

Recognising structural problems 238

Managing the public relations problem 239

Chapter 15: Learning on the Job 241

Following the Cycle of Continuous Improvement 242

Using the Cycle in Crowdsourcing 244

Anticipating trouble 245

Keeping an eye out for stumbling blocks 245

Reading the signs from the crowd 249

Handling the Unexpected 249

Accepting bad results 250

Stopping, revising and restarting 250

Demanding a refund 251

Paying and trashing 252

Lowering the Stakes with a Pilot Run 253

Adapting a Crowdfunding Campaign According to Results 254

Changing the means and the message 255

Changing your platform 255

Changing the goal 255

Part IV: Getting All You Can Get from the Crowd 257

Chapter 16: Combining Microtasks and Preparing Workflow 259

Discerning the Difference between Parallel and Serial Microtasks 260

Doing the job all at once: Parallel tasks 261

Putting one thing after another: Serial tasks 262

Minimising Error 265

Appreciating the value of serial tasks 265

Duplicating parallel tasks 266

Working through an Example: Devising Workflow and Making Decisions in Mechanical Turk 267

Starting with parallel tasks 269

Advancing to serial tasks 270

Combining parallel and serial tasks 270

Going for Gold: The Many Benefits of Workflow 271

Chapter 17: Crowd Reporting: Using the Crowd to Gather Information and News 273

Understanding Why People Use Crowd Reporting 274

Sorting Eight Billion Stories 274

Helping the crowd focus 275

Combining amateurs and experts 275

Gathering Information Geographically with Ushahidi 277

Rallying the crowd to Ushahidi 279

Deploying Ushahidi 279

Summarising the results 280

Getting the Benefits while Avoiding the Perils of Crowd Reporting 281

Understanding the nature of the crowd 282

Knowing who’s talking: The crowd effect 284

Knowing what the crowd believes: Gresham’s Law 285

Chapter 18: Initiating Innovation 287

Understanding the Forms of Innovation Crowdsourcing 288

Asking for a Little Insight: Classes of Innovation 290

Crowdsourcing for novelty 290

Crowdsourcing for improvement 291

Crowdsourcing for advantage 292

Planning for Innovation 292

Planning for new ideas 293

Bringing the unexpected into your plan with a crowdcontest 294

Running with the Right Crowd 299

Knowing the different types of crowd 299

Matching your plans with the best crowd 300

Building New Products and Services with Co-creation 303

Generating ideas and defining products 304

Designing with the crowd 305

Testing, testing, testing 305

Giving the product to the world 306

Considering an Example: Restructuring a Business with InnoCentive 306

Chapter 19: Preparing Your Organisation 309

Focusing on Crowdsourcing Elements of Processes 310

Planning for the Future 312

Navigating a Trial Run 313

Building Commitment 314

Knowing the Limits 315

Bracing for the Unknowns 316

Part V: The Part of Tens 317

Chapter 20: Following the Future of Crowdsourcing: Ten (Or So) Websites to Watch 319

Discovering the State of Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing.org 320

Reading the Morning News: Daily Crowdsource 321

Getting the European Perspective: crowdsourcingblog.de 321

Meeting the Leaders: CrowdConf and Crowdopolis 322

Tracking Equity Crowdfunding: Crowdcube and Indiegogo 323

Monitoring the Growth of the Global Crowd: Clickworker and Trabajo 324

Expanding the Scope of Crowdcontests: Kaggle 325

Promoting Innovation: AHHHA and Innovation Exchange 326

Building New Microtasking Platforms: MobileWorks and Tagasauris 326

Macrotasking in the Boardroom: 10EQS 327

Chapter 21: Ten Best Practices to Adopt 329

Doing Things Step by Step 329

Copying What Others Have Done 330

Paying Attention to the Price 331

Talking with Your Crowd 331

Listening to the Crowd 332

Using Social Media 332

Publicising Accomplishments 333

Bringing the Crowd into the Decisions 333

Doing the Same Job Two Ways 334

Giving a Gift to the Crowd 334

Chapter 22: Ten Success Stories 335

Creating the SXSW Festival T-shirt 335

Developing Smith & Kraus’s Mobile App 336

Spending Time with Mr Bentham 337

Generating a New Movie Recommendation Method for Netflix 338

Building a National Treasure Trove 338

Running a Video Campaign for Audio-Technica 339

Getting USA Today on Mobile Phones 339

Analysing Viruses with Foldit 340

Writing Descriptions for Magnum Photos 341

Setting up Coffee Joulie with the Crowd’s Backing 342

Chapter 23: Ten Crowdsourcing Blunders to Avoid 343

Thinking Crowdsourcing Is Easy 343

Failing to Review the Work of the Crowd 344

Not Knowing Who’s in the Crowd 345

Failing to Do a Trial Run 346

Putting the Crowdsourcing Ahead of the Job 347

Losing Your Reputation 348

Hiding from the Crowd 349

Assuming That All Crowdworkers Understand 350

Having Too Much Faith in the Market 351

Index 353

Primary market

• Business owners and managers looking to introduce crowdsourcing or open innovation methods. 

Secondary market

• Charities and non–profit organisations interested in crowdfunding;
• Crowdsourcing participants.

David Alan Grier is a writer, teacher and consultant on labour, technology, communication and management. He is Associate Professor at George Washington University, where he teaches International Science and Technology Policy. He is also the 2013 President of the IEEE Computer Society.