Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is a promising and expanding means of obtaining innovative ideas for products, services, or processes from a large number of individuals by broadcasting a critical innovation problem via the Internet. Crowdsourcing as a mechanism for innovative problem solving dates back to the 18th century, when British citizens were asked for solutions to navigation problems. With the advent of the Internet, organizations can now cast the problem to a worldwide audience, and increasingly, individuals in the crowd are starting to collaborate in order to solve more complex problems. Crowdsourcing has been used to solve problems and create innovation opportunities across many different fields—for example, innovative T-shirt graphic design companies (e.g., Threadless.Com), [Page 115]corporate scientific research and development in pharmaceuticals and materials science (e.g., InnoCentive.Com), open ...