Competing with or Against Crowds

March 26, 2018

Read The Full Prompt

In this module we have examined how firms can leverage digital technologies to harness the power of collective intelligence from the crowds to create value and capture value. For this assignment you have three options:

1 – Pick one industry where no firms have leveraged crowds, and come up with a crowd-based business model that may potentially transform the industry. Describe how you plan to create and capture value. Explain why the crowd will participate, and why your crowd-based model is better than the current model employed by the incumbents.

2 – Describe a company that is using crowds (external or internal) in an innovative manner. Describe how they incentivize participation and manage the crowd. What are the challenges? Describe how value creation and value capture occur, and the growth potential of this business.

3 – Companies often struggle with crowds as well. Describe failed crowdsourcing efforts and explain how and why the company failed. Given what you have learned in the course, what would you do differently?

Create an approximately 500-750 word post at d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit to make your contribution by 6pm on March 26. Please create appropriate tags for your post. Please also respond to and comment on three other posts per module before class. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Submitted (84)

OpenIDEO: Can the power of crowds solve our toughest social problems?
kt
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 4:34 pm
Tapping into the design thinking methodology that was pioneered by its parent company, IDEO, OpenIDEO puts this powerful tool and methodology in the hands of many in an attempt to ignite even more innovation among some of the world’s most [...]
Bottoms up! Casemates.com offers a new community-driven wine marketplace
A
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 5:36 pm
The new online venture, recently launched through a Kickstarter campain, aims to build a community of wine lovers and consumers interested in buying cases of wine together, directly from US producers.
Patreon: Modernizing and crowdsourcing patronage of the arts
Jay Kumar
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 7:06 am
Patreon allows creators of all stripes to crowdsource funding on a subscription basis.
The Origin of Netflix’s Success
Gloria
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 4:35 pm
How did Netflix develop its initial strategies, and how the early on lessons set the tone for its long-term growth?
Folding@Home: Crowdsourcing a cure for cancer?
Pasha
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:53 pm
When we think about crowdsourcing initiatives, we often think about for-profit ventures like Threadless or Kickstarter. But what if you could use crowdsourcing to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and even save millions of lives? Well that’s exactly what [...]
Quantopian: the democratization of Wall Street?
SAG
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 10:55 am
As quant hedge funds approach the $1 trillion AUM mark can crowd-sourcing investment algorithms proof to be a sustainable strategy to get an edge over the competition?
Premise: Using Crowdsourcing to Connect Governments with Markets and Citizens
PH
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Premise's network of 80,000 contributors across 30 countries gather local data to provide fast insights into local economics and more. Can the company grow its work with government?
Patreon: Creators, Come Get Paid
MM
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 1:25 pm
A crowdfunding platform, Patreon supports the arts by modernizing the patronage system of yore.
“Activist mapping” at Ushahidi
Crystal
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:42 pm
How a non-profit tech company is combining crowdsourcing, citizen journalism and geospatial information to drive social activism and public accountability
BeMyEye: Data Driven Field Marketing
JSG
Posted on March 25, 2018 at 5:18 pm
BeMyEye is allowing companies to crowdsource in-store data
Quantopian: Leveraging the Crowd to Generate Alpha
jessica
Posted on March 25, 2018 at 10:58 pm
Quantopian enables anyone to build their own trading algorithm and win prizes for performance. In addition to providing a platform for creating and testing trading algorithms, Quantopian puts capital allocation in their own fund behind successful user created algorithms, sharing [...]
Topcoder: An Original Platform for Crowdsourcing Solutions
EAP
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:35 pm
Topcoder is a platform that host the world’s largest community of competitive designers, developers, and data scientists to offer on-demand crowdsourcing solutions to its clients.
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