Managing Digital Crowds

March 21, 2017

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 tackle a range of problems such as innovation problems and funding startups. 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 to make your contribution by 6pm on March 20. Please create appropriate tags for your post. Please also respond to and comment on three other posts per module. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Please prepare a two minute pitch about your blog entry before the class.

Submitted (92)

Solving Crime the Crowdsourced Way
Bansi
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 1:24 pm
Could the wisdom of crowds help to solve crimes?
ArcBazar: Crowdsourcing Design
boris
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 11:59 pm
The worst thing to happen to architecture?
Quirky: Why the Crowdsourcing Platform Failed and its Broader Learnings for the Open Innovation Movement
KylaW
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 12:18 pm
“Be guided by the crowd, not ruled by it.” -Steve Lohr, NYT Business of Technology Writer
MShop: what if we crowdsourced mystery shopping?
Meili
Posted on March 18, 2017 at 9:14 pm
Mystery shopping is intended to give businesses insights on how customers perceive their stores. However, the current model doesn't use actual customers to conduct the mystery shopping. Surely, with the help of technology and crowdsourcing, we can change that?
Lego Ideas: Leveraging crowds to design your product for you
sblemast
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 5:53 pm
LEGO IDEAS One company that is leveraging crowd sourcing to design creative new products while simultaneously building a community based platform is LEGO through its LEGO ideas website. Users are given freedom to design their own lego products from scratch [...]
Waze: “Help[ing] people create local driving communities that work together to improve the quality of everyone’s daily driving”
Caroline Brody
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 7:48 pm
The mission statement of Waze, founded in Israel in 2009, is to “help people create local driving communities that work together to improve the quality of everyone's daily driving”. By updating maps in real time with crowdsourced information from drivers, [...]
Salesforce IdeaExchange: CrowdSourcing Ideas from the Users!!
sidharthmishra
Last modified on March 19, 2017 at 3:56 pm
How Salesforce utilized the collective wisdom of the crowds to build an innovation engine for itself, its partners and ultimately the user.
Amazon Studios: Crowdsourcing Content and Feedback
Natalie
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 2:00 pm
Amazon Studios successfully uses crowdsourcing to increase the number of television and film submissions and to decide which ideas to produce.
Sounds of the Crowd
dk_22
Last modified on March 19, 2017 at 4:07 pm
How Soundcloud brought together the long tail of musicians and a global audience to create a vibrant online community.
Julep: Going After Big Beauty With Crowdsourced Products
CPerlman
Posted on March 21, 2017 at 1:35 am
Julep is taping into the social nature of the beauty market to crowdsource new product design so consumers have the products they want to buy in a much faster timeline than traditional big beauty brands.
Wikipedia – How to Incentivize and Manage Crowd Participation
Carolin_Oldenbuettel
Last modified on March 21, 2017 at 12:37 am
Wikipedia - a nonprofit operating in the space of multibillion-dollar brands, mobilizing crowds effectively and creatively
Digg: Failures and Learnings
Felix J
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 12:25 am
A democratic crowd-source-enabled news aggregator once valued at $100+ million goes bust. Why?
BrandNewHats: Proposing a Crowdsourced Hat Brand
mahylights
Last modified on March 19, 2017 at 1:18 pm
Hats should be designed by the crowd.
PatientsLikeMe: Finding Cures for Chronic Diseases
Alice
Posted on March 9, 2017 at 7:49 pm
PatientsLikeMe is an online community network where chronic disease patients are able to find other patients with similar demographics and experiences. This data is shared to help support the search toward better chronic disease treatments.
Play to Cure: Crowdsourcing UK Cancer Research Through Gaming
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 5:54 pm
2048? Angry Birds? Candy Crush? Whatever your game is, it can wait. Play a game that produces data for cancer research as you level up.
99Designs of Logos on the Wall…
GilG
Last modified on March 20, 2017 at 5:33 pm
By democratizing graphic design, 99designs changed the balance of power and disrupted a dormant business
Crowdsourcing the Boeing 787
Afaf
Last modified on March 20, 2017 at 9:16 pm
Boeing is a master of designing aircraft and outsourcing their manufacture. But for its latest creation, the 787, Boeing chose to crowdsource in the design stage, shaving a year off the process. Should Boeing crowdsource its core competency?
Crowdsourcing AI at Drift: Does Analyzing Crowdsourced Information Actually Make Bots Smarter?
Ellen DaSilva
Last modified on March 12, 2017 at 7:40 pm
The proliferation of chatbots over the last two years has made life easier for some people. But are these bots really learning from their crowdsourced data inputs to make the outcome better for all users?
Frito-Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Contest
Julia
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 9:34 am
Lay's potato chips crowd-sources new flavors in an annual contest - but is it more marketing engine than product development innovation?
HitRecord: Paving the way for crowdsourcing in entertainment industry
Onaizah P
Last modified on March 20, 2017 at 9:19 pm
How HitRecord was able to build, nurture and monetize a community of creative artists
Transforming Government – Giving some power back to the people!
Andrew Banovic
Posted on March 16, 2017 at 3:31 pm
Utilizing technology, can we do a better job making decisions about the future of our country than our elected officials?
Quora – Capturing the World’s Knowledge
pvuong
Last modified on March 19, 2017 at 5:01 pm
About Quora Quora is a question and answer site, where anyone can sign up for an account and start posting questions or responding to questions posted on the site. The company’s mission is to “share and grow the world’s knowledge.” It [...]
De Correspondent: member-based journalism
Daniel C
Last modified on March 21, 2017 at 12:26 am
In 2017, the Dutch online newspaper “De Correspondent” reached a new milestone: 50,000 paying members1. Even though only 4 years old, the new venture is already rivaling the biggest newspapers in digital users5. Their secret? Building and sustaining an active, [...]
#KissandTell: Lulu’s Failed Attempt to Crowdsource “Dating Intelligence”
Libby
Last modified on March 11, 2017 at 11:30 pm
Lulu created a community where five million women were willing to “rate” their dates. In a world where online reviews guide everything from hiring a handyman to picking our pizza, where does the wisdom of crowds cross the line?
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