Time is short, and the task at hand seems impossible, but there's simply no getting around it. Something needs to get done. Does this sound like a familiar scenario?
If you answered "yes," that's not surprising. It's easy for our eyes to be bigger than our stomach -- or rather, actual capacity to get things done. So what now? You may not have considered it, but there are many benefits of tapping into the collective mind-power of the entire world.
Makes sense, right?
But perhaps the biggest appeal of that approach is the ability to tackle very difficult problems in an incredibly short period of time.
We call it crowdsourcing.
Here's how it works: first, think of a task you need to accomplish. If it's not your unique ability, outsource it. Delegate. Hand it off. Watch it get done. With this simple rule, you won't believe how fast your productivity will skyrocket.
While it's not a new concept, it did take a while to really catch on. It actually goes way, way back.
Historical Precedent
The Billiard Ball Prize of 1863 spurred innovation and experimentation that led to the creation of celluloid. Celluloid wasn't right for pool balls, but it ended up being the foundation of the modern plastics industry. The ancient Babylonians are even thought to have had their own kind of crowdsourcing, in a very raw and unfiltered form. Somewhere around 425 B.C., Herodotus wrote that “...when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves ... they give him advice … and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is.”
Pretty amazing that something so simple was probably one of the more effective methods -- and quite frankly, not much has changed. Today crowdsourcing is getting a lot more common, and most of it is done online. These days you're probably still better off seeing a licensed physician for any actual illness, though...maybe not for long?
So much to do, so little time
Crowdsourcing is all about delegating tasks. If you do it well, you delegate tasks to the right people, who can get things done most efficiently.
Everyone has experience with something like crowdsourcing. When an office manager assigns projects to different people. When a homeowner hires a landscaping company to take care of the lawn. When you go to a restaurant, you're paying other people to find food, cook it, and bring it to you, so you don't have to do it.
Your time is valuable, and you want to spend it in the most productive way. This is true in our personal lives, but crowdsourcing is even more effective on a massive scale, dealing with problems of general public concern. It really is amazing what you can accomplish with some prize money.
There's no way to say exactly how much time you save by crowdsourcing, but the fact is that it frequently works. Just take a look at some completed incentive challenges for evidence.
Businesses and organizations can now crowdsource solutions to their problems, effectively employing bright minds all around the world. People with different backgrounds bring a new perspective to challenges that seemed intractable, often coming up with novel solutions. Offer a reasonable reward, and smart, motivated people from around the world will answer your call.
Crowdsourcing gets things done
If you can tap into the intelligence of the whole world, you can start thinking big. Really big. People and groups have successfully crowdsourced all sorts of ambitious projects. Not only physical products and clever gadgets, but conceptual products as well - ideas.
The Ansari XPRIZE is one of the most well known in recent memory. A $10 million prize for a manned spacecraft that could reach the edge of our atmosphere, twice within two weeks. And a nice side effect was the creation of the private space industry. (Fun fact: HeroX is an offshoot of the XPRIZE, designed to make the power of incentive challenges available to everyone)
Most crowdsourced incentive challenges don't have the same kind of prize pool, and they focus on more down-to-Earth problems. But they can be just as impactful.
Like developing a real-time fact checking system, to make political claims and statements instantly verifiable – or falsifiable, whichever the case may be. Or comprehensive plans to improve the lives of people living with autism. Some are more creative ventures, like a short film competition using actual NASA imagery.
The time of the crowdsourced solution has come. Lego wants your help to create new Lego sets (the dream of practically anyone who's imagination was stymied by the instructions). You can help beer companies build a better beer. Or be a scientist in your spare time and discover new galaxies and species.
Crowdsourcing is even being used to help save dead languages, by bringing together native speakers and collecting examples of it in use.
If you can formulate the problem and offer the right incentive to people, there really is no limit to what you can get done by tapping into the power of crowds. You can access an incredibly wide pool of talent, and create incredible value from the treasures you find there.
So, what problem do you want to solve? If you're not right for the job or just don't have time, you now have all the tools you need right here to start your own crowdsourced incentive challenge. Get to it!
