Crowdsourcing…what a concept!

I just read an article on the Fast Company site about the concept of crowdsourcing. I hate to admit I’ve been under a bit of a rock in regard to this new business practice, which is sad because it represents so much of what I believe. The article is a Q & A with a man I would like to meet someday. His name is Dwayne Spradlin and his company is InnoCentive, the premier open innovation marketplace in the world.

The idea is simple, when an organization (non-profits included, which is the really cool part of the concept) has a conundrum, they don’t call in a team of experts. Rather, they throw open the window and shout to the streets below, “Hey, do any of you have any idea what we should do about this?!” And the responses, which in the case of InnoCentive,  are rewarded with cash, are phenomenal! And guess where some of the best ideas come from…outside the industry…way outside.

“Innovation often happens at the boundary,” said Spradlin. Machinists and mathematicians weighing in with possible solutions to find new markers for Lou Gehrig’s disease…a contractor in the midwest solving the problem of how to clean up the oil remaining on the ocean floor from the Valdez spill…and countless other solutions that come from letting creative minds offer new approaches to problems to which they might otherwise never be exposed.

Let’s look for ways to apply this in our own realms. At work, ask somebody in accounting to weigh in on a marketing concept; in your place of worship, combine teenagers with senior citizens to plan the next community event; and…pardon me for returning to my favorite theme…in your personal life, ask someone you have judged as a source of irritation what his or her perspective is on a situation—you might learn something!

Goodness grows…in the crowd!!

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