Crowdsourcing
by Giancarlo Melini
Crowdsourcing, a term that has been heard a lot lately, is a mechanism that has recently been applied on a mass scale in the Internet to elaborate several sorts of projects, from films and music, to scientific research and books. This phenomenon has made possible the realization of thousands -if not millions- of initiatives that otherwise wouldn't have happened. But, what is crowdsourcing? how does it work? what are the values it is based upon?
Crowdsourcing is the process of connecting people via the Internet in order for them to share their knowledge, expertise, resoruces or time. The concept itself is not new, the whole existence of humanity is based on association or collaboration between individuals to collectively achieve specific goals that would be impossible for one single person to reach. Establishment economics associate this voluntary cooperation with the profit incentive, meaning that people only help each other if it is on their own best self interest to do so, and of course, a reward is offered. Modern anthropological studies have shown that this may not be the case, people just want to help each other and contribute to a higher purpose without expecting something in return. We, as humans, certainly understand that helping each other is a better way to achieve the best life possible for everyone, and that relying on the crowd or the collective is not a bad idea at all. Recognizing that we are all somehow interconected, that we depend on each other for survival, lets us arrive to the only logical and functional paradigm: seeking solutions to problems from a collective perspective instead of an individualistic one.
The internet has been like an injection of steroids to the crowdsourcing concept, by becoming an efficient way to communicate, hence solve problems online and producing things by connecting and relying on other people that otherwise we wouldn't have had contact with, plus, the potential support of massive armies of people -and experts- willing to help.
So, how does crowdsourcing operate? It has 4 basic mechanisms:
1) The first enables people to find qualified workers, experts or experienced subjects in specific matters. They simply post the project/initiative and interested people subscribe to it, simplifying the process of seeking suitable or ideal people for a determined task.
2) Allows to ask the crowd help find the solutions to certain problems. Amongst the crowd could be people that have the necessary special skills or knowledge, and depending on the nature of the cause, help could even arrive without a price tag.
3) Crowdsourcing is a way to acumulate and organize knowledge from different sources. It allows to make massive compilations of information in a way that is easier to understand and ready to access for more people.
4) It functions as an efficient manner to gather opinions and feedback from virtually unlimited sources, helping to shape the initiative or project in concern.
Crowdsourcing can be used by governments, corporations, any sorts of groups or associations, and even individuals. Kickstarter (crowdfunding) is a site that demonstrates the crowsourcing working in practice. It presents to the public an enormous amount of projects initiated by groups or individuals, and the public decides which one of them to finance in order to see it become a reality. Sometimes there is a reward for the supporter, but in many cases peole give money without expecting something in return, they just do it just because they subscribe to the cause and want it to happen. Another great example of crowdsourcing in action is Wikipedia (gathering, distribuion and access of knowledge), the largest encyclopedia in the history of the world, and it's free! The users can create, edit and discuss articles about almost anything, and the result is a massive source of universal knowledge compiled and constatly updated for everyone to access. Millions of people contribute daily to keep this site operating. The reliability of the content on this site is gradually rising, to the point that is comparable to other encyclopedias such as the Britannica, which is extremely expensive and not everyone has access to it, plus with dozens if not hundreds of times the amount of information.
The most important aspect of crowdsourcing is the values it is based upon. It recognizes that the capacities of the individual are very limited compared to those of the collective. After all, every individual is or has been part of a commune or group that shaped his/her worldview. There have been many achivements made by individuals, but even those wouldn't have been possible if those individuals hadn't have the exposure to the collective knowledge and the work made by others. As Isaac Newton once said: If I have seen further it's because I stood in the shoulders of giants.
Working together as a unity, sharing our knowledge and skills and cooperatively tracing the lines to a better future, we could rise civilization to state never imagined by our ancestors. Switching from competition to cooperation, from charity to solidarity and hierachy to horizontal relations, we could entirely change the face of humanity, and crowdsourcing is a magnificent way to start. We must learn to trust others, and be trustworthy to others too.
