Leveraging the Collective Intelligence and Effort of Digital Crowds

October 31, 2015

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. 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 (136)

Spacehive: Crowdfunding Civic Projects in Great Britain
guillermop
Last modified on October 28, 2015 at 5:43 pm
Spacehive democratizes urban planning by funding projects directly through the crowd.
General Mills Crowdsourcing – Will they pull it off?
Savage
Last modified on October 29, 2015 at 10:35 pm
General Mills - One of the largest branded food manufacturers in the USA is turning to crowdsourcing for everything from new products, packaging to process improvements. Are they trying to do too much? Will emerging food entrepreneurs partner with them [...]
50% + 1 Rule
AlonKremer
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 11:37 pm
Successful professional sports team are no longer solely owned by one wealthy individual. The 50%+1 rule is the perfect fan-owned team model that creates both high revenue and fan engagement.
Quirky to a Fault
Clay W
Last modified on November 3, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Quirky was the crowdsourcing innovation platform of the future, until it wasn't
Waze, or how to crowd-source your way
europeanfederalist
Last modified on October 30, 2015 at 1:31 am
From a modest Israeli start-up to one of the highest valuation during its acquisition by Google, Waze embodies the success of crowdsourcing ventures, and allows for a much cheaper method of data collection than that used by major corporations - [...]
VerbalizeIt – Emerging from Failure
Ola
Posted on October 30, 2015 at 5:45 pm
How human powered translation on the go is emerging from failure
Think It Up: Reimagining School Funding to be Driven by the Students
Grace
Posted on October 29, 2015 at 5:52 pm
School project funding now driven by student's ideas at ThinkItUp.org and powered by DonorsChoose.org.
Minted: Using the Crowd to Define Good Design
SDS
Last modified on October 31, 2015 at 11:10 am
Minted is re-imagining the online marketplace model by using crowdsourcing to curate its collection of designs
Goodbye Cable: One Snap at at Time
Chrisoula Kapelonis
Last modified on November 1, 2015 at 9:54 pm
How Snapchat is revolutionizing the way we consume media Within the crowds of any event, it has become the norm to see a barrage of cell phones, serving as the second eyes, aggressively capturing the spectacle that is at hand. [...]
Street Bump: Crowdsourcing Better Streets, but Many Roadblocks Remain
CEA
Posted on October 30, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Boston's Street Bump is an interesting effort at leveraging the collective intelligence of the crowd to improve road conditions but still faces many challenges in creating measurable value for and incentivizing users.
Lime Crime: Leveraging the Crowds for “Makeup for Unicorns”
Nazli O
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 11:43 pm
Lime Crime is an indie, cruelty free makeup brand created by the eccentric Doe Deere, a self-proclaimed misfit and a fan of 90s inspired grunge makeup. The company is best known for the innovative, trend setting and non-traditional color scheme of their [...]
Facebook – Crowd-sourced translation
RS
Last modified on October 28, 2015 at 8:06 pm
How Facebook used crowdsourced translation to spur international growth
SoFi: Crowdfunding Student Debt
AP
Last modified on October 30, 2015 at 7:54 pm
SoFi is a non-bank lender leveraging crowdfunding to transform student loan markets
Crowdsourcing Healthcare
s
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 6:04 pm
The online physician social networking platform, SERMO, may have the potential to solve some of healthcare's trickiest problems. But, can it break into the current models of care?
Oscar: Flirting with behavioral risk based pricing strategies
Andrea MF
Posted on October 29, 2015 at 7:06 pm
Introducing data collection through emerging technologies to innovate in the heavily regulated space of insurance companies
Assembling a great team by asking fans who they want to see
Oded
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 8:28 pm
Professional sport teams can improve their rosters by crowdsourcing ideas from their fan base.
Hype Machine: The Crowd-Sourced Music Blog
CSS
Posted on October 27, 2015 at 8:13 am
Founded in 2005, Hype Machine sources music through a hand-picked catalogue of music blogs from around the world.
Increasing flight safety using crowds
BS
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 11:48 pm
Aviation has long used crowds to increase flight safety in the form of the pilot report, or PIREP. Digital transformation combined with a renewed commitment to the crowd could further reduce in-air risk and even save lives.
Foldit – Solving Puzzles for Science
Tikola Nesla
Posted on October 27, 2015 at 9:31 pm
Foldit’s innovative approach solves the age old issue that science needs more people. Foldit has gamified protein folding so that anyone, not just scientists, can cure diseases.
Audiodraft: Crowdsourcing music skips a beat
uilc
Posted on October 31, 2015 at 6:05 pm
Audiodraft is a crowdsourcing platform where anyone can pay for custom music through contests or commission.  The target customer turned out to be advertising agencies who would run contests so that various unknown or known artists could bid on projects [...]
CrowdMed – using crowds for clinical diagnostics
HF
Last modified on November 3, 2015 at 3:00 pm
CrowdMed uses the knowledge of thousands of "experts" to solve difficult medical cases
Our community gives a Hoot
Becky D
Last modified on November 3, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Hootsuite leverages its loyal online community to crowdsource customer support, in turn reducing internal support costs.
Quora: Crowdsourced Answers
Anndrea Moore
Posted on December 8, 2015 at 8:03 am
“a place to get answers, to share what you know, to read, and to think” Quora is a website that allows users to anonymously post questions on a variety of topics and receive answers from anyone. The best answers are [...]
Crowdstorming the Hyperloop: JumpStartFund, HTT, and SpaceX
(Wo)Man in the Arena
Last modified on October 31, 2015 at 8:32 pm
By reaching to the crowd- for crowdstorming in early stages, crowdsourcing in middle stages, and crowdfunding in all stages- HTT, SpaceX, and friends can bring a seemingly unreachable technology to the masses.
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