crowdsourcing

Since we’re about to jump into 2010 (that’s “twenty ten,” everyone), I wanted to ring in the new year with something that will hopefully kick start your collaborative efforts. This is a guest post from Shevonne Polastre, who wrote this article on behalf of TopHost.Gr, a Greek web host that offers shared hosting.

Crowdsourcing has become more and more popular with private companies, non-profit organizations, and even government agencies. It’s a model that is based on many people contributing to an idea, product, or service that would have usually been done by one person. Crowdsourcing has become increasingly more widely used because it helps cultivate creativity and innovation. There are three main reasons why this model works:

1. Crowdsourcing builds competition – In an environment where one person is the one having the power to build something, mediocrity is usually the final result. When you have a group of people submitting their work, there is an awareness that it isn’t just one idea that will work, so the result is a higher quality of work. As they saying goes, competition breeds excellence.