Crowdsourcing

We devote a few pages in the book to ‘crowdsourcing’, which we consider the most advanced form of collaboration between a business and its customers. With perfect timing, this month also sees the launch of Crowdsourcing: a book devoted to the topic, written appropriately by the journalist who came up with the phrase in the first place, Jeff Howe. Check out Jeff’s blog for more details.  He has also put together a good video (far slicker than ours) …

 
Whilst the phrase crowdsourcing may be relatively new -and Howe is able to argue persuasively that it has transformed many industries – credit should also be given to Alvin Toffler, whose book, The Third Wave, written in 1980, was already anticipating the emergence of ‘prosumers’, who would eventually become co-creators, involved in both product design and production.