Get the world to work for you

effort, you’d be benefiting from the abilities of one person. And how can we be sure that the selected designer’s performance in this assignment would be as good as their past work?

get the winning designer to complete the assignment.

In this column, we have discussed a number of common Web applications including social networks, e-learning, personal money management and communication. Here, I am going to introduce you to a compelling concept (and its application on the Internet). This concept is “crowd-sourcing” - it can be especially useful to those readers who are businessowners or those who frequently hire people providing creative, design and technology services.

Wikipedia defines crowd-sourcing as “... taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call.”

Let me illustrate how it works by taking an example.

Let’s assume that you have decided to revamp the logo of your business. As we know, designing a good logo requires the services of a good designer. You want to get it right because it is the most prominent symbol of your business.

The traditional option is to look around for a graphic designer - check out Yellow Pages or ask for recommendations, then get quotes, short-list, select and award your project to the selected one. After all this

Let’s check out the crowd-sourcing option with the help of DesignBay www.designbay.com– a graphic design marketplace that brings together designers and people who need them. You will register as a business on this website, specify clearly what you need, your preferences, deadlines, and importantly, what you will give back as reward. This is your open call. Wait for designers to submit their proposals including their ideas and initial work. The higher the reward you offer to the selected designer and more interesting the work, the larger the number of proposals that will come your way. For a typical logo design assignment with a reward of $500, you may attract more than 100 designs in a week. Shortlist, select and

Sourcing from the crowd works particularly well for projects of medium complexity that requires a dose of creativity. It should ideally be completed as a discrete, independent assignment. If it’s too simple and mundane, you may be better off completing it with casual labour. If too complex, confidential or dependent on internal information, you may not be able to articulate it well in an open call.

Logo and graphic design, programming, photos, voice-overs and copywriting lend to crowd-sourcing easily.

Internet has made crowd-sourcing quick, easy and accessible but as a concept, it has been around for a long time.

In 1956, the NSW Government made an international open call to architects for design of two performance halls – one for opera and another for symphony concerts. An international panel of judges examined

A LIST OF CROWD-SOURCING WEB SITES

Task / industry Web site

Graphic, logo and web design DesignBay (www.designbay.com) 99Designs (www.99designs.com)

Photos, images iStockPhoto (www.istockphoto.com)

Copywriting NameThis (www.namethis.com)

Programming TopCoder (www.topcoder.com), RentACoder (www.rentacoder.com)

Voice-acting Voice123 (www.voice123.com)

Fashion Threadless (www.threadless.com)

Freelance in a range of areas eLance (www.elance.com) more than 200 entries that arrived and the winning entry was reputedly rescued from a pile of rejected ones. As a result, Jorn Utzon was commissioned as the sole architect who went on to build the Sydney Opera House – today a world icon.

What was limited to governments and corporations with budgets running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, is now accessible to everyone and for tasks that may be worth just a couple of hundreds. It can help tap a wider range of talent to work on your assignments.

A few dos and don’ts though: Use a large and established community. A large number of providers must see and respond for you to benefit from the wisdom of the crowds. Give a lot of information and engage during the process by quickly responding to questions and clarifications.

Most websites allow providers and buyers to engage in the process. Spend the entire budget, don’t hold back. Keep in mind that confidentiality is not possible and don’t expect it.

References to explore further Crowd-sourcing can be daunting but it may be worth trying out. A few books and blogs that may help you learn more:

• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott

• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Suroweicki

• Blog: http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/ cs/