Crowdsourcing For Dummies

Chapter 11

Instructing the Crowd

In This Chapter

Writing a clear statement of work

Putting together easy-to-follow instructions

Taking feedback on board

When it comes to management and communication, crowdsourcing requires a careful and thorough approach. Unlike on the traditional shop floor or in an office complex, all your interaction with the crowd passes through information technology, and the process strips away lots of useful knowledge. You can’t stop at someone’s desk to see how she’s doing or observe a work team making its plans. You have to gather all your information and give all your direction through technological means.

Crowds may be intelligent, but they don’t always have a direction. And when they do have a direction, they may not be going down the right path for you. Crowdsourcing isn’t magical. You can’t simply make some vague statement of a goal and expect the crowd to find an elegant and useful solution. From time to time, someone makes a brief communication to a crowd and wonderful things happen. Such events, however, are rare.

So to guide the crowd well, you need to master the skill of communicating with words, of using structure to direct activity, and of ...