What exactly is Crowdsourcing?
The original idea is genius in its simplicity: Crowdsourcing, a neologism, which combines the terms crowd and outsourcing implies that not only one person but a whole group of people ‘the crowd’ are asked to perform a certain task or develop ideas over the internet. The concept, which is also called swarm intelligence, is based on the belief that a group of people is smarter and more creative than a single person. To reach this kind of crowd online communities are the most useful tools. These communities are regularly frequented by like-minded people with similar interests, talents, desires and ideas. This relates directly to the classic principle of division of labor – but it even goes a step further: Everyone can join, it doesn’t matter if the person is a beginner or amateur. Actually it is often the case that the non-experts are the ones who are extremely knowledgeable in certain specialized fields. People from completely different backgrounds often have completely new ideas and become very valuable in giving innovative new impulses.
Revolution of work
Crowdsourcing is much bigger and offers even more. By now it is not only about finding a great idea together but to create a new form of work.
Henry Ford showed in the 1920s how it works. He broke down production processes into small procedures and had these performed on the conveyer belt. Next he put these pieces back together and was extremely successful with the final product, which was not only cheaper but also better than before. With so-called micro tasks crowd sourcing achieves exactly the same. Large projects can be broken down into very small pieces and these are distributed to the crowd. Today unlike in the 1920s you can do this virtually. This new form of crowd sourcing is in a way the invention of the conveyor belt 2.0., the digital assembly line of the computer age. Thanks to the digital revolution tasks can be efficiently performed at a fraction of time and cost. Convinced?
We are convinced. We believe that Crowdsourcing like Henry Ford’s conveyer belt will revolutionize the work environment. Therefore we chose Crowdsourcing as our main focus. Here a number of examples from our portfolio.
Crowdguru GmbH based in Berlin concentrates exclusively on micro tasking within minutes. Thousands of so called gurus execute the tasks of our customers which have been broken down into very small components. They research address data, tag images, update data bases, transcribe audio files, write descriptions or optimize the presentation and search engine exposure of products (SEO texts). These tasks that would have taken months in the past can be executed within no time by the gurus. This and the reduced cost - up to 80% reductions - are a real advantage for our customers. And the results are clearly better than if only one person had taken on these tasks.
expertcloud.de operates a virtual call center, which thanks to a highly qualified pool of freelance agents can react flexibly to the needs of their customers. This way volatile tasks can be executed by especially trained experts at short notice eliminating potential over or under capacities. The experts have excellent sales skills and are supported by their supervisors. The expertcloud concept is especially aimed at fast growing companies and companies that want to focus on their core competences and look for a tailored and cost efficient customer service or companies that want to expand their outbound sales.