Crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or do corporate R&D outside of traditional company walls. It is based on dispersing work across a global crowd of specialists who each contribute small chunks of time, which adds up significantly when combined across thousands of collaborators. Companies leverage the crowd's expertise by providing structure and organization, while letting users choose what works best through ratings and comments.

1. CROUDSOURCING & FREELANCE

2. Like outsourcing, crowdsourcing is a model that depends on work being done outside the traditional company walls, but while outsourcing is typically performed by lower paid professionals, crowdsourcing relies on a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D.

3. IT IS BASED ON the New Labour Pool 1. The crowd is dispersed. 2. The crowd has a short attention span. 3. The crowd is full of specialists. 4. The crowd produces mostly crap. 5. The crowd finds the best stuff.

4. Non-centralisation • Crowdsourcedlabour is spread around the globe • There is little or no hierarchy

5. Little individual time adds up to a lot of total time • Crowdsourcees do their work in tiny chunks, at their leisure • Efficient break-up of the workload is required for a project to be completed • Each “micro-chunk” might be negligible in terms of individual time (minutes to a few hours), but with thousands of collaborators, this adds up

6. The user is clever! • The principle behind crowdsourcing is that the users of a product are often more clever/knowledgeable/ professional/specialised than most of the employees of the company • The company provides structure and overall organisation; the crowdsourcees provide the know- how

7. Let the users choose! • An effective alternative is to let the users themselves select what works for them and what does not! • Ratings and comments tend to point users to the things “most liked” (or sometimes even the “best” things) • Companies can leverage on these methods to separate the wheat from the chaff

8. CONCLUSION • Key features of crowdsourcing — what it is and what it isn’t • Does this model work for every company? • What is the cost of changing to crowdsourcing (in terms of corporate culture and financial costs)?