Crowdsourcing For Dummies - Paperback

by David Alan Grier (Author)

Give your business the edge with crowd-power

Crowdsourcing is an innovative way of outsourcing tasks, problems or requests to a group or community online. There are lots of ways business can use crowdsourcing to their advantage: be it crowdsourcing product ideas and development, design tasks, market research, testing, capturing or analyzing data, and even raising funds. It offers access to a wide pool of talent and ideas, and is an exciting way to engage the public with your business.

Crowdsourcing For Dummies is your plain-English guide to making crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and open innovation work for you. It gives step-by-step advice on how to plan, start and manage a crowdsourcing project, where to crowdsource, how to find the perfect audience, how best to motivate your crowd, and tips for troubleshooting.

Front Jacket

Learn how to harness people power for an unbeatable competitive edge!

Netflix used it to improve its ability to predict customers' movie ratings. L'Oreal used it to create a television advert for a tiny fraction of what it would've cost ordinarily. Dell used it to generate thousands of new product ideas and improvements. And now in Crowdsourcing For Dummies, David Alan Grier demonstrates how you can tap into the awesome power of the crowd. Discover how to use crowdsourcing to solve complex business problems and complete difficult tasks, supercharge innovation and new product development, build brand identity and boost productivity and profits.

• Hit the ground running - quickly get up to speed on basic crowdsourcing concepts and technologies and discover how to develop a surefire crowdsourcing strategy
• Know your options - find out about all forms of crowdsourcing, including crowdcontests, crowdfunding, macrotasking, microtasking and self-organised crowds
• Locate the best crowdsourcing platforms - know where to look for your crowd, identify the right audience and promote your project to them
• Manage your crowd with confidence - find out how to communicate with your crowd and keep them interested and motivated
• Keep the wheels spinning - learn how to manage the crowdsourcing process, and troubleshoot common problems
• Get in with the in-crowd - learn from ten of the best crowdsourcing success stories

Open the book and find:

• Ways to make crowdsourcing work for your business
• The lowdown on conducting market research and analysing data
• How to raise funds through a crowdfunding project
• Techniques for engaging people with your company or product
• Advice on designing tasks for your crowd to tackle
• Pointers for finding the perfect platform and audience
• How to keep your crowd motivated

Author Biography

David Alan Grier is a writer, teacher and consultant on labour, technology, communication and management. He is Associate Professor at George Washington University, where he teaches International Science and Technology Policy. He is also the 2013 President of the IEEE Computer Society.