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Seth Godin helped popularize the crowdsorcing concept. For growing an online community, do you think crowdsorcing helps communities grow? I do think it does help but I do believe their should be designated ownership/s as well. What do you think?

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The term "crowdsourcing" (coined by Jeff Howe in 2006) describes shifting tasks to a distributed crowd to get ideas, solve problems or create content Crowdsourcing - Wikipedia. It can accelerate community growth by giving newcomers a visible, meaningful way to contribute. The thread already flags the right tradeoffs: ownership and project leadership (), IP and fair reward (), and contest-style models as one tactic (). Those concerns are the core design questions to resolve before launch.

Practical governance is essential. Assign a named project owner and a small core team up front, publish simple rules and selection criteria, and fix IP terms before inviting contributions. For reusable code or creative work, require an explicit contributor agreement or clear license grant so rights transfer is transparent Contributor License Agreement - Wikipedia. Avoid vague "we will own it" language that discourages quality contributors.

Keeping momentum means treating the campaign as an ongoing community process, not a one-off stunt. Seed early submissions from trusted members, break big asks into micro-tasks, give quick feedback, and publish progress updates. Mix incentive types: modest guaranteed payments, staged rewards, public recognition, and pipelines to paid gigs. Track simple KPIs (submission rate, retention at 30/90 days, quality pass rate) so adjustments are data-driven.

Checklist before going live:

  • designate project owner, moderators and decision criteria
  • publish short Terms of Participation and IP/licensing model
  • seed the crowd with initial content and set a clear timeline
  • use staged rewards and fast feedback loops to sustain activity
  • plan post-campaign follow-up to onboard top contributors into ongoing roles

When those elements are in place, crowdsourcing scales contribution and community together while protecting contributors and the organization — addressing the points raised by , and .

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Member Avatar for MktgRob

Seth Godin helped popularize the crowdsorcing concept. For growing an online community, do you think crowdsorcing helps communities grow? I do think it does help but I do believe their should be designated ownership/s as well. What do you think?

To be honest it is the first I heard of it (I tend to shy away from made up words, like frienemy!) but after seeing the graphic I totally get the concept. I think that crowdsourcing does work for building the communities, as in the case of Linkedin Groups. But when it comes to a specific solution to a company's problem I see some murkiness in how the graphic states that once the solution is discovered it becomes the property of the company. I think that the reward that is given to the solution creators would need to be somewhat substantial to prevent a claim of intellectual property over the claim of the company. Then again, it depends on what the problem was and what the solution was. Perhaps I went to deep in my analysis on this one.

Member Avatar for smrty

Don't see why not, they're already doing it with design ... what's that site? 58 designs (or something like that) they get a bunch of designers to do logo's and you pick the one you like.

Can't see why that wouldn't apply to all sorts of other knowledge based information gathering.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

My issue with crowdsorcing is that in the beginning, there is momentum and then it can fall through the cracks. I have seen this before and that is why I certainly believe someone has to take the ownership/project management role.

Member Avatar for MktgRob

My issue with crowdsorcing is that in the beginning, there is momentum and then it can fall through the cracks. I have seen this before and that is why I certainly believe someone has to take the ownership/project management role.

I would hope that someone takes ownership of the process otherwise the process is screwed. The best practice here should be naming a project owner before taking it to the crowd.

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