Crowdsourcing in a time of crisis
Hello and welcome, for those tuning in now, i am all about modern conversations of the millennial mind, welcome to ISLA Talks. This weeks topic is Crowdsourcing and admittingly i did not realise the depth of this topic or it’s importance until i started researching…
Crowdsourcing in the 21st century is essential for businesses and organisations to gather information from the public and change the the evolving landscape of information and communication technology (ICT)to adapt to innovation and ideas, ways to strengthen businesses and serve as an essential tool in times of crisis like never before.
What is crowdsourcing ?
Crowdsourcing is a globalised method of outsourcing information, opinions and work from undefined groups, public members and digital communities. The difference between crowdsourcing and outsourcing is that outsourcing is to gather information for a specific entity and crowdsourcing operates at a much broader scale. Digital communities are the main contributor to modern crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing operates online to unify globalised members of society to achieve a common goal or collaboration.
Crowdsourcing comes in many different forms, I have listed just some of the benefits of using crowdfunding below:
Crowdfunding |
Crowdfunding is successful because of its global reach to consumers to engage and contribute to products or ideas they believe have potential for success. Kickstarter, Go Fund Me & Indie GOGO are commonly used crowdfunding platforms. Reto3D is just one example of a successful crowdfunding campaign, Reto3D is a film camera with three lenses to create a 3D effect. This product raised 1 million dollars through kickstarter and is selling in hot demand. Check out the video below to see the camera!
Another successful campaign was created a couple of years ago a man called Zachary Danger Brown literally raised $55,000 on kickstarter to make a potato salad….. A potato salad….
Collaboration |
Collaboration is at the heart of crowdsourcing, with many businesses collaborating through crowdsourced communities to complete work, this can include web and graphic design and film making as examples. Businesses save money by crowdsourcing because they can avoid hiring people for a year long contract, when work can be crowdsourced when needed.
Innovation |
Crowdsourcing can contribute new ideas, innovations and information that can contribute to change. An example of this is Amazon video use crowdsourcing to create content that consumers want by crowdsourcing information, scripts and concepts in order to create a successful product with maximised engagement.
Crisis Response & Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a fundamental aspect to create an understanding around global crisis response and also serves as an essential element to prevent potential risks of natural disasters. Global connectivity and crowdsourcing amongst scientists, geologists and biologists can be used to uncover vital information and be used for crisis mapping.
Crisis mapping can uncover how a crisis unfolded, situational awareness, emergency response and prevent a crisis from happening. Crisis mapping is often linked to geological and geographical systems, that can be predictive of potential earthquakes, floods, fires and other natural disasters. Another aspect of crisis mapping is crisis management by gathering information from communities and cultures to understand society as a whole and prevent potential human caused crisis such as terrorism.
Crowdsourcing in times of crisis has become prelevant in the COVID-19 pandemic with healthcare officials globally crowdsourcing vital information to form collective intelligence around the pandemic.
COVIDsurg collaborative is a crowdsourcing agency that networks a total of 122 countries in efforts to study the impacts of surgery for COVID and Cancer patients and the impact of potential delayed cancer surgeries due to COVID-19.
By using crowdsourcing, we can gain greater insights, deeper engagement with businesses and organisations, we can innovate, we can create, we can collaborate!
Stay tuned for more next week on Public Health & Campaigns
Xoxo ISLA TALKS
References
Australian Civil Military Centre. 2019. Crowdsourcing and Crisis Mapping in Complex Emergencies. [online] Available at: <https://www.acmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-02/Crowdsourcing%20and%20Crisis%20Mapping_Final_ISBN.pdf> [Accessed 7 September 2021].
Danger Brown, Z., 2016. Potato Salad. [online] Kickstarter. Available at: <https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zackdangerbrown/potato-salad> [Accessed 7 September 2021].
Globalsurg.org. 2021. CovidSurg – Globalsurg. [online] Available at: <https://globalsurg.org/covidsurg/> [Accessed 3 September 2021].
Hardgrave, M., 2021. How Crowdsourcing Works. [online] Investopedia. Available at: <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp#:~:text=Crowdsourcing%20is%20the%20collection%20of,from%20all%20over%20the%20world.> [Accessed 3 September 2021].
Kaul, P. and Garg, P., 2021. Crowdsourcing and global collaboration during COVID‐19 pandemic: A silver lining. Journal of Surgical Oncology, [online] 123(5), pp.1204-1205. Available at: <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jso.26417> [Accessed 3 September 2021].
Kickstarter. 2019. Wiggle The Moment : 3D Film Camera by RETO3D. [online] Available at: <https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/reto3d/wiggle-the-moment-3d-film-camera-by-reto> [Accessed 9 September 2021].
Padoa, C., 2012. Outsourcing To Crowdsourcing. [online] Business2community. Available at: <https://www.business2community.com/social-business/outsourcing-to-crowdsourcing-0230071> [Accessed 11 September 2021].
RETO 3d Camera. 2021. [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjQuhxrgko: FilmNeverDie Asia.