Crowdsourcing And Expertsourcing: Evolution or Revolution?

11/3/2010 | blur Group, crowdsourcing | James | 7 Comments

Expertsourcing. Yup, that’s another term to add to your mental back catalogue of fancy words to use at a marketing job interview.

What is expertsourcing you say? I’ll leave it to Rick Liebling, the author of Eyecube, to explain…

“Expertsourcing is a sub-category of crowdsourcing where the goal is to aggregate a wide range of individuals who are experts in their fields, rather than just a ‘come one, come all’ herd of people who have come to the party perhaps with nothing really worthwhile to contribute. Is there really much value in the thirty-fifth, seventieth or hundreth extra logo concept that was just slapped together by someone with no training?”

Well no, perhaps not. Not unless one of the said concepts was really, really good. Anyway-

“With expertsourcing you’re looking to get a group that ideally has little overlapping skills or knowledge. The more diverse the better, the more esoteric the better. For a brand, utilizing this sort of talent to create a new ad for beef jerky is a waste. You’ve got to think bigger. You have to challenge them with a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). Reinvent the education system; create a downtown with only bike traffic; create a better system of government!”

Liebling is seemingly an advocate of the cliché, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.’ Especially if the Michelin-star Sous-chef is barged out of the way by a dozen barbecue experts, intent on char-grilling everything in sight. But what if the fourteenth person to lend their ‘expertise’ was a grandmother, ready to unleash her secret family recipe on the rest of the world? Not an ‘expert’ in the traditional sense and unlikely to be the catalyst for a groundbreaking solution to third-world malnutrition, but she may be the difference to the Sous-chef’s Michelin-star count.

Raj Sheelvant, the author of the IT Strategy blog, offered his take on the future of  Crowdsourcing and expertsourcing two and a half years ago. He says:

“If the idea is evolutionary, then crowd sourcing is just fine. If the idea is revolutionary then expert sourcing is a must.”

On first viewing, Liebling and Sheelvant appear in agreement of the limitations of Crowdsourcing and the importance of expertsourcing. Yet the distinguishing point of Sheelvant’s argument goes deeper – experts are essential – but the experts no longer exist solely through the traditional sources of academia and media.

“Experts who live in the ‘ivory tower’ will be surprised to find innovative solutions will be presented at a much faster rate from the people who are in the trenches. They not only possess hands on knowledge on solving the problem, but the technology has provided them a platform to broadcast their views globally.”

So in other words, unlike Grandpa (see previous blog post), Grandma has learnt to turn on a computer, negotiated her way through the internet, and being a resourceful sort of lady, uncovered the wide variety of online crowds that provide the best marketing stage to present her  home-made wares to the world.

blur Group may well be a team of expertsourcers in one sense, as the company forms networks of expertise, and offers a wide a variety of creative products and services in a number of different fields. The rummaging through the crowd is done in-house- clients are linked with the experts, and the very ‘esoteric’ individuals that Liebling claims vital are found.

It is important not to ignore the wider crowd- the likes of Grandma. She may not have all the answers or a revolutionary master plan, but her own expertise – grouped together with others from the crowd – may hold a lot of answers to a number of smaller problems that push down the barriers standing in the way of important change. To find her kind, expertsourcers need to search through the crowd.

Easy in theory- but  tough to execute.

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Comments
  • http://www.rickliebling.com/ Rick Liebling

    Hi James, thanks for making me part of the discussion here. It's no doubt a complicated and nuanced issue. I was at a tremendous event last night at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where some very smart people – John Winsor of Victors & Spoils, Ric Grefe, Executive Dir. of AIGA, and Chris Clarke of LBi among others – and much of this was discussed and debated.

    I guess it becomes a signal to noise ration issue. Could grandma's recipe be the answer? Sure, but how many poorly conceived or derivitive conconctions does the chef have to sift through to find grandma's gem?

    My point is, if you want to simply engage consumers, then it doesn't matter particularly who enters a recipe. But if you are truly trying to create a new dining experience, then I'm not convinced an open call for entries is the best way to move forward.

    Can great ideas come from anywhere? We have to allow for that possibility, and that experience and even perhaps expertise can be derived from sources other than academia. But in reality we need to look at context. To use your analogy, the chef looking for a special ingredient isn't looking for just any special ingredient. It has to work within the context of a host of factors – cuisine, locally sourced ingredients, etc. As you begin to sort through these filters it becomes less and less likely that a random connection between grandma and Chef Pierre is going to happen. I think grandma's recipe works a lot better for the locally owned restaurant where there can be a meaningful connection between both parties. Impossible at the larger level, no, but difficult within available (time) resources.

  • james_michael

    Hi Rick, thanks for taking the time to comment on my blog post. In many ways I think we are in agreement here, although perhaps my point got slightly lost in the analogy of grandma’s recipe!

    Here at blur Group, we work in focused Crowdsourcing, which I suppose is effectively a form of Expertsourcing as well. We have a wide crowd of talented individuals from a range of industry fields (designers, artists, writers, marketers, entrepreneurs) and we keep each focus crowd separate. Clients approach blur to ask us to search our crowd to identify and match them with the individuals. The crowd is filtered into appropriate marketplace communities, in order to identify the best-suited individuals who match the required profile of the client’s specification.

    So for instance, if hypothetical Chef Pierre was a client looking to change his dining experience, we could source our filtered, specialist communities to try and build a team of individuals to work on his project. If grandma was part of our crowd filtered community, prospectively she could be included in the composition of the team. While her contribution would be based in her niche speciality (an entrepreneur of recipe ideas?), seven others would work on the pr campaign, marketing campaign, design brief and other particulars that the client requests.

    A search through a crowd of millions of ideas would be an inefficient waste of time, and you’re right, finding grandma’s gem amongst the dross would be quite remote. What we hope we can provide at blur Group is a systematic identification process that clients can dip into, knowing that each member has a proven level of expertise in their particular field.

    James

  • http://www.rickliebling.com/ Rick Liebling

    Right. So I started getting worried for a moment because it sounded like you were just an employment service. Client needs a designer, blur introduces client to a designer.

    Where, I think, your added value is, is in the understanding of the client's needs and matching them up with a very specific designer whose style, skill/experience level matches the client's needs.

    Ok, I'm good with that.

    Cheers,

  • http://twitter.com/kyle_at_whinot Kyle Hawke

    Good article. My question is to Rick… I would have expected that “expertsourcing” would be best for very specific, technical questions rather than BHAGs (e.g. Reinvent the education system; create a downtown with only bike traffic; create a better system of government!). For those types of BHAGs you need ideation that is not bounded by the existing system.

    Experts, who know the nuts and bolts of the current system, will have a hard time breaking the mold / thinking outside of today's constraints to get the type of ideas that you need for your example BHAGs.

    What do you think?

  • http://www.rickliebling.com/ Rick Liebling

    Kyle, Gotcha, great point and an interesting one to consider. Quite honestly, at this point I'm engaged in about 5 different simultaneous crowdsourcing related conversations and I can't keep them all straight!

    I'll say this, “expert” can mean a lot of things. In some cases task-relevant experts are going to be the way to go. In other cases, and the BHAGS are a great example of this for the reasons you pointed out, experts from non-related fields can break through and provide new and unique perspectives.

    This whole topic continues to spark fantastic discussions, thanks for including me.

  • http://www.b-uncut.net/ Lawrence

    Another great post James.

    It appears Blur Group have got it covered, by dividing their crowds by specialism and appropriately regulating the influx of members is a sure fire way to have the right people in the right place at the right time.

    By having access to different specialist crowds under one blur umbrella allows a fluid connection between all the offered disciplines so that when a 'cocktail' brief comes in requiring a good mix, it can be comprehensively satisfied. Also plenty of opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas and solutions as well as a melting pot for new, dynamic collaborations forming crowds within crowds. Nice

  • http://www.b-uncut.net/ Lawrence

    Another great post James.

    It appears Blur Group have got it covered, by dividing their crowds by specialism and appropriately regulating the influx of members is a sure fire way to have the right people in the right place at the right time.

    By having access to different specialist crowds under one blur umbrella allows a fluid connection between all the offered disciplines so that when a 'cocktail' brief comes in requiring a good mix, it can be comprehensively satisfied. Also plenty of opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas and solutions as well as a melting pot for new, dynamic collaborations forming crowds within crowds. Nice


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