In 2006, Jeff Howe, a writer at Wired magazine, came up with a new concept for the Internet and he called it Crowdsourcing. He defined Crowdsourcing as the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call. Crowdsourcing [...]

The UK Coalitions first major Crowdsourcing initiative ‘Your Freedom’ seems to have hit a snag. What started out as a cool programme to Crowdsource UK voters views on amending or abolishing red tape has turned into a PR embarrassment. You see, it seems that no government department wants to listen to the suggestions.

Crowdsourcing harnesses the power of collective thinking and doing to solve problems – often big problems. Crowdsourcing and Cloud computing together deliver a new reality of burst-community and burst-computing. The US and UK governments are actively adopting Crowdsourcing to change the way in which citizens comment on and alter laws and regulation.

Clegg and Cameron are sipping their social media cocktail as we speak. The tall glasses and colourful umbrellas were popular enough to crash the Your Freedom’s website on opening day. But although the PR side has been enormously successful, does the government really understand how to turn inputs into real output?

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition government today announced a major Crowdsourcing initiative called Your Freedom. It’s a great start – assuming the public gets beyond their keyboard apathy. But what else could the coalition do?

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s UK Tory-Lib Dem coalition today unveiled a major Crowdsourcing initiative called ‘Your Freedom’. Nick Clegg announced on British TV and in the leading newspapers that this is the largest government Crowdsourcing programme to date. Really?