Crowdsourcing Lessons

Four lessons for an opensouring strategy - -

1. Get Ideas Out Early - - Too much polish leads contributors to simply vote yea or nay rather than engage in dialogue that generates true insight.
2. Share The Raw Data - - Contributors may see different patterns in the data or do their own analyses, leading to big "ahas."
3. Give People Time - - Engage contributors at various points, allowing time for reflection. Tight deadlines don't respect their time constraints and inhibit dialogue.
4. Recognize When A Crowd Is Just A Crowd - - Contributors can help on many strategy issues, but some - - such as resource allocation trade-offs - - benefit from C-suite engagement.