We’re on a roll. Last week “open innovation” went mainstream (see the Wall Street Journal article entitled “Netflix Prize A “Turning Point” For Open Innovation“). This week “crowdsourcing” made prime time and touched off a hot debate.
Yesterday, crowdsourcing starred in the popular network TV show “House M.D.” Apparently, the quirky Dr. House – known for his uncanny ability to diagnose unusual diseases – quit his job. Without House, the doctors struggled to diagnose a computer savvy patient’s ailment. Frustrated, the plugged-in patient offered $25,000 to anyone online able to correctly diagnose his problem. As always, the case got cracked – this time by crowdsourcing. And, it turns out House (the great expert) made the diagnosis and collected the prize money.
The Forbes article by Dan Woods, “The Myth of Crowdsourcing“, touched off an online backlash. The headline, which implies that crowdsourcing is over-hyped, really deserves credit for riling readers. It also made something out Woods’ weak semantic beef with the word crowdsourcing. He is afraid the word crowdsourcing has created an illusion that crowds solve problems better than individuals.
Woods opens his case with kudos to the Netflix Prize, stating it was “rightly heralded as a victory for crowdsourcing.” He then sets out to expose a non-existent “myth”, informing us that its actually uniquely talented, highly trained, virtuosos who make open innovation projects (e.g. Netflix Prize, Wikipedia, and Linux) work, not “the crowd.” Is this news to anyone? Has there ever been a myth that everyone in “the crowd” contributes equally to invent winning Netflix algorithms, obscure Wikipedia articles, and the like?
