Government’s Crowdsourcing Revolution

Merriam-Webster.com defines “crowdsourcing” as, “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.”  And according to a recent Governing.com article, it could be the next big thing in terms of creating public sector efficiencies. 

First used in the private sector, crowdsourcing is a way of approaching and solving complex problems.  It can be initiated by government agencies or by outside entities, like nonprofit organizations, to influence government.

Referencing an IBM Center for the Business of Government report, the article identifies the following four basic approaches to crowdsourcing:

1. knowledge discovery and management,
2. distributed human-intelligence tasking,
3. broadcast search, and
4. peer-vetted creative production.