There is a lot going on in this review of the a SXSW session on the “dark side of social media” and the participants are raising really interesting points of view, but I want to focus in on one particular passage:
In many cases, companies have persuaded people to complete simple tasks for no pay at all, instead offering recognition within the volunteer community or points in the guise of a game. Mr. Zittrain called it “a wonderful Tom Sawyer syndrome.”
Crowdsourcing is not the virtual equivalent of a sweatshop. In fact, the notion is so preposterous that I find it difficult to argue against the point without resorting to just calling it preposterous. Ooops, I did it.
Here’s the difference, no one who is benefiting from the effects of crowdsourcing initiatives is achieving those benefits from forcible coercion and exploitation. Crowdsourcing initiatives don’t impose demands on the participant and at any time the person contributing can simply stop without consequences. This was the case with me and Foursquare, I stopped checking in.
I do believe that one of the challenges that any group who is initiating a crowdsourcing project has is finding the right mix of incentives and rewards that create a sense of fairness for company and consumer alike. Badges alone are not enough, actual rewards go a long way to creating sustainable equity and companies would be well advised to consider this in advance.
[Cross-posted at Venture Chronicles]
In the same vein:
About Jeff Nolan
My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. What started, in 2002, as a simple initiative to understand this thing called “blogs” that I kept hearing about has evolved into something much more significant.
Home
About Venture Chronicles
About Venture Chronicles
My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. What started, in 2002, as a simple initiative to understand this thing called “blogs” that I kept hearing about has evolved into something much more significant.
Along the way to becoming a bona fide blogger I started to understand the implications of user generated content. At the time I was a venture capitalist for SAP, the enterprise software company, and in my travels in the enterprise software market it became evident that blogging would be a powerful communication channel for enterprises to use, what we now call social media, and a powerful information collection mechanism for bottom up corporate intelligence. Combined with search technology, social networking software, and wikis, I was witnessing the inception of an entirely new generation of knowledge management software.
I am currently the VP Product Marketing for Get Satisfaction, the simple and effective way to build online communities that enable productive conversations between companies and their customers. Over 50,000 companies use Get Satisfaction to create a social support experience, build better products, realize SEO benefits, and take advantage of brand loyalty behaviors that results in strong word of mouth marketing experiences in the market.
I can be reached at jnolan-at-gmail-dot-com.
