Crowd Creation

Introduction

In the modern world, crowds are increasingly becoming an essential partner of choice in matters involving research and innovation. The concept of crowd creation/crowdsourcing is frequently employed in the business world, whereby companies like Apple Inc.are turning to a large number of distributors and users across the world to compel its growth as a tech company (Lakhani and Boudreau, 2013).Another common example of an institution that has used the ideology of crowd creation is the University of Washington whereby biologists at the institutionsapplied crowds of external contributors as a mechanism of map[ping out the structure of an AIDS-related virus that had puzzled academicians and experts within the industry for over fifteen years (Lakhani and Boudreau, 2013). The current research has directed its effort at investigating how crowdsourcing has been introduced to the public sector as a strategy of speeding up the timelines of projects, reducing the costs of projects in addition to tapping on crowd creativity and intelligence in engaging the members of the public at different levels of government processes (Chittilappilly et al., 2016). This paperuses the case study of Apple Company to aims at investigating the influence of crowdsourcing on the private sector by examining the degree to which it is becoming more attractive to the private sector.

Definition and Scope of Crowdsourcing

Since the advent of the internet, companies have been relying on the internet to organize groups of people to increase the participation of individuals in cooperative projects. Crowd creation or crowdsourcing refers to the process by which a company harnesses crowds in cultivating new volunteers, gathering information in addition to leveraging crowds to increase the awareness of its products and services (Howe, 2006). At its core, crowd creation involves the process by which a company implores content contribution, new information, new ideas, and services from a broad community, specifically the online community, to spur its innovation process (Howe, 2006).Since the advent of the internet, both the private sector and the public sector have solicited and organized small groups of people aimed at increasing the awareness of a company’s products or services. With the diffusion of the internet, the concept of crowdsourcing has become famous around the globe, with most companies, especially mobile communications and tech companies, are employing it to support its marketing strategies.

The concept of crowd creation has enabled companies to assemble their online communities and use these communities to drive the advertising and marketing of their products. However, this process tends to consume a lot of the organization’s time since it is often complicated (Prakash et al., 2019). Due to the sophisticated nature of the crowdsourcing model, most approaches to crowd creation tend to encompass the diffident amount of direction such as providing the clients with FAQ pages ton which the consumers provide feedback as well as refer the company to potential new customers which (Mansor et al., 2018). On the other hand, most companies within the tech and electronics industry use a different approach in which they make the process a notch higher by establishing information technology systems that function to support the interactions between clients in addition to seeking the firm’s responses.  For instance, in the United States, the Verizon telecommunication corporation depends heavily on its online community to help the users in addressing each other’s technical issues..

Similarly, Facebook used crowdsourcing, whereby it relied on its online user community in developing a program that translated its site into various languages (Mansor et al., 2018). Alongside Verizon and Facebook, other companies within the private sector have recently shown their dependence on crowdsourcing to reach incredible innovation heights. The Danish toy firm-Lego is currently working with its community of fans in developing new product designs for its toys. Consequently, throughout history, the public sector has engaged the members of the society in projects as an initiative of speeding the projects’ timelines and reduce the costs of the project(Howe, 2006). Nonetheless, the crowd creation strategy is currently being implemented in the private sector with companies such as Apple, Verizon, and Lego using the model to compel their inno0vation processes.

Case Study: Application of Crowds Sourcing at T-Mobile Company

Apple Inc. was founded in the year 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who were college dropouts. The fundamental factor that drove the two to establish the Apple Company was the desire to develop user-friendly computers(Khan et al., 2015). Over the years, the company has been renowned not only for the production of high-end gadgets but also attracted and retained a talented and result-oriented workforce due to its practical training and performance management system. In addition, Apple boosts a considerable competitive edge and a loyal customer base over other companies since its employees are highly motivated and committed towards a shared purpose. (Khan et al., 2015). However, throughout the last decade, the company has been recognized for its implementation of the crowdsourcing strategy as a means of enhancing its innovation and new product designs.

Apple has recognized the idea that the crowd creation model has existed for several decades, but few companies in the private sectors are yet to tap its benefits. Jarczyk (2015) states that, over the last decade, techniques for collaboration, design, and development have radically changed in a way that they are becoming more sophisticated, robust, and more comfortable to apply. Virtually, the growth of Apple’s online presence has compelled its need to use a crowd creation strategy to improve its R&D (Research and Development) strategy as well as innovation processes. The company employs different methods of crowdsourcing, including crowd complementors, crowd contests, and collaborative crowd communities. These methods have played a vital role in helping Apple Inc., utilize its crowdsourcing platforms(Jarczyk, 2015). The corporation has successfully reinvigorated through incentive systems and redeployed crowds throughout its intermittentstream and issues, thereby making the crowd a fixed institution that is continuously available on demand.

Crowd Complementors

Crowd complementors refers to a form of crowd-powered innovation. This method has enabled Apple Inc.to advertise and markets its services and products that are developed alongwith the company’s technological innovation(Bergvall-Kåreborn & Howcroft, 2013).Crowd complementors have effectively transformed the firm’s products into an avenue that serves to generate complementary innovations by the company. For example, the company systematized iTunes around the corporation’s primary devices; the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPodinnovate (Tu & Kandangath, 2017). Subsequently, the iTunes innovation allowed several geographically dispersed software developers to produce an incredible range of product innovation, including user-generated podcasts and software that were aimed at improving the users’ experiences with the products.

Crowd Contests

According to Schenk& Guittard(2011), crowd contests entail strategies by a company to create contests. The initial step of creating the contests involves the corporation or the sponsor identifying certain problems and offers a platform for the users to submit solutions to the issues, broadcasts, or offer cash prizes to the winners who solve the problems successfully. Throughout history, technology and electronics companies have become innovated through crowd contests in which they crack challenging technological and scientific puzzles. Considerably, crowd contests are typically effective when it not apparent of the blend of expertise, talent, or skill or the technicalprocedures that could culminate in the best solutions to the problems. In other words, administering crowd contests has proved to be an effective approach in demonstrating variations in the possible result. When the problem of product designs faced Apple, it sought the services of Tongal-a renowned context platforms, which has proven to be an effective platform for firms experiencing design challenges (Whitla, 2019). Nonetheless, while running the crowdsourcing contest, Apple Inc. faced the challenge of identifying the problem that was of priority and which were significant enough to allow a devotedexperimentation process.

Crowd Collaborative Communities

Finally, Apple Inc. also employs a collaborative crown communities approach to support its innovation processes. In contrast to crowd contests that aim atmaximizing diverse experiments and separating contribution, the collaborative crowd technique represents small online communities that are assembled to gather and arrange the outputs of various contributors in addition to aggregating them into a lucid“value-creating whole” (Schenk& Guittard,2011). Through this initiative, Apple Company has been able to assemble communities of users via the internet in which they rely on the feedback of the clients to adjust their innovation processes in order to meet the dynamic needs of the customers. Furthermore, Apple has implemented the strategy to developpodcasts and applications that aim at enhancing its services and products.

Conclusion

                        The concept of crowd creation has, over the years, been implemented to the public sector as a strategy of speeding up the timelines of projects, reducing the costs of projects in addition to tapping on crowd creativity and intelligence in engaging the members of the public at different levels of government processes.Today, the concept is increasingly being applied to businesses within the private sector, which has enabled the organization to assemble their online communities and use these communities to drive the advertising and marketing of their products. However, this process tends to consume a lot of the organization’s time since it is often complicated.

References

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