I wrote this as a guest post for the gang over at Chaordix who are doing some interesting things with crowdsourcing. Be sure to check out their blog, which has a lot of thought-provoking essays from a diverse group of authors.

Crowdsource has become one of those marketing buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot on blogs and in conference rooms. It’s the shiny new toy and everyone wants to play with it. That’s great, it is an exciting and potentially dynamic way to generate breakthrough ideas that will resonate with consumers. But the term is applied rather liberally to a wide variety of activities and executions.  Want a new logo for your brand? Crowdsource it! Want to engage consumers via a contest? That’s crowdsourcing!  Looking for new product innovations? That’s right, you guessed it, that’s crowdsourcing.

Now this is to be expected and comes with the territory. Until the marketing communications industry has had a couple more years to adjust to the opportunities that technology enables, crowdsourcing is going to be wielded more like a club than a scalpel. But hopefully agencies and brands will become more sophisticated and nuanced in their approach.  

When a brand invites customers to produce content and receive something – money, recognition, prizes – in return, that’s not crowdsourcing, that’s a contest. We’ve been doing that for years.

When a brand puts out a call to action to the freelance creative community (amateurs and pros) to create a new 30 second TV spot, that’s not  crowdsourcing, that’s a cattle call.

We have the ability to harness the skills, experiences and intellect of virtually anyone on the planet and the best brands can come up with is, “Hey everybody, what should the new flavor of our fizzy sugar water be?”?  Ok, I guess, but this seems like a missed opportunity, and that’s why I advocate expertsourcing rather than crowdsourcing.

What is expertsourcing? Expertsourcing is a sub-category of crowdsourcing where the goal is to aggregate a wide range of individuals who are experts in their fields, rather than just a ‘come one, come all’ herd of people who have come to the party perhaps with nothing really worthwhile to contribute. Is there really much value in the 35^th, 70^th or 100^th extra logo concept that was just slapped together by someone with no training?

With expertsourcing you’re looking to get a group that ideally has little overlapping skills or knowledge. The more diverse the better, the more esoteric the better. For a brand, utilizing this sort of talent to create a new ad for beef jerky is a waste. You’ve got to think bigger. You have to challenge them with a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).  Reinvent the education system; create a downtown with only bike traffic; create a better system of government!  

Experts have a passion for causes and often have connections to experts from other fields. They are highly self-motivated the synergies created by having multiple experts often produces even greater results.  It’s time for brands to start thinking about trying to harness a school of sharks, rather than herd a flock of sheep.