We all know that the most successful and easy to recognize model of Crowdsourcing in the world is Wikipedia. For me, Wikipedia isn’t the big move of technology but the exciting move of human belief. Everybody is an expert on their field and we don’t need to ask, pay and wait for an answer of real expert. We can ask and build an encyclopedia for ourselves. Free doesn’t mean inaccurate. Some researcher said Wikipedia as correct as Britannica (old model).
It isn’t easy at all to bring Crowdsourcing to the life. Your project needs to divide to small independent modules in which everybody can take a role to complete. The key factor of this process is anyone being joyful as a reward when taking a part of it. Hence, online indeed is the easiest and best environment to crowdsource.
But when I went out the city with my family last weekend, I know I was wrong. VOV Giao Thong (a radio channel with nearly real-time traffic status update) taught me a lesson of offline Croudsourcing. You can call in to check the traffic road conditions or report an accident. More than 100 cameras at 60 hot spots around town and the reporters will help those on-the-go access the latest traffic information.
Vietnamese isn’t accustomed to report to help others. The VOV GT is likely the first committing to the pursuit of the highest level of traffic safety within the community and educating people to raise their voice when seeing things. I can’t help thinking that to make the success in other battles fighting against poverty, sickness and education… can all get real if the mastermind behind them possesses the mystery of Crowdsoursing.
(pix courtesy of tricky – Under Creative Commons License)
