Use existing communities vs. starting your own community
The greatest threath of Crowdsourcing is that every company is creating it’s own community. The fact they launch their own communities is kind of obvious given the promise of crowdsourcing: improved association with- and support from the members of your community.
But the problem is that this is stimulating highly differentiated communities, where people have to be member of too many different communities to find satisfaction. It also complicates the traceability of interesting cases members would like to solve.
It seems that using open crowdsourcing platforms will prevent this. With only a few platforms where innovators and organizations concentrate, it’s better for both parties! It’s easier for members to work on different subjects. At the same time it’s far cheaper for organizations (which makes it also within reach of small companies) while they don’t have to stimulate community growth by themselves AND the advantages of cross-pollination are much bigger!
So what do you think about this?? Should companies start their own or concentrate? And why?
