This Element is an excerpt from We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business (ISBN: 9780132244794) by Barry Libert and Jon Spector. Available in print and digital formats.
Use crowdsourcing to create marketable new products and content--and blow away your traditional competitors!
When communities help manufacture companies' products or content, the advantages over traditional business models are huge. At iStock, for instance, contributors create the product and deliver it in market-ready format. With little inventory expense or traditional overhead, the company can price the product far below old-model competitors. Here are more examples of crowdsourcing at work....