Crowdsourcing: simply a neologism or a true societal shift?

Until recently, I had never heard of SXSW. However, over the past few weeks, my Twitter account has been besieged by a seemingly endless stream of informative and thought-provoking soundbites, articles and ideas, all coming from this event.

Now events aren’t new, especially those heralding the ‘must attend’ nature of content. Nor are the endless debates about the digitisation of media, innovative products and ideas and the impact of new technology on the social and business landscape. So why the exposure and what makes SXSW special?

The answer, it seems, lies in the innovative approach to the event. SXSW, which stands for South by South West, started life as a music event in Austin, Texas over 22 years ago. Adopted by the digital literati of Silicon Valley, the event morphed into a random combination of debate, discussion and drinking which, over time, has itself transformed into a more formal event covering music, film and interactive.

This year, the event has been attended by a number of British companies representing the Digital Mission, hence the twitterings. The Digital Mission is a trade mission, organised by Chinwag for UK Trade & Investment, designed to enable digital companies to expand into overseas markets and attract investment outside the UK. Given the increasing amount of international and cross-border projects that we get involved in, such an enterprise can only be a good thing.

The real difference, however, is that the majority of content at SXSWi is created by the people attending: a true example of crowdsourced behaviour. Individuals submit an idea for a panel, plus a list of panellists which is reviewed by the organisers. If the idea is accepted, the individual gets to go for free. Sessions can be quite active, with panellists being voted on or off by the audience.

There are formal panels, but according to insiders, these can be extremely hit or miss, with panellists tamely agreeing, rather than engaging in heated, vociferous and stimulating debates.

It’s a great notion and one I would love to see adopted by many of the companies we work for. Imagine how incredibly useful it would be to have crowdsourced training programmes, where employees can vote on the topics they would like to see presented, on the fly.  Imagine a recent event has occurred which would be much more appropriate for discussion –simply vote in the change to the agenda and the people you think would be most appropriate to discuss it. Or if someone is a poor speaker, or is being too safe in their opinions, simply vote them off and get a more contentious one.  

A similar approach could be used in running assessment centres, where both interviewers and interviewees were assessed on a live basis. Some people just don’t perform in interviews and it would be better to get a gauge as to where an individual is in real-time, so they can try to polish their performance, rather than get into a downward and ultimately negative interviewing spiral.

It would put a huge amount of pressure on individuals involved, both in planning for such a session and in presenting. To be frank, though, the output that would be provided would be invaluable to both the companies and the individuals involved. Why should you have to wait for a formalised feedback session where most of the comments have been diluted into a series of generalistic ramblings? Putting pride to one side, wouldn’t honest opinion be better for your development in the long run?