Crowdsourcing Discussion at Caltech | June 11, 2011

Crowdsourcing, as a method of leveraging the massive pool of online users as resources, has become a viable set of techniques, tools, and marketplaces for organizations and entrepreneurs to drive innovation and generate value. It is applied effectively in a variety of explicit/implicit, and systematic/opportunistic models: collective intelligence (Wikipedia, Yelp, and Twitter analytics); collaborative filtering (Amazon’s product and Netflix’s movie recommendation engines); social tagging (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Digg); social collaboration (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk); and crowdfunding (disaster relief, political campaigns, micropatronage, startup and non-profit funding, etc.)

An entrepreneur can utilize crowdsourcing tools for funding and monetization, task execution, and market analysis; or implement crowdsourcing as a technique for data cleansing and filtering, derived intelligence, etc. However, leveraging crowdsourcing also requires an entrepreneur to navigate a complex landscape of questions. How is it different from outsourcing? Is it truly cost-efficient? What motivates individual contributions? How to grow and sustain an active community? How to ensure quality or service level? What are the legal and political implications? Join us for a program which explores such questions, and the use of crowdsourcing to match specific needs to an available community.

Come interact with the local community, and an esteemed group of speakers which includes Peter Coffee (VP, Head of Platform Research at
Salesforce.com), Dana Mauriello (Founder and President at ProFounder), Michael Peshkam (Founder and CEO at IamINC), Nestor Portillo (Worldwide Director, Community & Online Support at Microsoft), Arvind Puri (VP, Interactive at Green Dot), and Alon Shwartz (Co-Founder & CTO at Docstoc.com).

June 11 9am-11am. Visit the website for more details and registration information - https://www.entforum.caltech.edu/