what's the diagnosis?

Crowdsourcing is a neologistic compound of Crowd and a short for Outsourcing, for the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an "open call" to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions.

i saw a House episode one time where this idea came into play. one of the patients put his symptoms on an internet medical forum to see if anyone would respond with a diagnosis. now originally he did it without a monetary reward to which he received few responses, however he smartened up and offered $10,000 for the correct diagnosis.

until now i hadn't really thought about it in a business like environment but it's true. there has been an evolution of this type of community that promotes ideas and allows almost anyone participate. i have to say that i can see both sides of the argument about whether or not crowdsourcing really develops the smartest ideas because of the group.

i think that the community environment aids the people who need more information about the topic the most rather than solving the actual problem. individuals are the ones that have the ideas and promote more conversation separately, and the final result is from each person's effort. there are some people that don't aid to the positive development of a conversation so it's not possible to say that as a group we promote the smarter and more developed ideas compared to each individual input.