Book Review: We Are Smarter Than Me

We Are Smarter Than Me
How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business
Barry Libert & Jon Spector
Wharton School Publishing, 2007

This book is a product of what it preaches – authors Libert & Spector apparently compiled their text with the help of thousands of contributors who chipped in with case studies, examples and the like. The authors dub this process “crowdsourcing” – the act of tapping on the resources of numerous external contributors.

The authors aim to explain how you can successfully leverage the potential of crowdsourcing in your own business.

That crowdsourcing is at all possible is due to the improvements in communications technology that makes it possible for disparate groups of people to collaborate in new and innovative ways. Smart companies can embrace such collaboration to tap into groups of volunteers who can essentially do work that had traditionally been done by employees.

The book is chock-full of real life examples of such crowdsourcing initiatives in a variety of business functions including product development, sales & marketing, technical support and customer service to name a few. One example is that of the Japanese company that produces Sodoku puzzles – it produces a magazine whose subscribers regularly contributes new puzzle ideas.

Other examples cited: Cookshak – a US oven manufacturer – only employs 25 people, but it effectively uses an extensive online user forum to provide in-depth technical information and advice to its customers. Mastercard allowed the general public to develop variations to its “priceless” commercials to good effect. iStockphoto – an online photo stockist relies on amateur photographers to provide much of its content.

While the potential to use crowdsourcing seems endless, the authors do warn that the process simply does not work for certain functions – particularly management and strategy. Also, getting it to work in other areas takes some effort – for example: a loyal extended community must be actively developed, in-house resistance must be addressed and you must spread the benefits in the longer term to keep your community engaged.

Overall, this book is recommended as a primer for the type of extended collaboration businesses will increasingly have to rely on – it introduces you to the potential of crowdsourcing, but may not go deep enough into the mechanics of how to make it work for those who actually want to implement such initiatives within their own businesses.