Crowdsourcing and Innovation Intermediaries: Part I

by Joseph Feller

Although crowdsourcing can be achieved within a single firm (using the population of employees) or, indeed, without the involvement of any firm at all (think Wikipedia, or community-based open source software development), it is also increasingly seen as a mechanism for Chesbrough-style open innovation. In short, firms can look to crowds, rather than other firms, as a both a source of IP and as a mechanism for exploiting IP.