Crowd sourcing in action

ERSU ABLAK

“Crowd sourcing” is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call, according to Wikipedia.
Jeff Howe established the concept of crowd sourcing as essentially depending on the fact that, because it is an open call to a group of people, it gathers those who are most fit to perform tasks, to solve complex problems and to contribute with the most relevant and fresh ideas.
For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task, refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm, or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data.
The term has become popular with businesses, authors, and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticism.
The concept is welcomed by Turkish people as it is the way big projects have been done for the past thousand years; here, it is called “imece.” People are used to giving a hand to each other.
I myself have resorted to crowd sourcing for the first three paragraphs of this article and it is really efficient for a journalist if he or she is writing about uncontroversial topics.
Koç Sistem first published a book about the subject among its competitors. It became an instant success for the company in terms of new customers. There are two websites, however, working with the idea of getting things done by reaching out to one another using Web 2.0 tools. The first is zumbara.com. I have written about it before but would urge you to visit it again as it is developing rapidly. If, for example, you donate your time and capabilities to a neighbor, in return you can get a guitar lesson or a painting done by another neighbor.
I came across projemefon.com when a high school friend sent me an email promoting his video via the website. You publish your project to the website and it helps you collect donations from people at large. There are only 10 projects on the front page but I am sure there will be many more soon.
There are rumors of an impending crisis and big companies have started to lay off people in the United States and Europe. People fear for their future in Turkey, and the instability that the government is going through these days does not help alleviate their fears. Therefore, many people will resort to their fundamental strengths and try to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams via crowd-sourcing platforms. It would be a wise move by the government to support these sites.