The Crowdsourcing phenomenon is about to hit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but will it be a Jeffersonian triumph or a Machiavellian misstep?

Obama’s team has put together a crowdsourcing initiative, called the Citizen’s Briefing Book, which encourages citizens to submit ideas on everything and anything from energy policy to national defense.

To date, Obama’s team has done a good job of using social media in their communications, as can most recently be seen in the change.gov website. I wonder if the idea was inspired by the New York Times, who used a facebook page to essentially do the same thing.  The Times received 35,000 suggestions on their page and has since created an interesting microsite with sugestions for the incoming president.  Click here to look through it. If nothing else, this is a noteworthy bit of news reporting for its use of social media to conduct such a broad survey - although the editorial staff of the Times had nothing to do with the survey (it seems to have been collected by the Times marketing department).

But can and will this kind of government by actually work?  Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Jefferson, DeToqueville…well, this could quickly turn into a history of western civilization discussion but lets not go there.

Because it is for now the means, and not the ends that interest me.

For this kind of thing to work, Obama’s team really has to make a commitment.  Or, well, the CEO - Obama -  really has to make a commitment. It is the “post-promote-discuss-see” approach to crowdsourcing and it is the last of those four that is probably the most important.  Showing how participation makes a difference is the payoff in the Social media world.  But without a solid commitment to the “see”, implementing crowdsourcing is at best trendy and at worst patronizing.

It is an innovative attempt on behalf of the Obama-Biden transition team, but without a solid commitment to doing something with the results - besides presenting them to the president in a book, the whole idea reaks a little of Machiavelli, who, if I remember right, believed that the prince should give the appearance that he is listening to keep the masses satisfied, but not let their opinions motivate him.

I’d be interested to hear of other government-based crowdsourcing intitiatives.  Have they worked?

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Easter is here and that means a short work week for those of us in Europe - eat your hearts out, you hard workin’ Yanks!

In the past week, GCI Mannov held a seminar on International PR in which I talked about using social media tools to create dialog based communication. There seemed to be a lot of interest in this, so we will be repeating it in Copenhagen on the 18th of April.

The Internet is the primary source for news for Amricans these days. Europe and Denmark a little behind (but not 20 years any more!).

Starbucks launched their crowdsourcing site this week. Starbucks has focused heavily on building their brand through PR - and it has paid off. An interesting case on can be read in the Ries’ book about how PR should be used to build brands and advertising to support them. So it is no surprise they are now using crowdsourcing too. The site does looks vaguely familiar, though, doesn’t it?

Some call her Sweden’s Paris Hilton - she is a 17 year-old blogger who talks about her social life online. She’s not Paris Hilton. She’s got a shrewd business going and she has built it herself. She’s made millions selling ads on the blog and runs one of the most influencial online websites in the country for her age group. Blond power! Business.dk ran the story about her here.

If International PR seems like it something distant for some Danish companies, check out this great article in the NY Times. Yeah, that is Kompan playground right in the middle of Central Park - and the story is chock full of Danish experts on childrens play. Good work.

That is it for this week. I am going to unplug for 5 days at a cabin up in the nortern part of Jutland, where there is no broadband, no TV and no mobil connection. Just a fireplace, my wife and kids and a bottle or two of wine to keep me company. Happy easter.

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At the Wemind conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday, March 12, Per Ladegaard, Concern Director for Nykredit, a Danish bank, made a presentation on how his organization is using both new media and social media for improved customer service and product innovation.

The banking industry has never struck me as being particularly creative and certainly not as early adopters, but the fact that the Concern Director came to a small conference to talk about Web 2.0 says a lot about why NyKredit is surprising and why they are leading the pack in this area.

Per understands the paradigm of dialog and is brave enough to find a place for it in Nykredits communication.

Per talked about how important online activity has been for the bank since the mid 1990s and showed how, little by little, they have added web 1.0 and web 2.0 offerings in a way that both better serve their customers and (perhaps more importantly) fit in with their company’s core value proposition: “Tænk nyt” or “Think New”.

Being a credit union, Nykredit is blessed with some realities that surely make it easier for them to “think new” in the banking industry. They have a large capital base and the fact they are relatively small in comparison to banks like Nordea and Danske Bank makes them more flexible. In fact, they seem to relish the role of being the class “daredevil” and frontrunnner.

Some of the programs they have been the first to implement - such as webcam based tellers who can walk customers through complex web banking transactions via screencontrol, the ability to upload personal photos for use as credit card themes, online video tips and online loan calculators are not truly web 2.0, but show how Nykredit embraces digital media to create a competitive advantage and build their image as a company that uses new technology to improve stakeholder communication.

Nykredit has been using blogging as part of a “dialog” program with customers for several months and it recently won an award from Computerworld for its efforts.

Nykredit is now also using crowdsourcing - or user-based innovation - to improve its financial products. In the short couple months they have been live, the bank has already started a no-fee account based on user suggestions. Per also pointed out how top executives are constantly looking at the feedback and votes as it gives a direct channel to customer insights.

In the end, two things really struck me about his presentation:

1.) the fact that when he was presented with the concept of crowdsourcing that he immediately asked himself how the idea fit in with the company’s values.

Wow! Looking at a lot of company’s stated “mission” or “values” it might be easy to come the conclusion that such things are nothing but HR babble and PR spin. Refreshing to see a CEO who really considers them in making calculated decisions.

2.) When asked about the ROI of the Crowdsourcing initiative, Per responded, “It has already paid for itself in terms of the image boost it has given us”.

Yeah, pretty refreshing to meet a CEO who thinks this way too.

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I am always on the lookout for ways that big Social Media ideas can be applied locally. One of my favorites is “crowdsourcing” (it is also one of my favorite buzzwords).

© 2004 by Pedro Alcocer

The idea behind crowdsourcing for companies is simple, but powerful: bring your external stakeholders into the organization and let them play a role in the deveopment of products and ideas. It is a great way to stregthen loyality, show engagement, communicate directly, produce better products and, yeah, even make money.

Innocentive and Dell IdeaStorm and are the embodiment of this concept on a large scale.

Here are some good examples of how this concept is being used in various ways right here in Denmark.

http://www.voresbibliotek.dk

http://weblog.nykredit.dk/taenknyt/

http://www.idemarken.dk

http://www.mitsuperligahold.dk

There are other examples about how crowdsourcing can be used for things other than innovation or product development. For example, wouldn’t a site like GasBuddy be great in Denmark?

This is one social media solution that can be applied easily to B2B, non-profits, the public sector and even NGOs. Just about any organization of any size can use crowdsourcing to communicate and innovate

- with maybe one notable exception: parliament. Crowdsourcing would just be way too democratic for politics.

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