Crowdsourcing is a funny term, and people often ask me what does crowdsourcing have to do with technology, to which I reply–EVERYTHING!

Without the vast internet and communications made possible by it, crowdsourcing would be a fools dream. Right now, I work in an environment so virtual that the first time I met my project manager face to face was last week at a conference, a full 6 months after the project started. It’s a really exciting time, because it allows people to work in a boundary-less world.

The internet and technology enable crowdsourcing, without the internet, there is no crowdsourcing. It gets more interesting because as more and more big world problems emerge, crowdsourcing may become an acceptable way to solve them–all enabled via technology and the internet although crowdsourcing in itself is not technological.

This great video from Don Tapscott (author of wikinomics), really provoked in me some thinking on how we approach data and information.

In about the 4th minute you'll notice Don tell a story of his neighbour, the CEO of Goldcorp and how the crowdsourced the method of Gold Mining. The story is amazing, and be found in detail here and here.

It’s amazing, and here’s how it goes.

The story of the Goldcorp challenge