Jeff Howe is a contributing editor at Wired magazine, where he covers the media and entertainment industry. In June of 2006 he published an article for Wired titled “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” That article has name grown to become the book – Crowdsourcing.

Jeff is a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast where he shares this concept and discusses how the small business can take advantage of it.

Jeff has two definitions of the term crowdsourcing:
1) The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.

2) The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

One of my favorite ideas that came out of our discussion is the fact that branding is essentially a form of crowdsourcing.

Below is a video that Jeff created to promote the concept of crowdsourcing.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by att.com/onwardsmallbiz. Resources for the small business owner.