Solve Challenges and Earn money

So, till now the options explored were Fun oriented. Here, in this post, we will get into a more serious mode. We will explore the option that should will excite the people who like to put their brains to work, people who like challenges, people having loads and loads of creative juices.

I am going to touch upon the Crowdsourcing element from the list of avenues that could become your second source of income. Read the original post Unconventional ways of making money online for the entire list.

What is Crowdsourcing?

Firstly lets understand what is Crowdsourcing...

Wikipedia defines Crowdsourcing as,

Crowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.

Typically the call is made by the organizations looking to tap the talent outside of their organization, looking to get different views for a challenges. The reason for such initiative could be anything.

For example, P&G invites its customer to give their inputs regarding their products and services. P&G makes the customer a part of the product development and hence increase the traction with the customer resulting in customer loyalty and of course sales. The initiative is called Connect + Develop.

From the definition of Crowdsourcing, its clear that participating in Crowdsourcing for people like you and me means taking the call, accepting the challenge and completing the task. The tasks are challenges and the call to solve the challenge is linked to Incentives.

So why should you take the challenge?

The trigger to participate in the challenge could be the sheer thrill of solving the challenge, it could be the incentives associated with it, it could be the fame of being a winner, it could be to get in touch with like minded people, it could be to explore job opportunities. As I said, the reason to take the challenge is very personal.

Without anymore delay, I would introduce to you all, the well known Crowdsourcing platform called Innocentive.

What is Innocentive?

InnoCentive is the open innovation and crowdsourcing pioneer that enables organizations to solve their key problems by connecting them to diverse sources of innovation including employees, customers, partners, and the world’s largest problem solving marketplace.

Basically, Innocentive is a platform that connect the organizations with the creative people like you. It acts as the medium between the Organization and the Creative brains. Innocentive enables the marriage of the challenge with the right skills.

I have been using Innocentive for more than an year now. I participated in one of the challenges from "The Economist" to invent a new index to gauge the human potential. My entry could be downloaded from here.

Leading commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Eli Lilly, Life Technologies, NASA, nature.com, Popular Science, Procter & Gamble, Roche, Rockefeller Foundation, and The Economist partner with InnoCentive to solve problems and innovate faster and more cost effectively than ever before. (Source : Innocentive inc) 

Facts and Figures

Since 2001, InnoCentive has been making a profound impact on the world, one organization and one Challenge at a time. Take a look at some of our numbers. (Current as of January 2012)

• Total Registered Solvers: More than 250,000 from nearly 200 countries
• Total Solver Reach: 12+ million through our strategic partners (e.g., EDF, nature.com, Popular Science, The Economist)
• Total Challenges Posted: 1,370+ public Challenges to InnoCentive.com & thousands of internal employee-focused Challenges
• Project Rooms Opened to Date: 392,000+
• Total Solution Submissions: 28,500+
• Total Awards Given: 1,050+
• Total Award Dollars Posted: $34+ million
• Range of awards: $5,000 to $1 million based on the complexity of the problem

Average Success Rate: 50%+

(Source : Innocentive inc)

How Innocentive Operates

Innocentive employs a

Challenge Driven Innovation methodology to connect the organizations with the people interested in solving the challenges.

What it means is basically that all the tasks are put up by the participating Organizations in the form of a challenge Using the Innocentive platform. The registered users of Innocentive can then look for challenges that interests them and get on with solving it.

There is a fixed deadline for each challenge. The incentives associated with the challenge are clearly stated. Terms and conditions for Intellectual property(IP) transfer for each challenge are there for the Solver to understand and decide if he wants to opt for.

Details of the format that has to be used to present the solution, any special consideration, exclusions are clearly stated with the challenge.

In summary, you being a solver get all the inputs needed to make the decision of solving the challenge and to solve the challenge.

Features

• Form a team

The challenges can be quite tricky and so you might want to form a team to solve it. Innocentive allows you to do so.

There is a dedicated section to help Solvers. It included interview of the Challenges winner, the dos and don'ts when presenting the solution.

• Refer Case studies

Browse through the case studies to trigger yourself to get on with the Challenges. The case studies quite inspiring as it reveals how the challenges have impacted the organizations.

SO what you are waiting for…Gift Innocentive a place in your weekend calendar and gift yourself the adventure of solving real life challenges. The icing on the cake is the Incentives you received on coming up with the Winning Solution.

Want more…check out this post that talks more about Crowdsourcing and the other platforms available to you…

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/what-is-crowdsourcing/

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