Online CommunitiesAnd How They’re Changing the Way

Work Gets Done

Matt Johnston | Chief Marketing Officer

matt@utest.com | @matjohnston

Agenda

• Session Intro• Crowdsourcing 101• Secret Sauce• Where It Fits (And Where It Doesn’t)• Myths & Misconceptions• Q&A

What’s Crowdsourcing?

“The act of taking a job or service traditionally performed by a designated person or team and sourcing it to a large group of people in the form of an open call.”

- Jeff Howe, Wired journalist & author of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing Across Industries

BUT crowds often look (and act) like unruly mobs

And mobs don’t work in every category

Example:

Delivering a skilled service at an enterprise level of predictability and efficiency requires an orderly “community” capable of consistently producing the desired results

So how do you turn this –

…. into this?

The Secret Sauce of Crowdsourcing

4 Crowdsourcing Building Blocks

1. Community profiling– Technical: OS, browser, mobile devices, carriers– Geographic: City, country, languages– Demographic: Age, gender, education, hobbies

2. Community ratings & micro-ratings– By testing type– By industry

3. Highly precise matching– Between each project & each tester

4. Services layer for enterprise clients– Maximize throughput– Minimize overhead

How Does This Work In Testing?

Recruit, train & incentivize testers:• Two forms of compensation in crowdsourcing

1. Monetary– Paid for approved bugs, test cases, usability surveys

2. Reputation– Robust tester rating system and badges

– Customers can mark testers as ‘favorites’

• Other forms of community engagemento EG: uTest University (all community-driven)

– Training & certification

– Career advice

– Networking with peers

– Product reviews

Community Management: (Hard) Lessons Learned

Scaling Requires:• Rating & reputation systems that drive desired behavior• Matching that sets people up to succeed• Creating tools & programs to serve the masses

- Best proof point: Two years ago, uTest community was 3x with 10x revenue… yet total inquiries in 2011 are now lower

• Embracing FUBU concepts, such as:- Community vetting community: uTest Sandbox

- Community teaching community: Crash Courses

- Community managing community: Test Team Leads

- Community policing community: Forums Moderators

Where Crowdsourcing Fits(And Where It Doesn’t)

Tenet 1: Know Thy Task

• Is your culture highly cautious & risk-averse?• Are you in a highly regulated industry?

– Defense industry– PII and PHI

• Do you have an appetite for innovation?• Are you centrally organized or decentralized?

– Sourcing

– IT & IS

– Engineering

Tenet 2: Know Thyself

Selection criteria are vital:• Referenceable customer successes

– By company size– By industry

• Ability to adapt to your legacy systems and processes• Ability to satisfy legal requirements

– IP protection– NDA

• Ability to do the job– Consistent– Predictable– Professional

Tenet 3: Know Thy Partner

(Enterprises that already leverage crowdsourcing)

Tenet 4: Know Thy Trends

Myths & Misconceptions

Myth #1Less In-House Staff, Less Overhead

TRUTH:

• Complement & scale “as needed”…not replace

• Only employees will fully understand strategy,

company position, internal processes

BEST PRACTICES:

• Build strengths around employees’ core competencies

• Where does the crowd ‘fits’ into your team?– Fresh eyes, fresh perspectives, and fresh ideas

– Rote or repetitive tasks

Case Study How Google Taps Into The Crowd…

To Launch Great Apps

BACKGROUND:

• Google tests 15+ software products via crowdsourcing- Web products- Desktop clients- Mobile applications

LESSONS from a BRAND LEADER:

• Pick the right projects– Public-facing apps with diverse user bases

• Rethink ‘outside the box’ in maximizing team expertise

• Rethink ‘team’ to maximize flexibility and scale

• Save overhead on testing that might otherwise be cost-prohibitive

Myth #2…One Less Project to Manage—Yeah!

TRUTH:

• Crowdsourcing (when executed well) should NOT require more time to manage than internal team… should make life easier, not harder

• But, it still requires effective, detailed communications

BEST PRACTICES:

• Assign an internal project manager– Secure executive buy-in

– Ensure flow of information

– Track deadlines, progress

• Hand-off clearly defined “pieces” of a project

Myth #3One crowdsourcing vendor should be all I need.

TRUTH:

• Some crowdsourcing firms do many, different tasks well within similar scope

– Crowdflower

– Samasource

– TaskRabbit

• Crowdsourcing boom = specialization

BEST PRACTICE:

• Match the work to the vendor– A crowd vendor produced great web design for you…

– But…should that same company be your ‘go-to’ for advertising vs.Trada?

TRUTH:

• Intellectual property (IP) is a legit issue, esp. for the new & innovative– Copywriting

– Design

– Animation

– Code writing

• IP policies vary within crowdsourcing orgs

BEST PRACTICES:

• Establish the ground rules: What’s their IP policy?– How is it communicated to the crowd?

– How is it enforced?

Myth #4But we need to own the results

Myth #5Tell the crowd? But we’re in stealth mode!

TRUTH:

• Confidentiality is a serious matter with material consequence.

• Crowdsourcing is often used for pre-launch products

BEST PRACTICES:

• Ask upfront about preventative measures– Precautions… NDAs? What else?

– Is the policy all-inclusive? e.g. incl. social media, message boards, etc.

– What are the consequences for breaches?

Key Takeaways

• The nature of “work” and “jobs” is changing• Crowdsourcing has already permeated the enterprise• Moving upstream into more technical, sophisticated work

• Engineering

• Testing

• Advertising

• Marketing

• And like any other trend- There are highly proficient actors… and posers

- There are times to leverage it… and not

- Growing in momentum… and based on VC funding, that won’t change

- The enterprises that figure out how/where/when to deploy it, will win

Questions?

Answers.