Introduction
Historically, organizations with a need to continually advance thought within a specific directional framework have had to rely primarily on paid thought leadership. With the maturation and realization of the Internet into a multi-directional interface tool, harnessing the power of a committed user base to generate at least some of this needed thought progression is an enticing possibility.
This is good news to organizations who cannot afford the (typically) high outlay of human capital expenditure necessary for topical thought progression. This approach is also employable when such needs are sporadic. It should be noted that in most campaigns, this approach should only be an augmentation to paid thought leadership; some stewardship is still necessary. However, these resources can become functional administrators while contributing their intelligence to a problem. At all times, some moderation and administration will be needed.
Determination of thought topics that can benefit from this approach must derive from a few considerations. Potential community support and composition, employable technologies, and scope of topic are just a few.
Concerning scope, a topic should be fairly tactical and focused. Crowdsourcing thought leadership does not lend itself well – in terms of individual implementations – to strategic goals. However, multiple topics can form a wider, more strategic whole. Once a tactical direction is pursued, an increase in scope may be possible, but a scope too large to garner focused support of the community is doomed to fail from the start.
The maturation of Internet technologies that are centered on the end user equates to a larger, cheaper toolset that can be used. Determining which tools to use in a particular implementation depends less on budget anymore and more on the community, the topic, and the brand essence of the organization. Recorded chat may be too fluid for an older user community, while some configurations of message boards may be too rigid for more adept users. Almost always, a blend of technologies will be needed to best enable the community to progress.
