It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, and the haystack keeps getting bigger. Crowdsourcing and Google searches are shotgun approaches to idea gathering and can take huge amounts of time to sort through the information, as well as large sums of money. Smart organizations use methods of technology scouting that rely on strategic thinking and leverage advanced tools to focus their energy.
First, let’s clear up one misconception: crowdsourcing doesn’t live up to the hype! In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Guido Jouret, CTO of the Emerging Technologies Group at Cisco, wrote about the twin pitfalls of cost and time: “The evaluation process was far more labor-intensive than we’d anticipated; significant investments of time, energy, patience, and imagination are required to discern the gems hidden within rough stones,” he wrote. “Anyone attempting to do innovation on the cheap should look elsewhere.”
