Spreken zie Deutsch

Hmm. Maybe there's something to this crowdsourcing thing. We received such a great response to the first solicitation a few nights ago that I thought I would try it again. This time I'm hoping to locate a German-speaking correspondent who will scan the blogosphere and file a report for those of us here at Crowdsourcing.com. Simply put, something's up in Germany. There have been numerous blog posts on the subject of crowdsourcing in the last several days, and I'm dying to know what they're about.

Some of you may be saying, "Hasn't Jeff tried this before?" Okay, that's true. In fact, I received a fair number of respondents to an earlier call for overseas assistance. My mistake was not adequately explaining what I expected from my foreign correspondents. This time I'm going to put the guidelines right in the post.

Step 1: Contact me at Jeffhowe@wiredmag.com and tell me you're able and willing.
Step 2: Go to this page on Technorati.com (a blog search engine). You should find 449 blog mentions of the term crowdsourcing. Don't let the number scare you away.
Step 3: Start reading. Invariably, many of these posts will be splogs or other forms of Internet flotsam. Unless there's substantive content keep moving.
Step 4: Try to ferret out discussion threads. Has a German crowdsourcing company recently launched? Is there an academic study on the subject that people are talking about? An incisive piece in Der Spiegel? Where else are the authors linking? Basically answer the question--what is everyone blogging about.
Step 5: Report back to me. Last month a reader living in Mexico contacted me asking if I wanted a report on crowdsourcing occurrences in the Spanish-speaking world. Two weeks later he filed his report: Nothing, really, was going on. Good enough. This is valuable information in itself, though I have a gut feeling this won't be the case with the German posts.
Step 6: I post your report on crowdsourcing.com.

And that's it. Crowdsourcing.com: We Walk the Talk.

Comments

[Nox Dineen]

Your Technorati link is broken.

I'd love to see a comparative report, drafted by somebody who doesn't speak German, but used free Internet translation tools to tackle the German sites. It would be an interesting look at degrees of efficiency in crowdsourcing.

[Internet Economics]

OK, this is just specualation, but I guess that many Germans are extraordinary idealistic about creating something in common (wasn't Karl Marx from Germany?).

Additionaly they are keen of saving costs. ALDI, LIDL etc. are German business models. So the Germans love the no-cost model of Open Source as well.

When you look at the numbers you will see that there ar so many OS developers coming from Germany... The attitude to Open Source and crowdsourcing is extraordinary high I think. Of course this is only my personal impression because I cannot compare attitudes. If you take the TYPO3 Content Management Application... It's so popular in Germany. Even major entreprises ride on the free model.

I think what the German market is waiting for would be a crowdsourcing model for small engineer companies. I could imagine something with rapid prototyping... So come here to discuss your brilliant ideas with the new Fischers, Daimlers and others... ;-)

[Kai]

I agree with the previous comment: Germans are idealistic about creating something in common. Monetary rewards and intellectual rights are often not as important as they are in the U.S.

And as stereotypical as it may sound: Many Germans are perfectionists and it really bothers them if something isn't perfect and they are quit willing to offer free advice to make it perfect. (For example: Germans usually tell a waiter in a restaurant if and why a meal isn't completely up to their expectations, while the average American probably wouldn't say anything.)

Crowdsourcing provides an opportunity to collaborate in order to bring something to perfection. I'm not surprised that Germans embrace this concept.

[Jeff Howe]

Thanks for the alert, Nox. I'll check it out. Thanks Kai and, uh, Internet Economics for interesting thoughts. I hadn't really considered that some cultures would be inherently more welcoming to the crowdsourcing idea, but it makes sense. In this light, I'm curious about whether crowdsourcing models have taken root in Scandinavia, a region with a long tradition in community involvement as well as idealistic government. There isn't much in the blogosphere in Danish, Norwegian or Swedish, but it's perfectly possible (likely even) that such applications wouldn't go under the name crowdsourcing there. Anyone have any knowledge on this front?