Summary The whole structure of work and how it happens has been reinvented over the past several decades, in drastic ways and with far-reaching consequences.Lately, companies in the United States have been pulling jobs back from overseas and positions once offshored are returning, if not by the millions, at least by the thousands. The marketplace has spoken,and people want more than just the cheapest product or service made by the cheapest labor,somewhere in the world.One of the ways people and companies have altered the rules of the online marketplace is by embracing the practice of crowdsourcing creativity, often with questionable results.

Description There are of course ways crowdsourcing makes sense. Crowdsourcing sites providing useful information such as where to locate the lowest gas prices, or crowdfunding sites that attract sponsors for specific projects, have gained popularity because they engage people in the process, smartly use web connectivity, and do it in a helpful or transparent way.

With Wikipedia, multiple contributors have helped to create a worldwide online encyclopedia. Contributors perform updates and corrections on their own time. The information can easily be altered, which works for and against this ongoing crowdsourced experiment in knowledge transmission.