2.  “The act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call” (Howe, 2008)  Intermediaries provide processes that utilise crowdsourcing techniques (Whitla, 2009)

3.  1st Approach: Maximise the number of participants e.g. Innocentive  2 nd Approach: Target a smaller, more specific group of participants by pre-defining a set of desirable skills and backgrounds e.g. Yourencore

4.  There are 3 discovery mechanisms provided by brokerages in order for firms to identify and engage with either relevant individuals or groups are: ◦ Solver led discovery (self-selection) e.g. Innocentive ◦ Seeker led discovery (search) e.g. YourEncore ◦ Broker led discovery (Matchmaking) e.g. NineSigma

5.  Decomposing problems into unambiguous and independent modular parts maximises the percentage of solution providers who can potentially contribute solutions. ◦ Proper construction of the posting is important ◦ Decide on “broadcast” method  Simple Questions  Request for Expertise  Request for Ideas

6. Filter TypeProcess Full-service provision Brokerage carries out the evaluation on the client’s behalf Domain filtering Clients may choose to view only solutions in certain domains (e.g. only submissions based on chemical solutions to a problem)). Quality filtering Predefined quality criteria are applied to eliminate substandard submissions) Provider filtering Submissions are filtered based on pre-identified “trusted” providers, and/or provider reputation IP filtering Brokerage ensures that proposed IP is unfettered, and/or acts as an IP buffer between the client and the solution provider, thus keeping the client anonymous right up to the point of acquisition of IP, and preventing IP contamination

7.  Motivation of solution seekers  Motivation of solution providers ◦ Financial ◦ Non-Financial