Service for Crowd-Driven Gathering of Non-Discoverable Knowledge

Abstract

Knowledge that cannot be discovered through automated methods, such as user practices, remains in informal mediums. It is unstructured, and in collective possession of the experts, yet it is key for business insights. Typically this "Non-Discoverable knowledge" is gathered in semi-automated way, which at best provides crude estimates, and doesn't scale. In this paper, we describe our novel approach to rapidly design a process solution for a family of business objects, gathering required knowledge through the use of social networking to identify the experts. We propose a "Deconstructed Survey" that captures the knowledge request, and manages its lifecycle through task forwarding and subtasking. We developed the system BizRay, instantiating the proposed approach as a general-purpose, self-service Web-based, crowdsourcing service. We demonstrate its effectiveness in accelerating knowledge discovery, through our experiences with deployments for IT Optimization and Services Delivery.

Internal Crowdsourcing: Conceptual Framework, Structured Review, and Research Agenda

“…This is so primarily because internal crowdsourcing allows for the exposure of innovative ideas to wider audiences compared with such exposure in hierarchy-based work organisation (Bjelland and Wood, 2008). In addition to the immediate Gaspoz, 2011;Guy et al, 2015;Laredo et al, 2012;McAfee, 2006McAfee, , 2009Patten and Keane, 2010;Rohrbeck et al, 2015;Schlagwein et al, 2011;Simula and Vuori, 2012;Stocker et al, 2012; 2012 Bjelland and Wood, 2008) • May result in new products (e.g., Soukhoroukova, 2012), commercialisation of new technologies (e.g., Bjelland and Wood, 2008), or improvement to existing products and processes (e.g., Vuori, 2012) Bjelland andWood, 2008;Erickson et al, 2012a, b;Leung et al, 2014;Muller et al, 2013;Simula and Ahola, 2014;Simula and Vuori, 2012;Soukhoroukova, 2012;Standing and Kiniti, 2011 Choice…”

“…Similarly, Deutsche Telekom launched an internal crowdsourcing initiative to integrate the knowledge and experience of its employees, resulting in more than 18,000 contributions collected and processed in just 4 days (Hoerbelt, 2013). Internal crowdsourcing also helps reveal 'non-discoverable knowledge' (Laredo et al, 2012), that is, collective, tacit or unstructured knowledge that could not be found through automated methods and systems (see further Vukovic and Stewart, 2012).…”

“…• Referred to as 'idea management systems' (e.g., Bailey and Horvitz, 2010), 'idea markets' (Soukhoroukova, 2012), 'knowledge markets' (Benbya and Van Alstyne, 2011) or 'crowdfunding platforms' (Muller et al, 2013) • Benefits from lower entry barriers when integrated with internal IT (e.g., SSO) on user side (Rohrbeck et al, 2015) • Can be integrated with tools, workflows, and (semi-) automated processes (Rohrbeck et al, 2015) Abu El-Ella et al, 2013;Bailey and Horvitz, 2010;Benbya and Van Alstyne, 2011;Bjelland and Wood, 2008;Erickson et al, 2012a;Geiger et al, 2011;Jette et al, 2015;Laredo et al, 2012, Lopez et al, 2010Muller et al, 2013;Soukhoroukova, 2012;Rohrbeck et al, 2015;Stieger et al, 2012;Vukovic, 2009;Vukovic et al, 2013;Vukovic and Naik, 2011;Vukovic and Natarajan, 2013a;2013b;Vukovic and Stewart, 2012;Westerski et al, 2011 initiated with an 'open call' through which all (or a selection of) employees are invited to participate on a voluntarily basis for the duration of the initiative (Howe, 2006;Lopez et al, 2010). Further, certain types of internal crowdsourcing designs allow solvers to participate in the evaluation and aggregation of the results (e.g.…”

Decision Making in Enterprise Crowdsourcing Services

“…To implement principles of collaborative knowledge discovery we employ system BizRay [7], a general-purpose, cloud-enabled, enterprise crowdsourcing self-service that expedites delivery of crowdsourcing campaigns to discover critical tacit business knowledge that is in collective possession of the experts. Knowledge requests are captured as a distributed questionnaire, which consists of one or more sections, each containing one or more questions.…”