Crowdsourcing is Hard Part 2: Barriers

Last time we considered how incentives matter in crowdsourcing. This time we'll think about the barriers to participation.

So you've got people who have the incentive to assist in your big crowdsourcing project - great!

Unfortunately, there's a bunch of reasons why they might not do so, and if you don't think about things that stop your potential contributors, all the good will in the world won't get you the assistance you're looking for.

The most fundamental problem is simple knowledge. As the philosophers have put it, knowing is half the battle. If an individual doesn't have a clue that your system exists, they have absolutely no way to take part. This is one of the great challenges in places where vast swaths of the country are far from most advertising, much less a hashtag campaign on Twitter. A good example of effectively getting the word out was around Putin's romp to electoral victory.A major oppositional news source, Gazetta.ru, worked with NDI's frequent election monitoring partners Golos to develop www.kartanarusheniy.org, an Ushahidi-like incident mapping system. So far it's logged over 4,500 incidents, which is a lot. Gazetta was able to cross-promote the map on its news site, lettings their readership get involved. There's a lot of ways to get the info out there, but the smaller and less representative are the set of people aware of your project the less useful your data will be.

Technical capability to connect is another concern. If your project is only accessible via the web, then you've eliminated the illiterate. And those without a computer. And internet. And electricity that works that day. If you're taking submissions over SMS, then you're assuming people have cell phones, are in an area with service and are comfortable with texting. Dial-in systems remove some of those barriers, but the added complexity makes them rare.

Costs matter. While the pennies for individual SMS may not seem like much, for many people those credits are precious and not to be frittered away. This can be managed by obtaining an SMS number that reverses the chargers to your organization, if you have the money. Clickatel makes this possible, as do many local SMS gateway providers.

Fear can stop your participants in their tracks. Too many countries have long, sordid histories of taking what people say and turning it against them. In that kind of environment, asking them to share information that might directly challenge a government is a high bar. Additionally, how can they trust you and your slick crowdsourcing platform? Maybe you're just a clever way of smoking out the malcontents. Partnering with credible, well respected and objective organizations can let some of that relationship provide confidence in your system.

Before you get started, run the numbers on who can participate in your project - and who can't. Using the time and money available, tear down as many barriers as you can to increase participation. More than just the raw amount of people who can join in, think about the distribution and representativeness of the people who are being excluded. You may get more useful, comprehensive data helping a smaller number of people in rural areas than, say, doubling those engaging in the nation's capitol.

So, you've broken down the walls, you've got the people salivating to participate in your project and there's nothing stopping them. One big question remains: now what?

We'll cover that in the next installment.