On to the second C I talk about: the wisdom of the crowds concept, and the belief that “the people formerly known as incompetent” can actually make great contributions.

I see this in organizations where everyone may not be a ‘communicator’ but there are many who can be Antennas, Filters or Connectors.

The best examples of crowd sourcing tend to be in journalism. Two great sites come to mind:

• Oh My News – the earliest citizen journalism site that began in South Korea.

• Spot.Us – a community-funded news site I came to discover this year and support.

However, in two other very different areas we see it in action:

• Google used our collective results for influenza related searches and came up with the Google Flu tracker.
• Starbucks tapped into its customer base with MyStarbiucksIdea

Bottom line: People will contribute their ideas and when they do it is up to someone in the organization to recognize it, map it, use it.