Crowdsourcing for Patient-Centred Innovation
Organizational Innovation
Published on: 
2011
Design, Interaction Design, Web Development
  • Crowdsourcing for Patient-Centred Innovation
    Organizational Innovation


    The Opportunity & Journey
    A global pharmaceutical company asked Cooler Solutions to help them build internal crowdsourcing capabilities. Cooler Solutions designed and executed an internal crowdsourcing campaign related to the launch of a major new drug.  Following the campaign’s successful completion, Cooler Solutions prepared a crowdsourcing playbook capturing key insights and lessons learned from the campaign. The client is now well-positioned to employ crowdsourcing to drive future patient-centred innovation.
     
    Selected Insights & Design Implications
    • Crowdsourcing is not about the technology platform; the key to success is engaging the crowd and encouraging relevant, creative contributions. Implication: Stakeholder engagement was the central focus of the campaign and the playbook.
    • To truly harness the wisdom of the crowd, you need to curate the crowd’s ideas into coherent concepts. Implication: The campaign was run in two separate phases: a divergent phase to solicit the crowd’s ideas and a convergent phase to synthesize the crowd’s ideas into a short-list of concepts.
    • Follow-through is crucial so that the crowd feels their contributions are heard, valued, and acted upon. Implication: The final deliverable of the project was a detailed plan for implementing the winning concept as selected by the crowd.  

    The Results
    The crowd was very engaged by the crowdsourcing project, with more than one-quarter of the target audience participating in the initial three-week campaign. Through small working groups, the crowd's many ideas were refined into four innovative concepts. The crowd voted for the winning concept, which set a new standard for internal launch activities. The playbook was shared broadly across the organization and will be used as a template for future crowdsourcing initiatives. Finally, the company is confident they now have the internal capabilities to use crowdsourcing more extensively and with wider audiences to achieve more patient-centered innovation. 
     
    Customer Quote
    “Thanks for the outlet...I enjoy bouncing around ideas.”  – Crowd Member