Online crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins
and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and
Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by
online sources doesn't always match the quantity.
In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their
classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from
social media and other crowdsourcing sites helped the students identify human
needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease
some aspects of testing those ideas.