Social media roles in crowdsourcing innovation tasks in B2B-relationships presentation at ISPIM 2013 conference in Helsinki. Co-authors Hannu Kärkkäinen and Jani Multasuo.

1. Social media roles in
crowdsourcing innovation
tasks in B2B-relationships
ISPIM, Helsinki 18.6.2013
Jari Jussila, Hannu Kärkkäinen,
Jani Multasuo

2. Introduction
• Recent studies (Kärkkäinen et al., 2012; Simula and Vuori, 2012)
demonstrate that B2B- crowdsourcing is actually possible, despite
many restrictions and related doubts.
• Conducting crowdsourcing is however clearly more challenging in the
B2B context (ibid)
• Recent studies (Marjanovic et al., 2012; Stanoevska-Slabeva, 2011)
reveal that social media seems commonly to have an important role in
crowdsourcing
• Even if crowdsourcing can be and has been carried without the aid of
computers, it seems to benefit from social media in a variety of ways,
for example by enabling crowdsourcers to reach larger crowds, more
competent crowds, or crowds with more extensive knowledge variety.
• The main objective of this study was to understand the
significance and the various roles and functions of social media
in crowdsourcing innovation –related tasks in B2B relationships
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3. Crowdsourcing in B2B
innovation
We define crowdsourcing (Kärkkäinen et al., 2012) as companies operating in
Business-to-Business markets propose themselves or aim to benefit in some
other way from voluntary provision of A from B in C purpose, benefiting from
this in D sense
in which:
A = concepts, ideas, information, knowledge, funding or other resources
B = a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity
and number, consisting from individuals from any companies, organizations,
non-profits, intermediaries, communities or individual professionals
C = new product development (NPD) or the whole innovation process, from
ideas and concepts to commercialization
D = cost reduction, quality increase, increased customer orientation and
customer understanding, time-to-market time reduction, sales / profit increase,
etc. NPD or innovation related benefits”
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4. 18.6.2013 4
Table 1 Examples of social media tools based on 5Cs categorization.
Tools Purpose Application examples
Communicating: publishing and sharing content
Blogs, media sharing systems,
discussion forums, microblogging,
instant messaging
Publish, discuss, express
oneself, show opinion, share,
influence, store
Blogger, WordPress,
Flickr, YouTube,
Twitter, SlideShare,
Prezi
Collaborating: collective content creation
Wikis, shared workspaces Create content together,
collaboration, produsage
Wikipedia, TWiki,
GoogleDocs, MatchWare
Connecting: networking people
Social networks, communities,
virtual worlds
Socialise, network, connect,
play, entertain
Facebook, LinkedIn,
SecondLife, World of
Warcraft, Habbo Hotel
Completing: adding, describing and filtering
Tagging, social bookmarking,
syndications, add-ons
Adding metadata, describing
content, subscribing updates,
combining, serendipity
GoogleReader,
Del.ici.ous, Pinterest
Combining: mixing and matching
Mash-ups, platforms Combining other tools and
technologies according to
situation and needs
GoogleMaps
Source: Condensed from Vuori (2011).

5. Research approach
• We applied netnographic research principles, designed for studying
online communities, on the observation of textual discourse in
selected social media- based crowdsourcing platforms, and the
media (platforms) themselves (Kozinets, 2002)
• Based on the literature review, we identified 104 different
crowdsourcing platforms and then performed participant observation
to sample the platforms and to especially identify crowdsourcing
platforms that have been utilized in business-to-business context as
well as concrete company cases targeted for crowdsourcing
innovation tasks.
• The participant observation included registrations to several online
platforms, browsing through the available textual discourses, and
identifying, observing and analysing the social media actions the
users have performed in the platforms. The approach included also
following various links to secondary sources in order to gain
comprehensive knowledge about the crowdsourcing platforms.
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6. 18.6.2013 6
Table 2 B2B companies using a crowdsourcing platform to crowdsource innovation tasks related
to specific B2B product in their respective industries.
Company and platform B2B product Industry
Baden-Chemie Atizo Chemical product for building and
redevelopment
Construction chemistry
Bombardier YouRail Rail vehicles (interior design for
trains)
Rail-equipment
manufacturing
Dell IdeaStorm Storm Session Developer laptop Computer hardware
Formlabs Kickstarter Professional 3D printer Manufacturing (3D
printing technology)
Intuit TurboTax Live
Community
TurboTax Business tax software Professional services
Konecranes GrabCAD
Challenge
Chain hoist (chain wear indicator) Manufacturing
NI Idea Exchange /
Community Challenges
LabVIEW software product Software
Numerex uTest M2M (machine-to-machine) solution
for tracking vehicles and assets
M2M hardware and
software
Tecnisa Ideas Building sites and buildings Construction

7. Results and analysis
• We discovered that the crowdsourcing platforms were
used to crowdsource simple, creative and complex
innovation tasks.
– Simple innovation tasks, that required a relatively low
involvement from the individuals, were observed to have
been crowdsourced from Kickstarter platform and uTest
platform.
– Creative innovation tasks were observed to have been
crowdsourced in Bombardier’s YouRail platform, where the
company crowdsourced new interior designs for trains.
– Most of the crowdsourced innovation tasks were however
complex in nature, such as complex problem solving
activities (e.g. solving problems of the customers on Intuit’s
platform) or generating new ideas, concepts or designs
(e.g. Konecranes’ GrabCAD challenge).
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8. 18.6.2013 8
Table 3 Description of crowdsourced innovation tasks in select B2B company cases and
crowdsourcing platforms.
Company and platform Crowdsourced innovation task Task complexity
Baden-Chemie Atizo New ideas for chemical products (Atizo,
2012)
Complex
Bombardier YouRail New interior designs of trains (Bombardier,
2012)
Creative
Dell IdeaStorm Storm
Session
Requirements and features for developer
laptop (Dell, 2012)
Complex
Formlabs Kickstarter Funding of development of 3D printer
(Kickstarter, 2012)
Simple
Intuit TurboTax Live
Community
Solutions for customer problems regarding
corporate taxes (Intuit, 2012)
Complex
Konecranes
GrabCAD Challenge
New ideas and designs for chain wear
indicator of chain hoists (Step files)
(GrabCAD, 2012)
Complex
NI Community / Idea
Exchange
New ideas and features for LabVIEW
software product (National Instruments,
2012)
Complex
Numerex uTest Testing hardware of vehicle tracking device
(uTest, 2012)
Simple
Tecnisa Ideas New ideas and concepts related with
Tecnisa’s construction projects, building
sites, and individual apartments (Tecnisa,
2012)
Complex

9. 18.6.2013 9
Table 4 Social media roles in the studied company cases and crowdsourcing platforms from the
user perspective (1C = Communicating, 2C = Collaboration, 3C = Connecting, 4C = Completing,
5C = Combining).
Case and platform 1C 2C 3C 4C 5C
Baden-Chemie Atizo X - X X -
Bombardier YouRail X - X X -
Dell IdeaStorm Storm
Session
X - X X -
Formlabs Kickstarter X - X X -
Intuit TurboTax Live
Community
X - X X -
Konecranes GrabCAD
Challenge
X - X X X
NI Idea Exchange /
Community Challenges
X - X X X
Numerex uTest X - X - -
Tecnisa Ideas X - X X X

10. Conclusions
• We found that the role of social media was quite essential in
every crowdsourcing type. Most of the crowdsourcing
platforms utilized well-known social media platforms, such as
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to enhance the
crowdsourcing initiatives.
• Social media served many different functions in B2B
crowdsourcing: making the crowdsourcing calls more
extensively visible, enabling the general networking of the
members of the crowds, and facilitating efficient sharing of
information and knowledge.
• Companies that operate in B2B markets and produce B2B
products and services can utilize the recognized and analyzed
social media- based crowdsourcing approaches as useful
models for facilitating their own open innovation activities
and experiments.
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