The philosophy of collective wisdom is embodied in the crowdsourcing process. The Internet and today’s technology enables all voices to be heard—from the mainstream ones to those in the peripheries, from the powerful to ordinary fellows. Gathering the input of the crowd in order to create something for your prospects and customers is a potent tool to harness key staff with and elevate them to become thought leaders in the market.

Thought leaders are considered to be the authorities in their field. They are quoted in press releases, featured in magazines, invited to events, interviewed by the media, etc. But above all these, one officially becomes an authority by being the author of published books/eBooks on a particular subject matter. It puts a stamp on a thought a leader as one of the primary authorities on a given field/niche. Many of the highly credible figures and personalities today have authored/co-authored books, which have helped to catapult their stature as thought leaders in their fields.

The Internet, especially now with the resourcefulness of social networking, enables experts from various business arenas to become thought leaders by utilizing crowdsourcing mechanisms. The book #CROWDSOURCING tweet Book01: 140 Bite-Sized Ideas to Leverage the Wisdom of the Crowd by Kiruba Shankar and myself describes this process as social production, wherein a large group of individuals lend their talents to create a huge product such as Wikipedia.

For aspiring and existing thought leaders who want to take their expertise to the next level, crowdsourcing books is the way to go. Keep in mind “aha” #65 from #CROWDSOURCING tweet:

Most crowdsourced projects take time to build momentum. It’s important to have a leader who will march forward with the project vision.

As an expert, you could craft your project into organized topics, gather inputs from the crowd, and distill these inputs to create a coherent and systematic body of knowledge.

In the process, you will have created something that will benefit many people and will have launched yourself as a thought leader in building and organizing a valuable body of knowledge. In addition, you’ll become a valuable asset of your organization as a credible expert and authority on the subject. Considering the fast-paced lifestyle and short attention span of people in this era of information overload, the credible profiles of thought leaders are important in bringing business to the forefront. Thought leaders are the keys to rouse the interest and confidence of customers and prospects towards your business.

Crowdsourcing enables experts to truly become thought leaders in the actual market context. The essence of thought leadership can only be seen on the collective plane. It entails an audience, a market, and a group of the population to validate thought leaders. This powerful trend is changing the landscape of business. Any wise business person knows that sufficient understanding, correct utilization, and proper application of this concept is essential to have a handle of the market and to truly become a thought leader.

#CROWDSOURCING tweet explores this powerful process to provide leaders and experts all the nuggets of wisdom they need to pull off their ideas and succeed at it in infinite proportions. The book tackles not only the practical concepts relative to crowdsourcing but provides its loopholes. It issues useful caveats such as in aha #108:

Crowd intelligence can fail when emotional factors, such as a feeling of belonging, lead to peer pressure and herd mentality.

Leaders and experts must be equipped with this and other warnings to prevent being carried away by the crowd and be its blind servant rather than mastering them and distilling only the essential and useful inputs.

Peter Ostrow, former New York Times executive and CEO of Technical Communities, gave accolade to the book for its importance in propelling thought leadership.

“If you have struggled to keep up with all the new techniques that leverage the Internet, this is one you don’t want to miss. After my fifteen-minute easily digestible read of this book, I learned all about the benefits of ease of using this concept to drive thought leadership,” he enthused.

Thought leadership entails ample immersion and understanding of the pulse of the crowd. Therefore, one must have a mastery of both the objectives of the business and the needs of the clients it serves. Crowdsourcing books enables the members and leaders of an organization/business to perfectly mesh these two to gain leverage and ultimately excel at the role and art of being a thought leader.