Image by Paul Roget

How often do you find yourself seeking inspiration from crowdsourcing?

If you haven't heard, crowdsourcing is happening all over the web. It's the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to a 'crowd,' usually an undefined, large group of people in the form of an open call. Using the Internet's vast reach has become the gateway for crowdsourcing.

It's easy enough on Twitter to crowdsource ideas. Get a group of followers to use a common hashtag and seek out ideas for anything you're working on. Need ideas for your new ecommerce site? Crowdsource it! Need designs tips for your website? Crowdsource it.

Even Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone is using Twitter to crowdsource ideas.  NBC Chicago reports that Biz Stone is making a film-photo project with crowdsourcing tactics by seeking creative ideas from his followers. By using the hashtag #inspirebiz, he's gathering these ideas to eventually use in the project.

HinTV writes that the project revolves around creating a short film based entirely on user-submitted photos, as part of Canon USA’s Project Imaginat10n. The crowdsourced photo contest will also feature films directed by various celebrities.

Crowdsourcing is becoming all the rage for marketers, creative types and researchers to use their communities online to find new product and design ideas. Instead of paying for a limited set of ideas and inspiration from small focus groups, more online connectors are reaching out to users online for the same purpose.

The use of crowdsourcing is even making its way into the lucrative holiday card market, where users at Minted.com are finding inspiration for new holiday card designs from its interactive inspiration board feature. Mommy blogger Katie writes about how easy it is to use. "Just browse through Minted and when you find a card design you like, click on the little (+) button in the top right corner.  It will open a new dialog window that you use to choose which board you'd like to pin the design. You can also share your board online with Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest." 

How can you start to use crowdsourcing for your creative projects? Here are some tips.

1) Update all of your social media profiles to be current with your websites and other online projects. Having all your ducks lined up is the first step to getting responses from users.

2) What are you looking for from your crowdsource plan? If you want followers to be creative for a design or photography idea, then ask them for tips, links and images that will spur your project forward.

3) Use social media sites to shoot out your basics of an idea, then ask for help in finding new tips or more. 

Crowdsourcing is being used by marketers, small businesses and others to lift project creation to higher planes. SmallBiz Technology recommends that by crowdsourcing with a group of people, you can equally share the project's goals, work and desired outcomes. With crowd-sourced options, a business owner can look at a variety of options, pick the best one and work on sharpening the idea for the particular client or project. In the end, crowdsourcing offers a cheaper research alternative, as well as a faster way to complete projects- use crowdsourcing yourself to move your own creative projects forward!