In a great example of an educational institution using social media for crowdsourcing, University of California, San Diego is using UCSD AlumnIdea to have alumni contribute ideas for building the alumni network and vote on which ideas are most appealing.

Even better, the site has tabs so that you can see which ideas were accepted and which were completed. That way, those involved can see their votes put to work. This shows the site's accomplishments and the alumni's ideas at work.

The site works on a sort of Digg-like format, where ideas with the most votes rise to the top and anything inappropriate can be flagged down. Also, the ideas can be commented on and discussed. This leads to a better development of ideas. I'm curious to see how this site is being marketed.

Croudsourcing can be an excellent way to get feedback, however it seems that the issue is creating a system that makes people want to be involved.

I believe a good crowdsourcing system should:

1. Be Easy - The harder it is, the less anyone will want to contribute to it. Don't make registration hard, don't make voting hard, don't make contributing ideas hard. I've been trying to tell Chick-fil-A how awesome their employees in Riverside are, but doing it online presented some roadblocks and I just gave up. So here it is: Chick-fil-A, here is your feedback, I don't know how you are training them, but your employees are SO nice!

2. Be Known - Does every graduating class know about AlumnIdea? Do they get an email with a link after they finish classes? Better yet, are they already registered with the same name and password used for other school systems? The timing is important too, They should be reminded about it a few months after graduation and then a few years after graduation to keep the site's use up and get more alumni perspectives.

3. Have Incentive - Perhaps in the case of UCSD alumni, wanting to contribute to your alma mater is a good incentive. Some people want prizes, some want recognition. In any case, it takes motivation. You want all the intelligent responses you can get, and this only happens with more participation.

4. Show Results - This is why I really appreciated UCSD showing which ideas were accepted
and completed. Some pictures there might have been even better. People contributing to a site like this enjoy seeing that their time was worthwhile and that they visibly contributed to something.