Departments - January/February 2010

Editor’s Letter

Crowd-Sourcing

A buzzword among journalists these days is the term "crowd-sourcing." Journalists are using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to ask "the crowd" if it can help provide information for a story or project. We didn’t think of it as crowd-sourcing when we included a simple question in our monthly e-mail to the MyBusiness Reader Panel: "What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since opening your business?" But the question turned out to engage the crowd. Hundreds of members replied, and you can read many of their responses in "What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Then," starting on page 28.

As a small business owner for the past 25 years, I know how great it feels to look back and see how thin the ice was that you just skated over. I can point back to steps along my journey where I made the right decision because I didn’t know any better. More than once, I’ve ignorantly stumbled into an opportunity that I would have avoided if I had been more experienced.

But one of the best lessons I’ve learned is to harness the power of crowd-sourcing--starting two decades before it was a buzzword. I always seek the advice of those who know something I’d like to learn. I’m very curious, and I don’t mind letting people know that I’m clueless about something they’re already knowledgeable about. I never hesitate to ask them to help me understand a tricky concept, and, likewise, I actively share anything I learn.

Sharing knowledge is why NFIB has the reader panel, and it’s also the reason there’s a discussion forum for members on NFIB.com. It’s just getting started, so please register and join in the conversation. There are a lot of lessons to learn and teach.