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In the future of etymology, a common attribution will likely be "early 21st century, from Wired magazine." To Wired's already considerable contributions to the lexicon of business communications language, now add "crowdsourcing."

First used by Wired writer Jeff Howe and editor Mark Robinson in June 2006, crowdsourcing refers to work done not by outside contractors, but by the crowd--specifically, a crowd of volunteers and low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate research and development.

Already, players such as InnoCentive.com and yet2.com offer their corporate customers access to vast networks of scientists and other problem solvers who may want to tackle a particular R&D problem the way others set themselves to the New York Times crossword puzzle. Forget, "Two heads are better than one." Try, "100,000 heads are better than two."

For example, Procter & Gamble executives concluded they could boost sales of Pringles if trivia questions could be printed on the crisps. Yes, the crips themselves, not the canister. Through InnoCentive, P&G stumbled across an engineering professor in Italy who happened to own a bakery and had come up with an ink-jet method for printing images on cookies with edible dyes. The inkjetted Pringle was born.

Apparently, what's good for potato crips is also now good for daily newspapers. Wired News reports that Gannett, the publisher of USA Today as well as 90 other American daily newspapers, will begin crowdsourcing some of its newsgathering. The "newsroom" will now be the "information center," and the metro, state or sports departments will report to desks with names like "data," "digital" and "community conversation."

Lou Grant, RIP.

Of course, crowdsourcing is not entirely new to publications. Heloise has been gathering and dispensing readers' hints for pesky household problems for years. And Reiman Publications has built a publishing empire with reader-supplied down home recipes for tuna noodle casserole and other heartland favorites.

But Gannett appears to be taking crowdsourcing to a more intense and serious level. Gathering content from the kind of zealous self-appointed watchdogs, whistle-blowers, and newshounds who make up the blogosphere, Gannett can leverage the kind of ferocious dirt-digging that brought down Dan Rather and Mark Foley.

Crowdsourcing may not have quite the applicabiity to standard association monthlies, and yet it has the potential to place a finger on the pulse of industry. A staff of a handful of writers and editors cannot hope to have the eyes on the street that a network of reader-contributors will.

So instead of using your publication Web page as little more than a teaser for the print edition, make it a feeder for the print edition, capturing the insights and investigations of real readers. Call it crowd control.

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