Blog post: “You must build up trust and a relationship with the people you want help from,” Yeung writes. “American Idol has done really well because they have the judges telling the contestants and viewers what they think and they’re being as transparent [and] authentic as they possibly could be. It seems that the majority of the eliminations that happen on the show agree with what [Judge] Simon Cowell says the night before – he can be really harsh and doesn’t filter out his opinions, but that’s what Americans are probably looking for and [they] put some trust in his judgment. So if you want to succeed in crowdsourcing, you better be honest, transparent, and understanding. Don’t make the mistake thinking that you can put out your request for help and assume people will be knocking down your door with advice. You’ll need to give some insights as well.”

Post-script: We asked Yeung how the lesson of American Idol could have applied to the LinkedIn controversy. He clarified that the situations are different: voting is a premise of American Idol; having members translate LinkedIn into multiple languages is not core to the social network. However, he said, LinkedIn could have done a better job in setting up the choices for its members: “The thing with LinkedIn’s case is that they gave [people] a choice and said ‘how much are you willing to be compensated for this?’ and included several values and then ‘volunteer.’ They probably should have asked ... first if anyone was willing to translate it voluntarily. That may have dampened the controversy.”

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