Advice?

When I am faced with a major decision I often turn to a specific person that I am close to whom I feel will understand. Some situations I survey several people I am close to for advice and take a mixture of the advice. In general I turn to who I feel will best be able to help me based on the level at which they know me.

I found reading a few sides from www.sidetaker.com really interesting. One was about him not being supportive of his wife going back to school because he wanted a larger family right then. Well that was an easy side to take. But others like the women dating the man who recreationally smokes pot, but not wanting to date a recreational pot smoker is a little tougher to pick a side. Personally I can easily pick a side, but why is dating the guy if she knew this?

For me the situation depends if I would trust the crowd or the advice columnist more. I currently volunteer for an online teen help site as a Mentor. What I do is open messages other members have sent and see if I could reply. If I have a good response I reply, however each message is replied to about 6-8 times. So the member asking for advice is getting a selected crowds advice. I personally think this is a good method because each person in the crowd was selected based on a level of commitment and questions we answered but none of us are experts.

Crowdsourcing

When on www.drugstore.com I often use crowdsourcing to rate which products I am considering to buy. Recently I was replenishing some of my make up that was running low. I knew the basics of what I wanted, however I wanted to try a new mascara. I logged on and searched in a price range and company I knew I wanted. I then read many reviews for how people liked certain products and made my decision.

I also used this site when buying my boyfriends birthday gift. However I used the site to get reviews on what I knew was in stores. After reading the reviews I knew exactly what I wanted to purchase and in a time crunch I went to the store to make my purchase.

I find crowdsourcing to be very useful. It is a good way to get a wide range of opinions on a product. I try to always return favor when I purchase and item online.

Another example of crowdsourcing that just popped into my head is www.rateyourprofessor.com. I know I check the professors for the classes I sign up for on this site. I don't however use it to determine if it is worth while to take a class because opinions tend to run very positive or very negative. I use it as a tool along with asking others if they have taken the class, with which professor they took it and if they enjoyed it.

I do find this business model to be effective. I regularly use crowd sourcing to help determine my decisions.