To get any sort of work done you need to give good instructions to good workers, all within a good process. If any of these aren't in place it is hard to get quality results.
(Disclaimer: I am the founder of CloudFactory, a next generation mTurk working to get the right mix of solutions, process and workers.)
Panos has been using mTurk for years and knows how to break work down and give clear instructions to workers (plus validate to catch spammers and lazy workers). Most people need to fail a bunch of times in learning how to create tasks well before becoming good "factor owners" as Panos described it. We have a team of crowd solution developers that design workflows, create killer task forms, analyze data and improve everything so others don't have to go through the painful ramp up.
We have sent many thousands of tasks through mTurk while we build up our own workforce from scratch. Anonymous workers that sign up online in 2 minutes with fake info have no accountability or ownership in their work. This is just never going to work. You end up with anarchy in the marketplace, both workers and requesters get ripped off. CloudFactory is taking a totally different approach to building up our workforce to ensure that workers have accountability, are matched to the right tasks and in general are motivated and enjoy their work. Happy workers are good workers and we don't see any technology making up for this.
That said, a process is required and this is where technology is important. Quality control techniques are essential to catch mistakes even when the best workers are given clear instructions. We take a factory, mass production approach to this type of work and our platform offers tools to give real-time control and transparency to your work done in the cloud.
So when the screwdriver (mturk) isn't working properly, don't get a hammer (odesk) ... just get a better screwdriver!
(Disclaimer: I am the founder of CloudFactory, a next generation mTurk working to get the right mix of solutions, process and workers.)
Panos has been using mTurk for years and knows how to break work down and give clear instructions to workers (plus validate to catch spammers and lazy workers). Most people need to fail a bunch of times in learning how to create tasks well before becoming good "factor owners" as Panos described it. We have a team of crowd solution developers that design workflows, create killer task forms, analyze data and improve everything so others don't have to go through the painful ramp up.
We have sent many thousands of tasks through mTurk while we build up our own workforce from scratch. Anonymous workers that sign up online in 2 minutes with fake info have no accountability or ownership in their work. This is just never going to work. You end up with anarchy in the marketplace, both workers and requesters get ripped off. CloudFactory is taking a totally different approach to building up our workforce to ensure that workers have accountability, are matched to the right tasks and in general are motivated and enjoy their work. Happy workers are good workers and we don't see any technology making up for this.
That said, a process is required and this is where technology is important. Quality control techniques are essential to catch mistakes even when the best workers are given clear instructions. We take a factory, mass production approach to this type of work and our platform offers tools to give real-time control and transparency to your work done in the cloud.
So when the screwdriver (mturk) isn't working properly, don't get a hammer (odesk) ... just get a better screwdriver!