Exploring New and Edge Technologies Through Crowd with Wipro's Michael Vollmer
Welcome back to Uprisor, a thought leadership podcast on the future of work and crowdsourcing. Today we're talking with Michael Vollmer, GM of Interactive Experience at Wipro, about how he leverages the crowd for rapid technology exploration, proof of concepts, and cutting edge design and development work.
Check out the conversation and enjoy episode highlights below.
Interactive experience, defined
Clinton and Michael kick things off by unpacking the term Interactive Experience, or IX. Michael describes IX as the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, 5G, augmented reality, virtual reality, and mobile. How do you bring these technologies together in a meaningful way to solve problems in business, education, or the public sector? Michael's role as GM of IX at Wipro focuses on augmented and virtual reality solutions, and he stresses the importance of mobile technology because that's how IX solutions are getting consumed.
"None of those solutions are fundamentally capable without mobile... the power of AR is for the in-the-moment experience, so that's really through a mobile technology." — Michael Vollmer
Take it to the Crowd
After taking over the IX reins at Wipro, Vollmer realized that his team didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with the rapidly changing technology in the space while still meeting client demands. Rather than try to strike that seemingly-unattainable balance between learning and development, Michael saw an opportunity for growth by bringing in crowdsourcing through Topcoder. As he put it, "Why waste my energy trying to learn something that I don't follow on a day to day basis when there's somebody out there who does?"
COLLECTIVISM IS THE KEY
The two wrap with a thoughtful discussion of what makes crowd so powerful and beneficial to freelancers and and businesses alike. For Vollmer it comes down to:
Multiple skillsets - by casting the net to the crowd you can take advantage of a different technologists to solve different problems.
The crowd is unbiased - it's through unbiased response that you find inspiration and impartial assessment of a platform technology you're unfamiliar with.
The crowd is deeply passionate - If you get a group of people that have a deep passion and love for something and you put them on a task, you always get amazing results.
Clinton and Michael also recognize that there are a couple key contributors to successful projects:
You've got to provide guardrails.
You've got to invest energy in reviewing submissions and providing high-quality feedback.
"Crowdsourcing brings speed, it brings agility, it brings value, but by the way, it's fun. The inspiration I get is just amazing from these guys." — Michael Vollmer
Thank you to Michael Vollmer for sharing his perspective with us. For more conversations on crowdsourcing and the future of work, subscribe to the Uprisor podcast.