Design Outsourcing

Here’s an old article from Wired magazine about the rise of Crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group (crowd) of people or community in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop [...]

A good article about Design Outsourcing, from Parametric Technology Corporation (makers of Pro/ENGINEER CAD software. You can visit their website for the full pdf link.
During the past decade, there has been rapid growth of design outsourcing as a key
operational driver for companies to compete globally, increase productivity, and improve
profitability. Manufacturers are transforming their product [...]