Crowd sourcing = committee thinking?

Call me crazy but I always thought that committee thinking was a bad thing. It tends to lead to weak advertising and uninspired product development. Agencies and partners have been railing against 'the committee' for years.

So it's a bit odd to hear companies going 'ga-ga' over crowd-sourcing – or as I like to call it, letting consumers dictate your product or creative strategy because you have run out of ideas.

I know there are a lot of smart people out there that do not work in the marketing communications field. Harnessing their brains is to be encouraged. But if 'the crowd' is the idea, then it's not a sustainable one. Are clients willing to pay their ad agencies to manage their accounts if every major ad is outsourced to 'the crowd?' What about product development?

I fear crowd-sourcing is going to go the way of the customization craze. Brands everywhere tossed consumers a bone under the guise of 'having it their way,' such as changing the color of one's yogurt. The reality is infinite options and economies of scale tend to be fight against one another.

Before I come off as a total grump, crowd-sourcing has a role in certain spheres, such as refining concepts or troubleshooting. But there comes a point when it's simply 'committee thinking' with a fancy 'web 2.0' name.