Are Flash Teams the Future of Work?

Flash teams combine computational crowdsourcing techniques with organizational structures

Team members from online communities assemble in a flash and coordinate and adapt together as they work. The New York Times highlighted the revolutionary potential of flash teams, which has implications both for how work is organized and also for how people structure their careers. Important conversations and policies are needed to develop a new social contract for the gig economy – Margaret Levi calls it the Moral Economy of the Future.

 Want to learn more?

 Read the research studies

• Expert crowdsourcing with flash teams 
• Flash organizations
• How crowdsourcing workflows constrain complex work
• In search of the dream team
• Huddler: convening stable and familiar crowd teams

Meet the research team

Our research team includes Professors Michael Bernstein and Melissa Valentine; PhD and student collaborators Niloufar Salehi, Sharon Kim, Jay Patel and Junwon Kim; and alumni Daniela Retelny, Alexandra To, Tulsee Doshi and Negar Ramati.

• We are conducting studies to develop new technical capabilities in Foundry and better understand what helps flash teams meet their goals.  
• We are producing a new content series to help flash team users learn from each other and from our experience working with this model.  
• We are exploring an open source software release of Foundry

What tools do you need most?

Help shape the new flash teams content series