Outsourcing is a one on one relationship (in most cases). I have a VA for marketing and communication help and another who does my books, manages cash flow and keeps the paper trail moving.

I need outsourcing to keep my business flowing. I’d like to eventually create a crowdsourcing model for a web site and thus a community of people who share a passion and contribute to the content willingly and freely.

In a Crowdsourcing environment the users i.e. the one that receives the project will never really be in contact with the providers, thus never creating the professional relationship that is often found between a VA and her customers.

I believe it really all depends of the degree of involment one really wants in their working environment, and how really involved they want to be.

But as with all the buzz words, there’s a tendency to apply crowdsourcing to everything. There are projects that are completely unsuitable for this approach. And in many cases crowdsourcing will prove to be costlier and less efficient than traditional outsourcing.

When it comes to VA community, I think there is currently no single website set up for crowdsourcing since the idea goes well beyond networking or Q&As in the forums.

Conversely, outsourcing would be sending work from one source to another offsite source.

VAnetworking.com isn’t either as it stands, but I can see, with you, the opportunity for networking and maybe a some of the group joining up to achieve a specific outcome that would benefit VAs and clients, and be released first through VAnetworkig.com