Which term is associated with seeking input from external sources to innovate?

The term associated with seeking input from external sources to innovate is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing involves gathering ideas, services, or content from a large group of people, typically via the Internet. This approach allows organizations to tap into a diverse pool of knowledge and perspectives, which can lead to innovative solutions and creative ideas that may not have been considered internally.

Crowdsourcing can be particularly valuable because it not only provides a wider range of insights but also engages the community or customer base in the innovation process. By inviting external contributions, businesses can enhance their research and development efforts while improving customer involvement and satisfaction.

In contrast, talent acquisition focuses on attracting and hiring new employees, which does not directly relate to gathering ideas from outside the organization. Market segmentation involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers with common needs or characteristics, which is more about understanding and targeting specific groups than about innovation. Customer feedback involves obtaining opinions from existing customers regarding products or services, which is useful for improving existing offerings but not specifically focused on the external input necessary for innovation in the same way that crowdsourcing is.