The company listened to the lateral thinking and reaped the benefits in lower costs
It's just one of a number of examples of how opening a problem out to the public and away from a small pool of workers can lead to huge gains, Williams says.
"These things happen a lot. You're making a problem accessible to a large range of people with a diverse range of skills. And it turns out it's not just for companies it applies to government as well."
The idea is gaining traction in the normally more conservative corridors of the public sector, says Natalie Evans, deputy director of think tank Policy Exchange.
"We now have the technology to reach a huge pool of talent and ideas from the general public in way that simply wasn't possible before. Done properly, this means we can leverage mass collaboration in a way that fosters a sense of 'public buy-in'.
"This can be particularly important where - say in the case of deciding where the axe must fall in terms of cutting public spending - there are difficult decisions to be made."
Seeking ideas is one thing? But how willing are those in power to act on the public's suggestions?
The point is neatly made in the findings of a survey published on Monday about where spending cuts should be. Some 2,000 members of the public were asked for their suggestions and one of the most popular targets was Britain's overseas aid budget. Yet this, along with healthcare, is an area the government has pledged not to touch.
Perry Walker, head of participation at the New Economics Foundation, believes crowdsourcing works well for ideas, less well for how you develop them.
"Brain storming works best when people don't talk to each other because people inhibit each other. But then what happens when you've got the ideas? You could have 30,000 ideas on what laws to repeal."
At this point smaller groups of committed citizens must be given a chance to filter and discuss the ideas, he says. Transparency and feedback are also crucial if the public is not to become cynical, he warns.
Geoff Mulgan, commentator and director of think tank the Young Foundation
'Crowdsourcing is already being used extensively - the World Bank used it in Haiti, the firm Innocentive now has hundreds of thousands of scientists on tap to solve problems for a fee, and New Zealand briefly tried it for police legislation. So far reality hasn't caught up with the promise - and good strategic policy making involves deliberation, which the existing crowd-sourcing models aren't suitable for. But for more discrete and practical problem-solving it undoubtedly has a lot to offer.'
In fact, there is a question about whether what Mr Clegg and BP have done is genuine crowdsourcing at all.
Crowdsourcing, says Stephen Overell, associate director of the Work Foundation, is really about using looser, freelance forms of commissioning tasks, allowing an organisation to tap into a much wider pool of knowledge or specialist skills.
BP's effort is more about public relations - appearing to be responsive, says Overell.
"BP has handled the oil leak atrociously. So its priority is public relations first and the need for high quality information second, in that order. 20,000 ideas is unmanageable, you'll need all sorts of procedures for sorting through them. Solving this sort of issue is a profoundly technical issue that the vast majority of people are ill equipped for."
And asking for ideas in this way is not new - the employee suggestion box has been around for years and is actually far more useful than what either the government or BP is up to, he argues.
"The best ideas of how to solve a problem usually come from employees, although it's probably best done through technology now rather than a box."
But it only works if there is a genuine interest from management - "too often over time it becomes a silly gimmick that you feel you have to do."
Another sceptic is Peter Kellner, who as president of polling company YouGov, is well used to listening to the views of ordinary members of the public.
He doubts Nick Clegg's call to arms will elicit anything civil servants couldn't have come up with. And what's worse, the government will end up with egg on its face.
Populist open-ended gestures like this normally end in embarrassment, says Kellner.
"The last government allowed people to put up petitions on the Number 10 website and it quickly got out of hand with Jeremy Clarkson for prime minister. It's an invitation to idiocy and madness and an opportunity for lobby groups."
Surprisingly, Anthony Williams, whose follow up to Wikinomics is published later this year, agrees.
"The White House tried crowdsourcing when Obama first came in. They asked the public what its main priorities should be. Legalising marijuana came up number one."
For that reason, the term crowdsourcing has become unpopular with some of those like Wikipaedia founder Jimmy Wales who one would expect to support it.
"The problem with the term is the notion of a crowd - this amorphous crowd has no individual perspective. There's value in mass participation but where possible the people need some expertise. We just call it collaboration frankly."
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