Getting Cusotmers Involved

William Taylor's article, To Charge Up Customers, Get Customers Involved, which appeared in yesterday's New York Times has some great examples of co-creation including John Fluevog shoes, Jones Soda and Threadless.

While the article didn't plow any new ground in co-creation the stories of these three companies and how they involve their customers in their marketing and product innovation.

My favorite quote from the article is from Peter van Stolk, founder and CEO of Jones Soda:

"So what is Jones? Are we a soda company? Are we an Internet company? Are we a social networking company? We're all of that. Our goal is to keep creating more ways for customers to exercise ownership of the brand."

These are questions we all should be asking about our own companies.