John Winsor

Will Agencies Suffer Death by 1,000 Cuts Through Crowdsourcing?

I've been excited lately to see that the idea of crowdsourcing has caused such a stir. You know a paradigm is about to shift when lines start getting drawn in the sand. When I was writing about co-creation in Beyond the Brand back in 2003 I couldn’t even imagine how the open source movement would radically change so many businesses.

Currently, a lot of emotion surrounds the subject especially in the marketing, advertising and product design worlds. Below are a few of the things I’ve been hearing lately with some of my thoughts on each.

1. Spec Work is Bad - I'm not sure I fully understand all of the hot feelings about the "spec work" issue. That's a bridge that other industries, like photography, have already crossed. Sure, there are lots of photographers that still get hired to do photo shoots. But, today the market is becoming dominated by amateur willing to do work on spec and put it up on stock photography sites like iStockPhoto.  Other creative businesses will follow. A good friend and respected graphic artist told me a few days ago that the only people that seem to be offended by the idea of spec work are mediocre at their jobs. His point is that he uses contests, like those run on Crowdspring, as a way to keep sharp. It's not a substitute for the work he does for his clients but it’s a fun place to play around. Plus, he reminded me that does a lot of spec work in the pitch process.

2. It’s Unethical – While this is closely tied to the first point, I can’t quite figure this out. Is the act of soliciting ideas from the general population unethical? Are the sites that have been set-up for contest-based collaboration unethical? Are the people participating on those sites unethical? It feels to me this idea is being promoted by folks who’ve already made it in their respective fields. It’s a bit of “Close the door behind us, and don’t let anyone else in” attitude.

2. It's Only Freelance – Yep. I agree. But, if you’re a very talented and live in a place like Perth, Australia, and want to participate in pushing their work to a global audience, how do they do it without moving? While crowdsourcing is freelance it unshackles the need to be in a certain place in order to participate in the design and advertising industries. Creativity grows as people connect and participate in a deeper dialogue. It doesn’t matter if it’s digitally or physically.

3. Work Will Suffer Because Clients Don’t Know Good Work - Sorry to be harsh but they’re the customer.  If they want to pay for bad work, so be it. It’s hard to find good clients that buy good work. That’s what everyone wants.

4. It Will Only Work for Small Stuff Like Logos – With any emerging field the smallest tasks are the ones that are replaced first. Sooner or later, the tasks become more complicated. Watching the projects posted on Innocentive things are trending this way. Also, as more clients start using crowdsourcing and trust the results they’ll be willing to experiment with more complicated assignments. The shift will accelerate when crowdsourcing starts being used as a source of creative material that is shaped by creative directors and delivered to clients as part of a larger strategic platform.

The big question is how much will it affect the marketing, advertising and product design businesses. Like it or not, it will usher in radical changes.  I started my career as a journalist and have always been fascinated by the arrogance of my fellow journalists as the looked down upon lowly bloggers. All kinds of arguments were made about how blogging would never effect the fourth establishment. Yet, look around. While newspapers stuck their heads in the sand the world changed. Instead of engaging the crowd to participate they allowed an industry to start and grow without them. Now, as journalists wake up from their delusions of grandeur they have found out they’re too late.

The bottom line is that great ideas come form everywhere.

The only question is, will agencies wake up from our own delusions or will they suffer the same fate as their print media brethren?

I hope this provides you with some food for thought. I’d love to hear what you think.

Crowdsourcing 101

A lot of people are trying to figure out what crowdsourcing is and what they can do with it? It's always good to go back to the source, Jeff Howe.

Crowdsourced Art

Ten Thousand Cents from Ten Thousand Cents on Vimeo.

Thanks to Peter Majarich for sending along a link to Ten Thousand Cents. It's a cool example of the possibilities of crowdsourced art. Here's what the project is all about:

"Ten Thousand Cents" is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase (to charity) are all $100. The work is presented as a video piece with all 10,000 parts being drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.

Crowdsourcing on the Edge

Damien Joseph just posted a great new piece entitled, Pushing the Limits of Crowdsourcing about some cool applications of crowdsourcing in animation and video games. Here's a snippet. The whole article is worth a read:

Perry says it usually costs close to $1 million to launch a game. But by taking an open-source approach to the Project Top Secret competition, he and Acclaim kept their costs down to next to nothing. About 60,000 contributors used any software they liked to write game code, including several free, open-source programs. They used open-source forums (akin to online message boards) like phpBB software to host discussions. They also posted their files and artwork on YouTube and the forums, charted their process using a Wiki page, and used TeamSpeak to host conference calls when they actually had to speak to one another. In fact, the $60 a month Acclaim spent on the teleconferencing software was the entire project's biggest cost.

The contributors were eventually split into 20 development teams. The best team, as judged by Perry, will be given $100,000, the chance to develop the game, and future royalties from the title. One winner will be chosen to direct a future Acclaim game as an employee and will get the accolades and royalties associated with the position. "The first to submit a game we can test with the community—that the community response makes Acclaim want to publish it—they win," Perry says.

Beyond savings money and time, crowdsourcing paid off in a couple of other big ways. The viral effect of the Web created presold audiences for the projects before they were even completed. "They all feel ownership in the project cause they worked on it," says Perry. "They show it to their friends, post it to blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., and it spreads."

Find New Ways to Work with Partners

Google and Procter and Gamble are swapping employees and comparing ideas that will make both companies learn how to be more innovative.

A New Blog

I know. I know. After reading Paul Boutin's article about the death of the blog in Wired this month why would I start another blog?  Well I did it, Spark: Ideas From Anywhere. I guess I was frustrated yesterday. I couldn't find one place that kept track of everything  that's happening around open innovation, crowdsourcing, co-creation and collaboration. I wanted a spot with links to books, articles, companies, blogs and other sources talking about the collaborative arts. If you want to participate, you're welcome to join in. Let me know if you have anything to add. Email me with a lead. If you've got more to add I 'll even make you an author, if you'd like.

I don't know if this is the best way to keep track of this stuff, but it's one way. If there's a better way, let me know.

Revisiting the Cluetrain

Cluetrain Review

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web 2.0 cluetrain)

Ten years later it's amazing how right Locke, Levine, Searls and Weinberger were when they penned the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Mobs For Good

The consumer gods have chosen to smile upon a select few in San Francisco. That, or Carrotmob has infiltrated another company.

The SF based and socially-responsible organization, Carrotmob, is trying to make companies more environmentally friendly. Rather than apply negative pressure – threaten to boycott or sign a petition – Carrotmob offers a “juicy carrot,” a token of sorts that could potentially yield high profits for the companies involved.

As creator Brent Schulkin says in his blog:

We will create a large network of consumers. We will form partnerships with other larger advocacy groups to use their research and infrastructure. Together we will identify opportunities for improving corporate behavior. For example, let's say there's an environmentally harmful chemical in common brands of soap. We would approach several competing soap companies. We will explain the problem, and see which of them is willing to eliminate the harmful chemical. They will bid for our support. Each company will raise the bar with how much good they are willing to do. Perhaps Company X pledges to remove the chemical. Then Company Y pledges to remove the chemical and reduce factory emissions 20%. And so on. The bigger our network, the further they will be willing to go. We accept the best offer. Company Y agrees to take the steps that we want, and then we make it worth their while with a carrot: Everyone in the network buys millions of dollars worth of their soap, and in the process Company Y gains a wealth of reputation capital as well. The most responsible business decision also gets the most profit. Delicious!

Putting theory into practive, Schulkin approached roughly two-dozen shops and asked if they were willing to dedicate a small portion of sales to an energy-saving initiative. K&D Market won Carrotmob’s business, pledging 22% of their profits. In return, Schultz utilized a array of social networks – MySpace, Facebook, Carrotmob blog, and a number of online videos – and was able to get 300 people to “mob” the Market on a predetermined day. The store pulled in an estimated $10,000, four times as much as a typical day.

Messages From the Future

I've been hanging out here at the 4A's Account Planning conference in Miami. One of the presentations that was inspiring was from Mark Earls and Domenico Vitale. They allowed for a lot of co-creation in their session and started with this provocative video, above.

Co-Designing

Frank Pillar has an interesting post on open innovation. Here's a sample:

During the last three to four years, we have seen a dramatic surge in interest in the principle of “open innovation”. “Open innovation” means the involvement of customers and other partners in the innovation process. By their creative input, many companies are significantly increasing their ability to source powerful products.

But how to meet with the creative minds outside your company?

For European shoe manufactures, an answer to this question is provided by the “CEC Co-Design Community (CE3C)”, a web-based platform that enables the integration of customers in the innovation process. The platform provides combinable modules for the interaction of the company with its customers and partners. For example, in the “mindstyle module”, customers get an analysis of their preferred style by intuitively selecting pictures out of number of photographs. The manufacturer gets information which trends are currently “hot”.

In another module, “product configuration” those shoes in the collection which can be customized are shown. By the data on individualized shoes, manufacturers are informed about customers’ preferences. Especially in combination, the modules of CE3C provide shoe manufacturers with rich information on their current consumers’ preferences.

But preferences of current customers are not enough to your company? You want really innovative designs and get to know their creators? In this case, the “idea contest” is your solution. An idea contest is a forum in which passionate contributors from all over the world can exercise their creativity on account of a topic defined by the organisator. Prizes – and the recognition by the company – generate interest and drive participation. Typically, one company organizes an idea contest and submitted ideas are judged by a panel of employees.