Crowdsourcing Blog
blog Crowd Creativity, Crowdfunding, ToolsLanguage: German
Claudia PelzerApr 10, 2011 08:51 pm GMT2107 views
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This interview comes to us from one of Crowdsourcing.org's regularly contributing experts, Claudia Pelzer, Founder and CEO of Crowdsourcingblog.de, who spoke to Tobias Klug about AppJobber.
With the advent of ever newer crowdsourcing services and mechanisms to develop altered standards of industrial and organizational structures, tasks are increasingly outsourced to the crowd, creating a completely new demand for interface functions between Crowd and Company.
Depending on the type of project, interface functions between the two should be a priority for both agencies and service providers, as well as enterprises (in the latter case, responsibility should initially fall on the Human Resources department).
In general, the service providers and crowdsourcing platforms themselves — of whatever kind, whether micro-tasks, creative or innovation — provide some degree support and advice, but often it’s not sufficient. A ‘Crowd Manager’ could help guide the crowd’s activity in the right direction.
When Seth Priebatsch, CEO at SCVNGR, delivered his audaciously provocative presentation at TED he was talking about how to motivate the crowd when money isn’t the currency. You can call the approach of rewarding certain online behaviors (or penalizing others) 'Gamification', 'Game Mechanics', or 'Social Rewards', all are being equally banded about and are receiving lots of buzz. Whatever you call it, it’s all about the motivation of the masses...we’ll call it Gamification.
The options for presenting a range of digital incentives and rewards is theoretically infinite but the primary design elements include motivational triggers such as: positive (and possibly immediate) feedback (e.g. a sound that quickly becomes recognizable upon the successful completion of a task); noticeable advancement through the “game” upon successfully performing the work (e.g. progression to a new level); awarding points, badges, and status levels, etc. (see Gowalla, GetGlue or Foursquare).
Gamification however can be about much more than just driving online engagement by awarding users tokens that represent their various levels of achievement – some refer to this type of consumer engagement as 'Pouring Chocolate on Broccoli' (a very Germanic expression meaning to simply spice something up that is a bit boring). Used in this manner, the greater potential of using Gamification is somewhat lost.
Social Media Week in Berlin (19-23 September 2011) will bring together jovoto, a creative crowdsourcing platform for collaborative idea generation together with Start Next, a crowdfunding platform for artists, designers and inventors to undertake a unique experiment to merge the power of creative crowdsourcing with the power of crowdfunding. Together jovoto and Start Next will kick-off a cross-platform initiative to crowdfund and then produce, works of art. The concept is; three weeks of proposals to identify artists, four weeks funding followed by two weeks of art.
They believe that everyone is an artist and that everyone has the ability to create art. jovoto and Start Next will help fund artists and then enable the distribution their work over the Internet so that they can reach the broadest possible audience. The development and implementation of creative ideas through the Internet is increasingly becoming a collaborative act. Creative crowdsourcing can involve the broadcast of a creative endeavor inviting creatives to provide individual works. Alternatively, art can be formed as a result of the collective participation of many artists. Artists like Aaron Koblin have demonstrated how it’s possible to create unique work by tapping into large communities of artists, often involving thousands of individuals. Crowdsourcing both provides the opportunity for new talent to be found and new forms of art to be created.
After presenting the various crowdfunding music platforms, I should also mention that the crowd can support projects not only with money. These music videos provide fans a different way of contributing – themselves - giving the artists their voice, their image, or their 'moves'.
The music industry has seen better times - especially young artists who are finding it increasingly difficult to locate a sponsor. You can go down the path of Gang of Four, selling your own blood in order to fund a new album ... or you can search for new funding opportunities via crowdfunding. In reality (and thankfully) an increasing number of artists are choosing the latter option. In addition to the 'classical crowdfunding platforms' such as Kickstarter, other platforms have emerged. I would now like to introduce four of them to you.
The crowdsourcing platform is a virtual marketplace for freelancers and companies - this is where all projects are implemented online. Here the power lies in numbers. It's all about people coming together to work to achieve goals and solve problems. And to a large extent they are driven by their own motivation - not because a company has committed them to it. Both crowdsourcing and coworking are based on the fact that people who work in virtual and physical networks can in this way create a higher value collectively than if they acted independently. This is also true for problem-solving, innovation and creative output.
The iPhone as an all-powerful, all-around, faithful companion? In some cases, this notion is not too far-fetched! A new iPhone app is accomplishing a small miracle through crowdsourcing! It gives the blind man or woman with a camera phone a virtual eye, allowing him or her to cope better with daily life. The true value here is not so much the hardware or software, but rather the community that is behind the application – individuals who are working to improve the quality of life of the visually impaired.
It is human nature to want to denounce injustices and expose wrongdoing - these intrinsic desires can motivate a crowd to play "watchdog"....and so we have seen the rise of crowdsourcing platforms that provide some degree of monitoring, with the goal of reporting irregularities. Sound like a police state? Well, it depends on what is studied and what is revealed!
When utilized as an innovation tool and implemented correctly, crowdsourcing initiatives can achieve valuable solutions for businesses by generating new and high quality ideas. A recently published list from Harvard Business Review’s Blog provides a compilation of guidelines that advise what crowdsourcing campaigns should focus on.
We have seen a few examples of where crowdsourcing can lead to unpredictable outcomes or maybe an outcome that the crowd wants but where the minority knows better. This time we have the German's to thank for helping us raise a smile! If you want the crowd to be really creative and you are giving them free reign to use their imagination, you’d better be prepared for what they throw at you. This example might make you reconsider... Pril, a premium diswashing detergent by Germany based consumer brand giant Henkel is currently running a design contest asking consumers to relaunch the package design for a limitied edition campaign. Following a typical formulae, the 'My Pril’ platform allows users to submit their own layout and vote for the best design from the range of contributions.
BRINGING YOU CROWDSOURCING NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 
When developing new web platforms and products we take what help we can get from any expert that will lend a helping hand. Now we have the means to formalize this approach on a pay-as-you-go basis by leveraging any one of the numerous platforms that have sprung up that provide us with access to an unlimited supply of micro workers. Yet, it makes you wonder where this may lead and whether in fact by diminishing the true value of a Like or a Digg, our actions are resulting in a deflationary spiral which is leading to the devaluation of social currency.
Language: German
Founded in 2010, the industry website, Crowdsourcing.org, is a neutral organization dedicated solely to crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. As one of the most influential and credible authorities in the crowdsourcing space, Crowdsourcing.org is recognized worldwide for its intellectual capital, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding practice expertise and unbiased thought leadership.
