April 20, 2012
"Within minutes, our amazing commenters identified it as coming from the grille of an early 2000-era Ford F-150 pickup, which was exactly the vehicle police found when they followed a tip yesterday to nearby Rockingham County."

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This is really an amazing story, of car blog Jalopnik posting a call for its readers to help the Waynesboro, VA Police Department in identifying a part that came off the car of a driver involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident. The commenters came good and two suspects are now being held in custody. Small comfort for the victim’s family, of course, but a heartwarming tale of the power of crowdsourcing.

[Story via Nicholas Thompson]

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Filed under: crowdsourcing cars design 
February 23, 2012
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."

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The above quote, c/o Bertrand Russell, is quoted in Innovation for the People, by the People, a solid overview of open innovation initiatives being considered/implemented by the various branches of the federal government. The author, David Bornstein, highlights the quote as a way to show the importance of asking the right question when trying to spark the most inventive and useful submissions to a wicked challenge. As he puts it, “the question needs to be open-ended enough so that it does not restrict creativity, or imply a method of solution, but it has to be defined sharply enough so that someone who doesn’t understand your whole mission can still solve your specific problem.” It’s a really tricky balance to get right, but absolutely critical, nonetheless.

[Story via Catherine Tomezsko.]

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(Notes: 14)
  
Filed under: open innovation crowdsourcing problem solving problem framing creativity government 
February 23, 2012
"By crowdsourcing product interest, Fancy enables merchants to see what consumers are most interested in, and then sell products directly to them based on that interest. Into a helicopter tour of Hawaii? You got it. A new style from Christian Dior? Click away."

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Hype and interest in Pinterest has gone off the scale recently. Now, here comes a piece about a high-end competitor, Fancy, which has just introduced a social commerce platform that, writes Austin Carr, “allows brands and merchants to sell products directly from Fancy.” It’s an interesting proposition, one that rewards brands savvy enough to track and capitalize on trends and interests. Will I use it personally? Call me grumpy, and never say never, but for now, I’m filing under “interesting and yet not interested.”

[Story via Erik Van Crimmin]

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Filed under: crowdsourcing Fancy Pinterest products consumers brands selling 
May 10, 2011
"As communicators we [designers] are poorly communicating our own value and if it continues, we will continue to be undervalued, underpaid and subjected to pitch work and crowdsourcing."

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In Crowdsourcing: Sabotaging our value, Thomas Wilder lays out the designer’s take on crowdsourcing. Understandably, he’s miffed at companies such as 99designs, DesignCrowd and Crowdspring coming along and taking the bread from professionals’ mouths. He lays out a pretty good argument that, thankfully, is not just a wringing of hands and shaking of fist at sky. Wilder acknowledges that designers have a responsibility to better educate clients in why they should pay for professional service. This, to me, seems like the crux of the matter. Until clients truly understand the value of good design, they’ll be seduced by the promise of cheap logo goodness. You can’t blame them for this. You can educate them.

But then Wilder falls back into the safe, aggrieved world of ‘should’. Banks and law firms are prepared to pay good money for professionals, he writes. “This model should also apply to the design industry.” Sure it should. But as Jeff Jarvis and others have repeatedly pointed out, there’s no business model in “should”. And that means designers have to stop whining, take off their gloves, step up and start educating. Else they’ll complain their way right into obscurity. (Story via Jason Santamaria.)

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(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: design crowdsourcing communication value of design business model Jeff Jarvis no such thing as should