Learnings from 130 people talking about crowdsourcing

Let's flip the discussion to the crowd within the company that is making the decisions to work with a crowdsourcing business model. This crowd has a responsibility to demonstrate sound and fair business practices by not devaluing the ideas/designs/solutions that are coming in and to raise the bar as to what the market will bear right now. Right now crowdsourcing is a cheap solution – partially because it is new, and partially because it is a disruptive resource. The price of entry for the client is low, the fees paid to the winning creatives is also low. Compared to what freelancers and staff get paid, there is no current crowdsourcing model that pays creative talent appropriately. And by extension, it will be almost impossible for any crowdsourcing business to sustain itself longterm. I challenge Agency folks to take on the role of making sure that crowdsourcing is sustainable- by being curators of creative crowdsourcing resources, educating your clients, and raising the bar on pricing. Trust me, you will still be a hero to your clients with the amount of money you will be saving them.

Ally:
As a creator and creative director, I agree with you. As a business person, I think there are market forces that might run contradictory, including the desire of individuals to participate at any price. I think the real opp is to educate everyone on what is good creative and why it is of greater value. As suggested yesterday, you should become a voice for this. I can't wait for your post on my blog. I believe it's important for someone to speak on behalf of the community, though I am sure there will be other voices and opinions, too.

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sara

http://smallbusinessgrant.info

You both bring up fair points and personally, I feel that crowdsourcing is so exciting because of its polarizing effect—the constant “good vs. evil” debate. The reason we launched a crowdsourcing platform @tongal was for good and mostly because of negative experience within the film/tv community. Over the past 10 years, the top creative have developed an increasing stranglehold on the work. As a result, that most creatives were either working for absolutely nothing or very little while the top creatives were quite honestly, getting rich for what amounted to sub par work in many cases. This happens in a subjective business mostly because of perception and because of traditional barriers to entry. The WGA, for example, during its strike threatened sites like “ask a ninja” by saying “if you continue to do this, you will never be a member of our union.” That's like saying “I don't want you to join my country club,” and then “you can't go play golf at this public course down the street.” What are they afraid of? Basically, we believe that 20th century barriers to entry like the WGA (and misconceptions that artists should be well paid as a whole) have created a very “have and have not” dynamic in the creative world.

For example, in the ad world, I have had friends who spent or borrowed huge sums of money to create spec commercial reels that get ignored by gatekeepers such as agents who thrive on the commodity of scarcity, and as a result completely unseen by the businesses who the work was intended for. What crowdsourcing is doing, and why people think it's scary, is giving those people, like my friends, a chance to interact directly with the business who is willing to pay them for what they want to do. Traditionally, these gatekeepers are the reason that so much creative was actually overpaid. I'm not saying that to devalue what creative people do. I myself am a creative person (someone who actually has been paid to write screenplays) however, it's a fact, not an opinion that creative work has been overpaid, despite how we all may feel personally. Look at the market and the reason why crowdsourcing has become such a hot button issue. There are far more out of work creatives than working creatives. Crowdsourcing just makes the market more efficient. This is especially true at a time when businesses will need more and more content. First and foremost, the way that content gets generated will have to change and that new demand in the market will be met with new businesses that facilitate that. In some cases, those businesses will use this approach, some for good, some for evil.

As I mentioned, I'm not really advocating either side of this, but look at the market for something that is perfectly efficient–for instance, the market for accountants. You probably don't know many out of work accountants. In large, they are well paid and the best ones are extremely well paid. Being an accountant isn't as interesting or sexy as being a commercial director or a copywriter, but the market has set the price of an accountant appropriately. Conversely, for good or bad, there are more aspiring creatives than accountants. Now as the price is dropping, and demand is increasing, there will be more creative jobs, just more diversification of the creative wealth.

There will always, always be high paying jobs for top creative, however we're certain that in the middle, businesses want a fresh voice at a lower cost and the chance to potentially develop a new top creative's career.

Hi Edward,

Thank you for very interesting article.

I’m inclined to think that crowd-sourcing is a change to standard consulting. I agree that two heads are better than one, and that still more heads will yield even better results. Crowdsourcing is about gathering inspiration from those who are central to every marketing communication: the customers.

Another great website is http://world4brains.com , an automated Global Consulting and Innovation Think Tank.
Hundreds of well-credentialed consultants and accomplished innovators from around the world and across all required expertise categories simultaneously collaborate with each other and contribute their best ideas, advice and solutions to your problems. Or give you constructive and honest feedback plus access to the sharpest brainstorming partners. And if need be we'll find you solutions for fair conflict resolution.

Hi Edward,

Thank you for very interesting article.

I’m inclined to think that crowd-sourcing is a change to standard consulting. I agree that two heads are better than one, and that still more heads will yield even better results. Crowdsourcing is about gathering inspiration from those who are central to every marketing communication: the customers.

Another great website is http://world4brains.com , an automated Global Consulting and Innovation Think Tank.
Hundreds of well-credentialed consultants and accomplished innovators from around the world and across all required expertise categories simultaneously collaborate with each other and contribute their best ideas, advice and solutions to your problems. Or give you constructive and honest feedback plus access to the sharpest brainstorming partners. And if need be we'll find you solutions for fair conflict resolution.