DesignCrowd

Created by DesignCrowd on Tuesday, June 29, 2010


Crowdsourcing can take many forms - for example, you can crowdsource feedback, you can crowdsource t-shirts, you can crowdsource funding and (of course) you can crowdsource design (DesignCrowd is a crowdsourcing design website).  Each crowdsourcing application uses a different process some use voting, some use collaboration and some use competition (DesignCrowd uses the competition model via design contest and logo contest projects).

Focusing on the contest approach to crowdsourcing (perhaps the most common and purest form of crowdsourcing), Alec Lynch (founder of DesignCrowd and King of Letting His Shirt Collar Pop-out) gives 5 tips at The Insight Exchange in Sydney. Please note these tips are for small business (not big brands)!

 
(If you don't want to watch the video, here are Alec's crowdsourcing tips in text / boring / traditional / ASCII code form...)

5 Crowdsourcing Tips (for small business)
 
1. Choose the right task
Contest crowdsourcing suits discrete, creative projects of medium complexity.  Graphic design, photography, copywriting, programming scripts, idea generation.

2. Use an established platform
The CEO of Innocentive has suggested 5,000 people is the ideal 'size of crowd'.  If you try and build your own 'crowd' or run a contest through your own website it will be expensive. This is okay for big brands trying to get publicity but for start-ups and small businesses crowdsourcing platforms have done the hard work for you!

3. Do not scrimp and scrape
Crowdsourcing involves harnessing multiple suppliers. If you don't offer an attractive prize you won't attract talent.

4. Give feedback
Crowdsourcing online, as with outsourcing in the real world, requires you to interact with your suppliers and provide feedback!  This is a critical part of most design, copywriting and programming projects in the real world - similarly, it is an important part of the crowdsourcing process.

5. Get help with decision
Just because you got 100+ bids on your logo does not mean you don't. Don't make the same mistake as Kraft Foods who received 48,000 entries to their name the new Vegemite contest and then chose 'iSnack2.0'. Get help with the decision / do some market research / ask the crowd for their opinion.



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