Consumers are creators, and everyone's invited in crowdsourcing, a new approach that is revolutionising the way business gets done. Kasmin Fernandes decodes the next big work trend that's set to eclipse outsourcing

An evolving cultural phenomenon is changing the consumer culture and business model in marketing, advertising and industrial design. Called crowdsourcing, this Web 2.0 by-product refers to "taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined group of people in an open call" according to Wired magazine contributing editor Jeff Howe, who coined the term.

Meera Adhia and Soham Sarkar are partners at open source design and new
media think tank &then, which often designs celebrity merchandise for the likes
of cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. PICs/ Vikas Munipalle

The origins of crowdsourcing began in the "open source" movement, where people shared their skills to develop free software. The Internet has broken down traditional employer/employee relationships to create vibrant new enterprises that are 'staffed' by informal, often large gatherings of enthusiasts scattered across the world.

What makes this phenomenon so remarkable is that it is starting to transform the way many companies operate, changing their relationship with their customers: stock photo site iStockPhoto.com has revolutionised the world of digital photography. Cambrian House is leaving a profound impact on the way films get made. And Second Life has created a vast, profitable business with only a few formal employees but thousands of dedicated online contributors.

More than just free labour
The basic idea behind crowdsourcing is to tap into the collective intelligence of the public at large in order to complete business-related tasks that a company would normally perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider. Yet free labour is only a narrow part of crowdsourcing's appeal.

The team behind T-shirt brand Inkfruit

Crowdsourcing can shorten time to market new products, uncover ways to cut costs or improve service levels.

Take Inkfruit, for instance. Inkfruit is a Mumbai-based T-shirt making firm whose design process consists entirely of an online competition. Each week, the company receives hundreds of submissions from amateur and professional artists. Inkfruit posts these to its site, where anyone who signs up can give each shirt a score.

The highest-rated designs are put into production each week. Each week's winners get Rs 5,000 in cash and prizes, but the real motivation is the chance to have their work seen and potentially worn in public. Inkfruit puts the designer's name on the label of each shirt. For designers, it's a creative outlet. For customers, it's a wider range of choices. Kashyap Dalal, co-founder and CEO of Inkfruit says, "It's consumer democracy. People select the designs they want to wear rather than let the market dictate it. The vision of Inkfruit is to let the crowd do it; we make what the crowd wants."

Deciding what the Dhoni mug will look like
MyIdea (myidea.co.in) was started by cellular service provider Idea as a platform to crowdsource ideas on Indian politics, entertainment, sports and society. Open source design and new media think tank &then, which often designs celebrity merchandise -- cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for instance -- uses crowdsourcing offline to lend freshness to their work.

Says &then partner Vikram Sood, "Every famous personality comes with his own set of traits. If we assign the merchandise for various celebrities to one designer, the outcome won't always be fresh." So, they put the personality's traits down on paper and send them out to a group of artists and designers. Everyone comes back with ideas, and everyone contributes. "Instead of a straight outsourcing job, it becomes a dialogue between us and the talent pool. The point of view is holistic, not single-minded." So, instead of putting designers on their payroll, the firm's three partners invite them over for artist residencies at their eclectic Mahim office.

Crowdsourcing is not an approach to doing business that will work for every brand or every company, though.

The company needs to be able to flip upside down and realise they are no longer in charge -- their community is.

Who's doing it?

Category: Advertising
JetBlue Travel Storiesu00a0 JetBlue (jetblue.com) offers consumers an opportunity to record their travel stories in a JetBlue Story Booth, with which the company tours through several US cities: 'Walk in, tell your JetBlue tale, and have fun'.

McDonald's Global Casting McDonald's selected 25 consumers from around the world as its newest stars to feature on the packaging of its burgers, milkshake and coffee glasses as part of the company's first-ever online global casting call.

Category: Product development
John Fluevog Shoes The Canadian shoemaker has started Open Source Footwear. Fluevog fanatics submit their own designs for shoes.

Proctor & Gambleu00a0 In the past two years, P&G launched more than 100 new products for which some aspect of development came from outside the company.u00a0

Lego In its Online Factory the toy company encourages its customers to design everything from robot operating systems to Lego sets.

Category: Design
Zazzle This site (zazzle.com) takes user designs and plasters them on mugs, shirts, and posters. If other Zazzlers like your work and order products with your design, the consumer creators get a cut.

Category: Financial services
Marketocracyu00a0 This community of 60,000 online stock traders tracks the decisions of its top 100 portfolios to set the investment strategy for its mutual fund.

Crowdsourcing saved lives in Haiti
Less than five days after the recent earthquake in Haiti, a makeshift version of 911 sprung to life. The idea of setting up an emergency service started from Josh Nesbit, who heads a non-profit delivering health care in Sub-Saharan Africa through mobile phones. He sent out a tweet asking for help and it all went from there. Here is how this system worked:
>>People in Haiti text 4636
>>The SMS enters the database
>>Volunteers translate message from Creole into English
>>Volunteers find GPS coordinates that people on ground can use
>>Messages are classified and prioritised
>>Messages are passed off to organisations that can help

A Haitian woman went into labour. She texted 4636. Volunteers pinpointed her location on a map, giving the US Coast Guard her coordinates. They were able to reach her in time and help her deliver the baby.

How your business benefits
>>Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost, and often very quickly.
>>Payment is by results or even omitted.
>>The organisation can tap a wide range of talent that might not be present in its own firm.
>>By listening to the crowd, organisations gain first-hand insight on customer desires.

How, you the surfer, benefits
>>Personal fulfillment.
>>An earned sense of ownership through contribution and collaboration.
>>Virtual unknowns in a said field gain large-scale recognition for their talent.
>>Many crowdsourcing projects also offer participants the chance to win cash or prizes.

DIY living art: The Johnny Cash Project
Infographics wizard Aaron Koblin (the brain behind Radiohead's House of Cards video) has pulled the sheet off of his latest project: a crowdsourced music video for the Johnny Cash song, Ain't No Grave -- the title track off the last album that the country legend recorded before his death.

Anyone can contribute at the website TheJohnnyCash Project.com. The project asks participants to redraw every single frame of archival footage of Johnny Cash.

Koblin created a drawing tool for the site, which randomly assigns you a frame to draw. Using a series of paintbrush tools, all you have to do is trace over the original video footage, and click 'submit'.

As more and more people contribute, frames are constantly being redrawn -- meaning the video always changes. No two viewings are ever the same.

Stages of crowd-sourcing

1 Company has a problem
2 Company broadcasts problem online
3 Online 'crowd' is asked to give solutions
4 Crowd submits solutions
5 Crowd vets solutions
6 Company rewards winning solvers
7 Company owns winning solutions
8 Company profits

How to crowdsource your business

Robert Stribley, information architect at the world's biggest digital marketing agency Razorfish, shares his 3-point plan

Be clear about what you are looking for
The more precisely you frame your solicitation, the more likely you are to entice and inspire contributors. Your request should be explicit about what you need, direct about how and where it can be completed, clear in explaining why the request applies directly to the recipient. Point out that efforts contributed can be small, so that people understand they are not being asked to complete an entire task on their own.

Tap into networks
You are probably familiar with the typically abysmal response rates to polls, surveys and other online implorations. Few people who read blogs actually comment on them or contribute to them. You are going to have to put some time into reaching out to a large pool of potential contributors. In addition to any professional associations, you've probably established a network on Twitter, for example, and there's a Facebook group for everyone from weasel lovers (82 members) to Bluegrass fans (2828 members). Tap into as many networks as possible, but ensure they are carefully selected, so you are not just spamming subscribers.

Offer incentives
Aside from financial remuneration, there are many intangible incentives for people to contribute content for free -- you just have to enunciate what those incentives are. Amazon's Mechanical Turk offers people micropayments to create, modify, and otherwise slap content into shape, but sites like About.com and Yelp offer zero money. What they offer instead are opportunities to establish oneself as an authority; simply, to have your ego stroked for airing your knowledge.

The handbook
How to make money in your spare time
MechanicalTurk.com (a division of Amazon) has hundreds of projects that are divided into hundreds, or even thousands, of 'human intelligence tasks'. These tasks don't pay well, but you can make some extra money in your spare time completing them. After you complete a task, you submit it for approval and receive payment once it has been approved.

DesignBay.com is another site that posts projects for freelancers to complete. This type of work can pay a couple of hundred dollars from individuals or businesses around the world.

If you are good at designing T-shirts, logos, fancy fonts, and other graphics, take a look at the challenges at 99designs.com, Inkfruit.com, CrowdSpring.com and DesignCrowd.com.

NineSigma.net and InnoCentive.com are online marketplaces for innovations, matching seeker companies with solvers.

Submit your photos and illustrations to ShutterStock.com, Dreamstime.com and iStockPhoto.com and get paid every time one of your photos is downloaded by web designers, magazine editors, and graphic artists.

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