1. Crowdsourcing Comes of Age

2. A natural cycle
Apologies to Gartner Hype Cycle
Superficial publicity gimmicks, tokenism,
cheap creative work
Game changing business applications
Alvin Toffler, The Third Age 1980 = “prosumers”

3. Socio Cultural Trend
… rather than a short-term fad
Self expression
+
Collective action

4. The spirit of collective action
Informal, Spontaneous, Powerful

5. When self expression meets
collective action

6. Capturing the mood of the times

7. A vicious or virtuous circle?
Virtually unlimited technological
Capability
People’s insatiable
Desire to collaborate,
personalise & manipulate

8. Co-creation
A two-edged sword

9. Co-creation
A two-edged sword

10. Numbers are Compelling
• 70% of companies regularly create value
through use of web-based communities
• Using customer communities to solve customer
problems costs 10% of traditional call centres
• Product revenues +200%
* McKinsey 2010

11. Value of Institutionalising
Problem Solving
35% of new products
have elements from
outside company
R&D productivity up
60%

12. Evolution of Crowdsourcing
Customising
Contributing
Creating
Solving
Collaborating

13. Collaborative Journalism
“mutualisation” = “getting readers to care about,
inform and enhance our coverage” Meg Pickard

14. Collaborative Government?

15. Collaborative Business Models

16. Community Commerce
Self-sustaining creative community
Members submit designs => 80,000+
submissions
• Opportunity to pre test beta versions
Community votes => 800+ designs
Designers receive $2,500 + marketing advice +
retain IP
No professional designers, no salesforce,
no distribution, no market research, no
advertising
=> $30m revenues … high margins

17. Community Commerce
People-powered mobile network (from O2)
Members receive points for recruiting new
people, making suggestions & solving
problems, which are converted into cash
20% actively involved
Aim that 25% of members will get half of cost of
calls returned to them for contribution to
community
Plans to involve community in pricing &
marketing decisions
Not reliant on call centres, expensive
marketing & product support

18. Formula for Success
Ensuring strategic focus
Publicity as bi-product not sole objective
Planning – who, what & how?
Obama’s 100
Devolving control to community
Continuous feedback loops
Anticipating subversion
Bieber in North Korea
Managing IP rights

19. www.crowdsurfing.net
#crowdsurfing