Does individual ego and competitiveness drive innovation or does collaboration?

The Wisdom of the crowds

At first take, this sounds counter intuitive, if you think about it in the more traditional “crowd psychology/mentality” sense. It usually brings to mind destructive behaviour like looting or throwing around tomatoes or running with bulls…But are creative solutions more likely to develop when the crowd runs free? The idea of cross-pollination and the community building on each other’s ideas assumes that the ego of the individual is subservient to the crowd, that better ideas than yours are automatically seized upon and celebrated. Bear in mind I'm talking upon uncurated CS platforms.They may be experts or novices weighing in on your ideas. The more “likes” the more thumb’s up the better the idea? That’s possible. But I think common desires and preferences only maintain the status quo and do not disrupt it. If Innovation and big ideas lie somewhere in the disruption of the usual order of things, sharing, discussion, cross-pollination starts to fight against true innovation. Big, creative disruptive ideas can intimidate people. That’s a natural reaction. The crowd may in fact harbor big ideas, but in the light of public forums and galleries, they may not survive.

Respect your crowd.

Is a crowdworkers union the next thing?

They work tirelessly. They compete with hundreds of others. They're often never compensated, but hopefully learn and have fun working on some challenging briefs under tight deadlines. So keep the blogs and forums current. Have your clients reward the winners as quickly as possible and most importantly show the winning solution and tell them why it won.

300 vs 4

By definition, crowdsource platforms deal in numbers. Big numbers. Offering clients hundreds if not thousands of solutions for any given brief! Really! (Check out over 6000 logos and counting here - again I'm using the global initiative to find a symbol to represent "Human Rights Protection and Promotion" as an extreme example.)

Is it even possible to have more than a half dozen real, actionable ideas for any given brief? I suppose it depends on the brief's objective: is it a product innovation, YouTube vid content, logo, print ad?...etc. As an old school creative developer who stills works with writers and account people to solve creative briefs, we rarely come up with more than a dozen directions and very rarely present more than 3 to client. Peer review and even formal focus groups are very much part of that process too.

Choosing the right idea amongst several is a skill in itself. That's how creative directors do their job. How do you do it right when the numbers get so big? The danger is moving off brief towards something that may be very cool, but not the right thing to do for the brand.

What drives the crowd?

There seems to be a lot of optimism from crowd leaders and CS platforms suggesting that “brand love” is the motive force behind the crowd. If I drive a VW and I have a predilection for creative expression, then I’ll jump on the chance to participate in a contest that is led by VW. That may indeed describe a very small percentage of the crowd. And it may be especially true for the random, occasional housewife participant, but for the expert crowd or even the enthusiastic novices, human nature would suggest otherwise.

It’s not about the brand, it’s about the contest.

It’s about the size of the prize and most importantly it’s about the the quality of the brief. If the brief is convoluted, overly complex, unclear or just too broad you lose the crowd. Why participate when don’t have a clear idea of what the client is looking for. Even if it’s a “one off” everyone wants to win. Brands who try to determine what they want AFTER they see the 300 solutions is a good way to lose the crowd.

As a crowdsource company watcher and participant, it’s interesting to watch some clients change requirements mid-contest, just like they do in non-crowdsourced environments!

How to win a design contest.

(no, this is not the winning entry! )

Note: the task was to apply graphics to the existing trophy sculpture - it was presented to the crowd as a blank canvas.

I was trying to tell a story of community and "sharing" the win with my design concept. In light of what actually won, my approach was a little too pedestrian and predicable. So how do you win? Zig, when the crowd zags!

Chi Fong Leong, went beyond the typical boundaries of graphic design. He did not just apply graphics, he "implied emotion" with heat sensitive paint. (When anyone touches the trophy it retains their hand print for several minutes.) I would never have thought of it, and that's actually very exciting to me. In fact I've now learned something about my own creative process! Check out his out his cool work - here.

Roles for the creative community managers on crowdsourced platforms

(This is not a complete list of course. I've complied some of these thoughts based on personal experiences with un-curated crowdsourced sites calling for creative solutions to marketing and advertising challenges.)

Insight Mining:

-In depth review of all solutions: Looking past the execution to discover the creators true intention and how that might inform the client and provide real insight to their brand.

Crowd Control:

-Active role in maintenance of the forums: leading discussions, making requests and offering general guidance.

Feedback Generation:

-Assessing solutions based on client brief: This may come down to a simple checklist that both creators and community managers can see and use, before and during the development process.

Creative referee:

-Above and beyond offering feedback, the community manager must determine what solutions may have been compromised by other creators or may not be the sole intellectual property of the creator who offered the solution. Even if the contest is hidden or “blind” it would be valuable both the creator and client to restrict some solutions for upload until certain conditions are met.

Ideas without borders.

Thoughts on “human rights logo” crowdsourced project: post 1

We’re all tired of the “thinking outside the box” analogy. Besides being over used, it’s not actually a fair description of a successful thought process that leads to real, actionable ideas. You have to be able to think inside the box first. And by that I mean, address the problem/challenge head on and understand how a straight forward solution works in the first place. It’s just the first step. It won’t yield the sexiest solution nor the final one but it helps define the “box” which you’ll need to step out of eventually.

As of this date there are over 4000 logo ideas on the Human rights logo. Truly, ideas without borders, but also so many ideas that seem to ignore some fundamental questions about the purpose of the logo challenge. Adhering to graphic Design principles aren’t really important on this platform; it’s about pure ideas and iconography that transcend language. After perusing the solutions it becomes obvious how difficult this project really is. Trying to get lateral and avoid the clichés is a tremendous challenge. The predominate imagery is globe, stick figure human, equal sign and surprisingly the words “human rights” in English.

The first "in-the-box" question needs to be answered. What does it mean to be Human? It’s a tough question really, but the answer should point the way to a possible solution. (Full disclosure: I have posted an icon that tries to answer that question too.)

Looking for insights within the cognitive debris

100 brains on the same brief. How many solutions would be identical or similar? If you gave the brief to a selective crowd ( vetted professionals in a particular field) with the same cultural backgrounds. My guess: at least 50. The number would get smaller the less “selective” the crowd gets: choosing different participants from different disciplines. The problem is that you’ll get more cognitive debris: more ideas off brief and some just plainly off kilter. It’s unfair to expect a novice or the uninitiated to think like a professional in any particular field. But we’re free to ask and it’s free to participate. That’s one of the beautiful things about crowdsourcing.

Brilliant ideas may still be in the novice crowds. You just have to look harder. I’ll call this “insight mining” for now….