V&S acquired by Havas: A pivotal moment for crowdsourcing in advertising

By

The purchase by Havas of a majority stake in crowdsourced ad agency Victors & Spoils is a sign of a major shift in the advertising industry.

I have written several times before about crowdsourced advertising agency Victors & Spoils. V&S Founder and CEO John Winsor spoke at our Future of Crowdsourcing Summit, and I have since written about some of their lead work with Harley-Davidson and where they have taken that.

The big news today is that global advertising conglomerate Havas has taken a majority stake in V&S, also naming John Winsor as Chief Innovation Officer for the group.
Read more →

The growing appetite for learning how to crowdsource

By

[Originally posted on Getting Results From Crowds book website]

As awareness of crowdsourcing increases, there is a rapidly increasing appetite for learning how to do it well.

Yesterday I spoke at the City of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business event on Outsourcing: Costs Down + Revenues Up, alongside highly experienced executives such as Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com and Wai Hong Fong, CEO of OzHut.
Read more →

Themes of the day: Consumerization of IT, Crowdsourcing for small business, Crowdsourcing in PR

By

These are frantically busy days, which is squeezing my ability to blog and capture some of the fascinating stuff flying by. In coming months I think I’ll try to do more ‘mini-blogging’, just capturing quick thoughts and impressions rather than writing up every interesting speaking engagement or media appearance I do.

Yesterday I gave three presentations, and I’d love to write (at least) a full blog post about what we covered for each one. However that’s not possible, so I’ll just share quick thoughts about each topic and what I will try to write more about later.

The day started by giving the keynote at a Consumerization of IT event run by CIO Magazine, supported by HP and Microsoft.
Read more →

An invitation to Sydney (and global) crowdsourcing workshops

By

I hope you can make it!

Sydney will be the site of the launch of a global series of crowdsourcing workshops over coming months in Sydney, Amsterdam, Cologne, London, Paris, Brussels, New York, San Francisco and other cities. I am very excited about the workshops, the material we’ll cover, and what we’ll learn during the workshops to help create the forthcoming Second Edition of Getting Results From Crowds.

Below is the announcement of the Sydney workshops. Please pass this on if you think people would be interested! :-)

Crowdsourcing Workshops: Getting Business Results

Sydney, Monday 16 April
Getting Results From Crowds: 9:00am-1:30pm
Crowd Business Models: 1:30pm-5:00pm
Read more →

Infographic: Timeline of the acceleration of crowdsourcing

By

In Chapter 2 of Getting Results From Crowds on The Rise of Crowdsourcing we included a Crowdsourcing Timeline, showing a selection of some of the important events in the world of crowds over the last couple of hundred years.

Tapping crowds has a long and illustrious past, with of course an acceleration over the last 15 years as humanity has becoming connected, vastly broadening the scope of crowd participation.

The image below is taken straight from a two-page spread in the book. Click on the image for the full-size version.

Insights and real-life case studies in effective crowdfunding for change

By

This evening I spoke at the Crowdfunding for Change event run by Avis Mulhall‘s Think Act Change. The event kicked off with a presentations by Adam Chapnick, head of business development at seminal creative crowdfunding platform IndieGogo, and award-winning film director Gillian Leahy, followed by a panel consisting of myself together with Alan Crabbe, co-founder of leading Australian crowdfunding site Pozible, and Ryan Wardell, founder of ProjectPowerUp.

Below are live notes from the event, capturing what I could of the presentations and conversation. I wasn’t able to take notes when I was speaking, so will write more about my thoughts on effective crowdfunding and where it is heading another time.
Read more →

Grow your business faster! Crowdsourcing and Crowd Business Models workshops in Sydney

By

Following the launch and fantastic response to Getting Results From Crowds we will be running a series of workshops around the world on creating value using crowds and crowdsourcing.

The first ones will be in Sydney on April 16, followed by a number to be announced shortly in Europe and the US (see our call for crowdsourcing workshop partners).

See the event page for full details on the workshops.
Read more →

The inexorable rise of work markets

By

The role and prominence of online markets for work have soared dramatically over the last few years, but this is just the beginning.

I have been following the rise of online markets for work since Elance was founded in 1999, writing about them in my 2002 book Living Networks and dedicating a large chunk of Getting Results From Crowds to how to effectively manage work markets.

Prominent VC Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures has just written a post The Nature Of The Firm and Work Markets, referencing, as I did in both of these books, the seminal work of Ronald Coase. Wilson writes:
Read more →

New ideas: Building the organizations of tomorrow

By

I recently spoke at an event organised by Building the Organisation of Tomorrow, a group created by alumni of University of Technology Sydney’s Master of Business in IT Management program.

The format was very stimulating, with three 15 minute presentations, each followed by 15 minutes Q&A and then a ‘disruptive event’, including some awesome satirical musical performances and a planted heckler in the audience. Below are notes from the three speakers.
Read more →

Crowdsourcing infographic: Choosing between fixed fees and hourly rates

By

[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

One of the most important issues in using service marketplaces is choosing between fixed fees and hourly rates.


Click on the image for full-size pdf
Read more →