A few weeks back Don announced the new Wikinomics in action section, and encouraged people to send us a note if they came across a great new example (see the “contact us” link on the right hand side of the page). This is exactly how we found out about crowdSPRING a few days ago - a new player in the “crowdsourcing for creative projects” space, but with a couple of new and interesting twists. We’re currently in the process of setting up an interview with the founders to get a few more details, so this post can be considered a “first glance” at the new site.
For those that have done their wikinomics homework, crowdSPRING fits comfortably into the Ideagoras section: marketplaces for ideas, innovations, and uniquely qualified minds. The model is conceptually easy to understand - a company / individual posts a creative project, recieves submissions, and picks a winner. As the “how it works” page describes, there are a number of features and services built into this seemingly simple structure that enable it to work for everyone: money back guarantees for buyers (if <25 submissions are received), a payments escrow service that lets creatives know the buyers are serious, intellectual property protection, etc.
In relation to the wikinomics themes, it is the “collaborative” element that I want to focus on here today. Most of the early ideagoras that we have seen do nothing to encourage collaboration or leverage transparency - in fact, it’s generally quite the opposite. A company creates some sort of contest offering a grand prize, a bunch of people send in secret submissions, and somebody may or many not win - at the company’s discretion. It’s kind of hard to find the mass collaboration in there, isn’t it?
With crowdSPRING it appears a bit different. As submissions to each contest come in, they are viewable by everyone, and both the buyer and the “crowd” have an opportunity to provide feedback and ratings. The buyer ratings are of course particularly important, and those engaged in the contest can use them for guidance as to what direction the buyer appears interested in heading - which ideally creates a virtuous, “collaborative” cycle.
What I don’t know, however, is how the award is handed out. If crowdSPRING is like most other crowdsourcing sites I have seen, the contest is probably winner takes all - which I don’t particularly like, and believe is counterproductive for what they are trying to accomplish.
Consider, for example, if someone a “breakthrough” design that suddenly gets a 4-star rating from the buyer (after a series of 2s). Now a bunch of other creatives might start focusing on incremental changes to this design, and one of them eventually wins the prize - and banks the entire prize. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? And it certainly acts as a disincentive to sharing one’s work early in the process, right?
This is a common problem that we see in many marketplaces today - the buyers want to harness the power of collaboration, but the incentive structure effectively discourages collaborative behavior amongst contributors. There are many different ways that incentives can be distributed that actually encourage collaborative behavior, and crowdSPRING would be well-served to go down this road.
Of course, maybe they already are - as noted we are hoping to talk to the founders and find out more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can check out the main site, as well as a few of the articles out there on them. The comments in the article on Springwise are particularly interesting, which dig into the issue of designers and the resistance to spec work.
Hi Denis - thanks for your review about crowdSPRING.
Briefly - crowdSPRING is no more about “contests” than the real world. When a company sources creative services, numerous vendors compete and one is selected. Often, especially with large companies — the competition includes pitches with actual designs/campaigns. We wanted to bring this powerful model to the SMB market and to individuals. The clients on crowdSPRING are real clients, with real projects, offering real money.
You’ve articulated a number of excellent points that merit further discussion and we look forward to having that discussion with you.
Best,
Ross
[...] month, crowdSPRING, an online business launched to level that risk. It provides protections for creatives and for [...]
[...] couple of weeks ago I put up a post about a company called crowdSPRING, a new player in the “crowdsourcing for creative products” [...]
A comment on crowdspring I have done alot of designs there and was given a score of 4 alot of times and you are right the others amend the same idea and snatch it from me then when you are about to call it quits you recieve an invite from a pro because they really like your work which I believe is just to get crowdsprings quota for that client I emailed a few of the clients asking which work they liked and was ignored everytime. Also there are creatives there that I pm ed and they said they got their designs sold because they told the client they could have the design cheaper so I hit the skids once again I have a better chance of hitting the lotery than winning a design contest on crowd spring thanks for a chance to vent
Hi Linda,
I am surprised to read what you’ve written. We have very rigorous intellectual property policies and make it easy for people to report copying. We’ve permanently removed users from crowdSPRING for violating these policies.
As for invites - crowdSPRING doesn’t invite anyone. Clients themselves send out invites. Some are good about sharing what they like about your prior work but others not so much. I agree that the invites are not very useful if they don’t tell you specifically what they like about your prior work. In fact, I’ve written many times in our forums that if clients don’t share that info with you, you should probably not get involved with that project.
As for agreements to sell the work for less - these violate our rules. Two creatives attempted to do this and we declined in both cases. As you know, we escrow the client’s funds in advance.
We know crowdSPRING isn’t for everyone. While some are making good money month after month, others are not. We do our best to make crowdSPRING a home for all and to offer things beyond earning money (education, community, etc.).
I do hope you’ll give us another chance.
Best,
Ross Kimbarovsky
co-Founder
http://www.crowdspring.com
[...] relating to speculative (spec) work, which we’ve written about previously (here’s a blog that Denis wrote last year on crowdSPRING.com). For those unfamiliar, sites like crowdSPRING [...]
[...] relating to speculative (spec) work, which we’ve written about previously (here’s a blog that Denis wrote last year on crowdSPRING.com). For those unfamiliar, sites like crowdSPRING allow [...]
[...] mentioned CrowdSpring a few times on this site - I introduced it on May 23rd, 2008, summarized an interview with the founders on June 13th, talked about my own great experience with [...]