Blog

The National Post is covering him. So is the Huffington Post. So just what is so compelling about local Social Entrepreneur Brandon Baker’s recent acceptance into Oxford?

He is asking you to help pay for it.

Through his website , people from around the world are encouraged to donate$3 to help him fund the $90,000 he needs to fund his education. Brandon isnt the first person to use crowdfunding for this purpose, but it is part of a growing trend of giving- using the network effects of the internet broadcast to a larger medium then ever before possible. Much of Barack Obama’s presidential nominee fundraising has came on behaf of smaller donations spread across a larger population. “What has allowed Obama to fundraise so successfully (and me to attempt to raise $3 from 30,000 people) is the power of reach and low transaction costs that the internet provides, something all but impossible only a few years ago.” Baker writes on his blog.

Baker has currently passed the $9000 mark, but still has a ways to go before the deadline to apply arrives this upcoming Thursday. And what if he doesnt raise the money in time?  Well it all goes to charity of course.  Baker is hoping to do an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship this upcoming fall at Oxford.

About a week ago Michael Arrington, the notable tech blogger from Tech Crunch, wrote a post signaling a call to arms for all developers to help him create a web tablet that runs Firefox and has a touch screen- for under $200. With over 1500 people commenting on the posts, there is clearly a significant amount of interest in the project, including many people willing to volunteer their time.

Do you think this will work? Most people dont .

Open source developments have seen a ton of success (I am writing this on one- Wordpress) and software through the crowd seems to be something that works well. But what about technical development? Do many hands make light work? I am thinking that this particular undertaking will be incredibly difficult for Tech Crunch to pull off, primarally because of the logistical nightmare of bringing in all the information and processing it properly.

As entreprenuers, it is important that we not only know how to access the crowd for information, but also how to process that knowledge. It will be interesting to track the development, and I will be first in line when it comes out, but I wouldnt hold my breath.

The CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada has been an institution in Canadiana (for all out American readers, it is the equivalent of Monday Night Football). It began in 1931 and has been going strong ever since, from radio and then on to television. One of the many mainstays of the popular show was the theme song, a instantly recognizable tune to any Canadian. It was composed back in 1968 when the CBC commissioned Dolores Claman to write the song. It was a huge hit, and it gradually became part of Canadian culture.

Just one problem- the licensing agreement expired this past season.

The CBC was faced with a conundrum, and after receiving a ton of heat from the press and fans, CBC decided to not renew the contract. Claman’s famous tune was picked up by rival CTV for an undisclosed sum, and CBC was out a theme song, and had some pretty angry fans to deal with.

Enter crowdsourcing.

CBC created a contest called “Canada’s Hockey Anthem Challenge” ,an online search for a new theme song for Hockey Night in Canada. By giving the opportunity to the fans to create their own anthem, CBC engaged their audience, turning their anger into participation. This is brilliant marketing. Users can upload their own songs, then will be allowed to vote o for finalists, which will then be selected next season. Winners receive $100,000 plus half of the royalties associated with the song. With well over 600 submissions up to date, the campaign has been very successful, and looks to be a great public relations maneuver by CBC.

This is another great example of how a company can use crowdsourcing to it’s advantage, and in this case, deflecting public outcry.

Rick with Founders Bryan Emerson of Starlight Investments and Mike Segal of MJ Segal Associates

Last week Rick had the opportunity to give the keynote at the New York Private Equity Forum, a prestigious event that showcases fifteen early, later-stage and emerging growth investment opportunities from throughout the U.S. Representitives from all major investment firms were on hand to hear Rick’s speech on “7 FAQ’s on W eb 2.0 and Crowd Power”.

Speaking to a keenly interested crowd, Rick gave a walk-through on the in’s and outs of crowd power. We have uploaded the slideshare file and we will be posting a video of the event in the upcoming week.

| View | Upload your own

Last Thursday, Rick spoke at the Network Hub, a local Vancouver venture capital fund and small business incubator that caters to early stage entrepreneurs. Speaking about his book and the power of crowdsourcing, Rick entertained the lively crowd, and answered questions and encouraged conversations among the group.

 The large crowd of passionate entrepreneurs, many of whom were new to crowdsourcing and it’s effects, also enjoyed having Mike Sirkorsky from Cambrian House on hand to discuss the topic from his perspective.

 For more pictures please check out our Media and Events page

Rick had a chance to sit down and do an interview with Karen Klien of Business Week to chat about Web 2.0 and it’s relevance for entrepreneurs as well as established corporations. For the full article please click here

“I can imagine some CEOs being a bit squeamish about turning that much power over to their customers.

Crowd sourcing is a true collaboration with your customers, which is definitely an odd concept. It goes far beyond customer feedback surveys or comment cards. Entrepreneurs have to be more transparent if they want to participate in it. If they’re closed and protective and more traditional, this isn’t going to work for them.

What about start-up entrepreneurs? How do they use Web 2.0?

I think it’s a matter of being creative and looking at new concepts through an entrepreneurial lens. I go to Silicon Valley innovation conferences and technology summits, and I see that the people there don’t necessarily look at new ideas through a base of entrepreneurial knowledge. Would-be entrepreneurs could sift through the concepts in these cutting-edge environments and apply business knowledge to them. It’s not that tough to do, because a lot of the conference content is posted online for free, either in abstracts or videos or PowerPoint presentations.

Just like other entrepreneurial endeavors, it’s all about finding a void, looking for an unfilled niche, reading the crowd, and creating something that will take off. The great thing is that for very little money, anybody can go online and create something that becomes viral.”

 Make It Business , a Vancouver business publication has posted an excerpt from e-Preneur for their feature story  entitled “Next Internet Goldmine is the Crowd”

Check out the full article here , or the full version pdf here

Inducement prizes are actually pretty common. Some of the more famous prizes include the Longitude Prize, the Parking Meter Prize, and the X-Prize. Kent Pepper, founder of BigCarrot, was fascinated by the idea and set out to create a website that facilitated this ” radical approach to problem solving”. Because an inducement prize requires that the prize money be put up front, the model has usually only been reserved for large companies, governments, or the very rich. But BigCarrot democratizes this process and gives the power of activism to the crowd. Passionate about something? Convince a couple hundred people of the same thing and you can create a prize on the site. “If one person has an idea, they cant be the only person who has thought of that, so BigCarrot enables people to be proactive in their causes” says Pepper.

The prize cycle looks like this:

After laying out the rules, the community votes and adjusts them until they are comprehensive. The project is then released into the wild, with the hope of motivating someone to work it out and claim the prize.

Since the site was soft launched a few weeks ago, the site has had limited uptake, with 20,000 uniques coming to the site, and several prizes to be awarded. BigCarrot is currently running a promotion where if bloggers promote the site and a prize to their members, BigCarrot will waive the prize initiation fee.

Which brings us to the business model. BigCarrot makes it’s money by putting all prize funds in an escrow account (see Crowdspring) and collecting interest on the principle. They also charge fees for posting a prize. Although I wouldnt be surprised if this fee is eventually waived to induce (sorry I couldnt resist) more uptake.

BigCarrot is a great idea, and with enough traction, and maybe some SEO, the site will begin to see some serious money flow through the site, attracting serious attention from innovative minds. The next few months will be crucial if BigCarrot is set to take off, and I will be interested to see what inventions and solutions are created as a result

.

Crowdspring is a creative marketplace thought up by co-founders Ross Kimbarovsky and Mike Sampson out of Chicago and is the latest entry into the crowdsourced graphic design industry. On-site, buyers can post a creative project for the crowd, and then users can then post their ideas in the form of a completed work and the buyer then chooses the best one. As Mike says, “We look at it as a global stage for creativity. Where your experience and your title don’t matter. All that matters is your entry to the project.”

Remind you of 99 designs and GFXContests.com?

Not so fast.

Crowdspring differeniates itself in 2 key ways. Firstly, they allow all payments to be put in an escrow fund, allowing the creatives to know that they will receive full payment upon being selected. This is increasingly important as they are trying to appeal to a global market and with this of course comes cross-boarder payment difficulties. The second, and most important differentiator, is intellectual property protection. While this favors both parties, the buyers are the real winners here. This is how it works. Before posting a project, buyers are allowed to either use a Crowdspring created contract (Kimbraovsky is a intellectual property lawyer) or add one of their own. This is important, as in the U.S. even if you have paid for a creative work, it doesnt transfer to the buyer unless it is in a written aggreement. They also gauruntee that the buyer will get entries. If there isnt 25 submissions for the project, then the buyer can walk, no questions asked.

The business model for Crowdspring focuses on a commision fee for all buyers who post their project (Mike mentioned a $45 fee for a $400 dollar project). Crowdspring also gains interest on the money in the escrow fund, an innovative way to increase revenues. According to the founders, audio/visual elements will be added to the site to reach a greater audience, although will most likely have to involve a complete overhaul of the current platform, and could be a long time coming.

One knock on the site is it’s lack of collaborative elements. There is no way for users to work on projects together. Mike Sampson says “We don’t see that (collaboration) as working for the buyer. What we provide is choice, choice and more choice…kluster and Cambrian House are more high-falutin ideas. We say open up your project, look at the grid and you will see 25 or more solutions to your problem”

Crowdspring is aimed at developing for the creative services market what iStockPhoto did to the stock photography industry. And they are well on there way, with innovative features, solid management, and a strong business model, Crowdspring has what it takes to become a major player in the online creative services marketplace.