We were hired by PwC to design, build and launch a crowdsourcing campaign leading up to the Canada3.0 conference later this year. We’ll also be involved in the Canada 3.0 conference too, as we think it is an important discussion to be having.

Right now, PwC is asking Canadians to voice their opinion on how Canada can lead in a digital economy. With calls in different sectors spanning over several weeks, they are focused on gathering ideas on what Canadians find important. The first call was for technology ideas and out of that, some distinct trends about what Canadians are interested in emerged. The ones we found most interesting are:
Mobile applications – As the smartphone and other mobile phones become ubiquitous, this is an important driver for content and innovation.  If you left your home without your iPod, for example, that would might be annoying.  But if you left home without your iPhone or Blackberry, you’ll go back to get it. It is the one thing that people have with them at all times.

Identity – A lot of debate around this issue and the idea of security and privacy.  Key issues in the digital economy and the debate over what is possible, vs what is desired and aligns with our values and wants.

Knowledge sharing – A lot of discussion about ways that digital can help share disparate knowledge for better solutions and understanding.  Touches on the collaboration and connection that technology enables and an interesting parallel to the project itself.

Rural and remote infrastructures and natural resources – This is important to Canadians.  Our expansive country, wealth of natural resources and a population is very spread out and presents unique challenges that other countries don’t have.  Technology solutions that are designed for this reality, as opposed to designed for big cities and applied to smaller areas. Leveraging Canada’s unique natural resources to help facilitate advances in technology is another area that hold huge potential for innovation.

The current PwC call is for new business models and approaches to content and distribution. Each call lasts one week, with the top scoring ideas from each call will go into a showdown starting on April 27th. Submit an idea of your own, or comment on other ideas at http://pwc-compass.chaordix.com/

We hosted a panel of smart people this morning. It was an hour of smart discussion that started out with Edward Boches commenting that “The crowd wants to play, why not embrace them?”  Then got right in to why crowdsourcing continues to be such a big topic.

James DeJulio, from Tongal said that it is still in the spotlight because tt’s feasible for everyone to creative and make content now, for cheap.  At the same time, the economy has a lot to do with it, business are looking for a better way to spend their money. Social media has given people the opportunity to collect a wide group of fans – why not give them something to do? It seems like a positive for both the business and client side.

John Winsor, from Victors & Spoils added that there’s a feeling that when a traditional agency brings new ideas to the table, there aren’t many ideas. Companies these days want more creative ideas and a closer relationship with the people coming up with those ideas. With crowdsourcing, not only are they getting creative, they are also getting research at the same time. Also, traditional agency relationship clients are becoming uncomfortable with that. They want more radical transparency than they currently have.

Edward’s summary of the three things were  more ideas, closer to the community and definitely cost savings. Peter LaMotte, from Genius Rocket added that it is also diversity of concepts and affordability.

Edward’s next questions were about the benefits of analytics and the knowledge insight and intelligence that comes along with crowdsourcing.

Peter said that tapping into a community really brings a diverse set of input to clients that can actually provide insight into their brands that you wouldn’t get from an agency. With crowdsourcing, from the front and on the back end, you are able to capture much more info than ever before.

Edward noted that what fascinated him when he did a project with Tongal was it was like getting back qualitative research along with creative, which is valuable.

James DeJulio,  Yes, the more places you can get people to participate and the more types of people you can get to participate, the more you get back real interpretations of your brand. He added a great analogy about how people view your brand and how you expect them to view your brand – sometimes what people want and what people say they want is different, “If you hate Duke, but think they are going to make it into the final four, you are going to put it in your top picks.”

When Edward asked if there were any conflicts to people embracing crowdsourcing as a way of working John Winsor chimed in and said he thinks it will be interesting to see what agencies do. Will they try and lockdown talent with more non-compete type things? There’s no answer to this. However,  Mark Walsh said what they’re seeing in the Genius Rocket community is that a lot of people in the creative agencies have realized that they are their own brand. They need to cultivate and promote that brand (themselves) more than they have in the past.

Edward Boches said as an employer, when he hires young people now, they all have outside interests. They pretty much insist that if you try and deny their interests in these other areas, they won’t work with you. The whole crowdsourcing model could affect the relationships people have with their employers.

The panel wrapped up with some words of wisdom from each panelist

James Sherrett AdHack – What you are looking for has to be key to the objective. Try it out on a low risk, small project, figure it out fast and iterate.

James DeJulio Tongal – First, commitment as an organization, Get behind it. Second,  a leap of faith that it is going to work, because it will work.

John Winsor Victors & Spoils – Break down silos. Connection and integration between product and marketing within your company is key.

Mark Walsh Genius Rocket – Start small with an orphan brand, so you are willing to try new stuff on. Those who ignore where crowdsourcing is taking the relationship between a brand and its customers are looking for trouble. Customers today are so drenched in interactivity and transparency, you have to respond to that, it is no longer an option.

It doesn’t mean that crowdsourcing is the enemy of ad agencies. We all want to play nice together. We’re just a new tactic in a toolbox that is coming along like a freight train.

Edward Boches Mullen – I look at one thing only: How consumers behave, interact and use content, community and the tools that are out there. The consumer has already decided. They are creating content. Any brand or marketer that doesn’t take advantage of that in a way that will work for them is crazy.

note: you can listen to the full hour panel here: Advertising and the Crowd Invasion – recorded audio

There’s more to crowdsourcing than brainstorming

Idea brainstorms are to crowdsourcing what reality TV is to television – a popular slice that doesn’t represent the full HBO-caliber spectrum. It’s not that popular isn’t good but there’s a lot more to crowdsourcing than FOX-style calling for ideas.

To be fair – brainstorms online where the crowd is asked for open ended simple input can be very productive. Calling to consumers to ask what they want most in products and services, calling to manufacturing partners for ideas on accelerating production and delivery, or to citizens for ideas to how to allocate municipal spending – all are worthy crowdsourcing initiatives with valuable outcomes in terms of market prediction, optimizing a company’s operations or achieving government relevant to the people.

Idea jams, or ideagoras as they are sometimes called, represent the simplest form of crowdsourcing where the output is ideas. Crowdsourcing may also be use for crowd production and even funding. As a production tool, crowdsourcing can be used to invite solutions to a complex problem, generate technology, produce creative content and trigger research break throughs.

PwC’s Canada’s Digital Compass (full disclosure this is a Chaordix crowdsourcing initiative) asking how Canada can best lead in a global digital economy is a good example of crowd production. In what we call a Solution Hunt, the crowd is asked to push beyond the ideation stage, to conceive a solution to a problem identified. It’s heavier lifting than free form ideas so submission numbers are usually lower than brainstorms, but the contribution value is significantly higher to the host organization.

Among top enterprises in the S&P index, many use multiple models of crowdsourcing across multiple divisions in their organization including human resources, product development, R&D, corporate strategy and marketing. Serving all of these needs demands a capability in multiple crowdsourcing models, from brainstorm to solution hunt to best of picks to crowd-test appeal of an internally developed direction or product.

It’s great to be see demand for crowdsourcing going mainstream and the proliferation of idea forum tools is a natural market response. Most are strong on enabling input, but weaker at how they help to filter the cream from a motley crop of ideas. As organizations contemplate what technology to adopt for highest value open innovation, it’s worth contemplating the value of multiple models of crowdsourcing and protecting yourself from ideas-orama.

Photo by: Erikadotnet

Tomorrow’s leaders may need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable

Preparing for the 4th Annual Open Innovation conference coming up April 7 – 9th, our team got talking about what we could share with Intuit, General Mills, GlaxoSmithKline, Nestle, Motorola, Merck & Co., NASA at the event that would be worth their time?

We talk to businesses every day about cross-enterprise crowdsourcing. Mostly we get asked about the how to’s and ROI of open innovation for seeking research or technology breakthroughs, new product and service ideas, testing and building world-leading brands, and anticipating consumer and citizen preference and behaviour trends.

Truthfully, these business cases for crowdsourcing are pretty common sense.

What we notice is relatively uncommon though is an understanding that crowdsourcing isn’t about getting more people participating in business as usual, it’s about how we need to change what’s usual about business to get more people contributing. Shifting to open innovation means evolving how organizations identify new strategic direction, manage knowledge and input, and form real relationships with people not just as employees. We’re not the only ones observing this – Boris Pluskowski blogged a warning “Is there a lack of innovation or originality in the innovation practice itself?”

Let me come clean here. I’m a member of the “has been” generation – the over 35 crowd. I have been caught on video ranting that I’m too set in my ways to fully embrace gmail after a decade plus on Outlook. I relate to a love of mastery versus uncertainty - big time! But as so many of us have learned – we cannot change our odds of succeeding without changing anything at all.

So when we have some time to workshop on innovation with GM, Nestle and Nasa here’s what are going to talk about:

Where is all this going? – The enterprise-wide opportunities of open innovation

- Talent scouting: How will tomorrow’s bright minds want to contribute to your organization – as employees and outsiders?
- Venture financing: How can open innovation take the risk out of choosing the up and comers most worthy of investment in your space.
- Testing: Whether you need to test a mobile app globally or a new drug with select patients, how can going open take speed and cost out of your business?

Some things to brace for and embrace:
1. Key contributors need not be employees, so you won’t control them so much, nor will you own them exclusively.
2. You may receive a multi-million dollar product or venture idea from a guy you known mostly as lapdoglover – judge the invention not the userid (remember it might be his kid or grandkid that picked the ID for him)
3. It’s not having a digital suggestion box that invites the world that’s game-changing, it’s the ability to apply crowd effort and technology to filter statistically most-likely-to-succeed ideas to the top, fast, so you can have them in market first and faster.

4. Information management and governance just went warp - If privacy and IP ownership make your fists clench, sign up for some serious meditation and laughter therapy ahead (and get involved with us in the thinktank: IBM Information Governance Council)

Hope to see you at the conference in Philadelphia. Introduce yourself!

Readiness tips for crowdsourcing the first-time, and every time after

I spent much of the day yesterday with Carrie Maynard at PWC working out the game plan to launch and manage a community which PWC is creating to uncover how Canada can best lead in a digital economy. It’s an initiative that combines some of the things Chaordix is most passionate about – change making, technology and tapping a crowd.

As we countdown to launch, it was a chance to bravely run through some crowdsourcing worst case scenarios that are worth it….

1. Nobody comes – like the party where you have set out appetizers for 50 and 3 guests show. This is a risk when there’s no thinking on crowd recruitment and promotion. So it’s avoidable, but if it does happen the loss is really in face and time. And that’s always the risk of innovating.

2. Nobody comes and everybody notices – this is a twist on #1 where paparazzi on the front lawn merrily shoot photos of you hucking appetizers in the trash which they publish alongside scathing reviews. This one hurts a little - especially with condolences rolling in for weeks. Best response here – read the criticism, re-plan and announce improved round #2 right away.

3. Lots of people come, some have an axe to grind - The first time (expect this more than once) that a casual stranger in the community slags the host or panel will be… uh uncomfortable. Our advice there, trust that the crowd is up for open mic night. The host and panelists should comment back with their perspective. Don’t worry about getting everyone agreeing – that’s dull really - and members joined to see differing ideas and debate.

4. People crash the party for the free food – if members are eligible for participation rewards when they contribute – submit, vote or comment - even when entry is a blind draw there’s a chance that lurkers who aren’t really doing the heavy lifting will steal the loot. Just like at the airport when the most impatient guys worms his way into getting the best last seat on the plane. Online life mirrors offline. It’s not the Holodeck but trust that hackers worldwide are unlikely to organize a commando effort for a free iphone. What’s more technology lets you track gaming and collusion – you can solve and manage the anomalies. And you can always special prize an overlooked contributor.

5. There’s a power failure – this is part of what Chaordix is paid to worry about. As much as technology is based on logic and math, there’s still an element or pure chance in making it work non-stop. I say this even knowing that we perform at least quarterly audits of our system stability, security and impenetrability of our code to risk. Beyond great redundancy plans, the main thing to remember if this does occur is to not be Tiger Woods. Act fast and honestly admit something’s up, say you’re sorry, solve it quick and invite everyone warmly back after the hiccup is fixed. If you have any sense of humour at that point, look at the spike in traffic you’ll see as the critics all lend you new member leads as they heckle your site.

6. It’s a bit of a dud convention – lots of people show, but you don’t feel like they are smart or saying much interesting. Good that we rip off the Band-Aid here and tell you this is HIGHLY likely to happen. The thing about inviting in unfiltered members of the public is they will bring along widely varied ideas. Some you won’t want to spend time on. Some will have you thinking for days. The whole value of crowdsourcing versus just a suggestion box is the crowd helps to filter the quality from the quantity. And prepare for a few surprises in where that quality will come from. We’ve all had a friend’s visiting cousin turn out to be the most interesting and entertaining guy at our party.

PWC’s Canada’s Digital Compass project is sure to raise the profile of Canada’s opportunity to lead on a global stage in technology. It demonstrates that PWC is willing to take risks to bring its clients innovative thinking that will help them best compete. It will hopefully get some Canadians connected and talking that would otherwise not have met. It is also sure to demand a little courage. We salute PWC and all of our clients who take risks to catalyze new possibilities.