We can look at funding from two different angles: 1) the further legitimization of crowdfunding as a means to raise money, and 2) venture capital funding into crowdsourcing companies.

In 2008, when (then) presidential candidate Barack Obama leveraged the Internet to raise over $47 million from “small givers” (people donating under $200 to his campaign) and surpassed one million total donors, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business author Jeff Howe stated, “Crowdfunding is an unprecedented phenomenon.” Well, President Obama helped take crowdfunding one step further into the mainstream in 2011 as part of a multifaceted effort to jumpstart the American economy when a House bill (related to the proposed American Jobs Act) was easily passed in a vote of 407-to-17 on November 3rd. The goal of easing SEC rules around startup companies trying to raise capital from “unaccredited investors” is to help microfunding from individuals flow (like on Kickstarter and even Kiva) to entrepreneurial small companies in early stages of development.  Still lots of discussion about controlling fraud, etc. but the shift is encouraging.

Also this year, venture capital finally recognized the impact and potential of crowd-driven platforms. Dorothy Sanders of Sandfish Design estimates that over $280 million of venture capital was invested in 35 different crowdsourcing platforms in 2011, with an average investment of over $8 million. (The actual total value of VC investments in this space is likely quite a bit higher, as there are certainly other undisclosed investments.) I’m astounded that it’s taken this long for traditional VC money to flow to crowdsourcing, as it’s clearly a disruptive business model that replaces inefficient processes, delivers real value to customers, and generates real dollars.

This year we’ve seen major multinational brands, global agencies and influential government bodies adopt crowdsourcing processes and technologies… investment regulation and venture funding was bound to catch up.

Originally posted on The Daily Crowdsource here.

But it actually gets even cooler…over the next 5 weeks, E.ON is launching five exciting challenges (powered by Chaordix) linked to the Channel 4 series ‘Home of the Future with E.ON’.  Here’s the basis for the show “The Pereras, a regular family from Sheffield, have their lives transformed by cutting-edge technology, giving them a taste of how we all might be living the future.“

I wish we got Channel 4 here in Canada, because I would definitely tune in.

So there’s a cool show related to the community, but not only that…E.ON Innovation happens to be giving away some pretty amazing rewards too, including a home energy makeover worth up to £10,000 and not only that…the best ideas will be developed by E.ON with the intention of starting to make them a reality in 2012.

If you live in the UK…you may want to consider taking part.

This creative collaboration is a follow up to an electric vehicle campaign we powered on in 2011 along with 100%Open and E.ON where first prize was a 3 month loan of a Mitsubishi i-MiEV car, and installation of a home charging point! Awesome!!!

We’re thrilled to be pairing up once again with our partners 100%Open and leading UK power and gas company E.ON on E.ON Innovation.

We can’t wait to see how these energy saving ideas shake out.  Stay tuned…I’ll follow up with another post once the community to underway.

Websites

• Crowdsourcing.org
• Guardian News and Media
• iStockphoto
• The Daily Crowdsource

Blogs

• Bloomberg Businessweek
• Crowdsourcing.com
• The Crowdsourcing Blog

Videos

• Howe, Jeff: Crowdsourcing
• Shirky, Clay: How cognitive surplus will change the world

New York, London, Boston, Calgary – January 9, 2012     Shelley Kuipers, CEO of Chaordix, is pleased to announce the appointment of Jim Gibson to the Chaordix executive team as Chief Operating Officer (COO) effective January 2, 2012.

Jim will work closely with Shelley, the Chaordix board and the executive team on business operations including financial, commercialization, R&D, and talent objectives.

Jim comes to the Chaordix team with 28 years of capital, technical and executive experience in the technology field throughout Canada.  Most recently he was one of the founders and CEO of PURUS Technologies Inc., which established one of the world’s first Collaborative Decision Management platforms in the industry.

Prior to his role at PURUS, Jim was involved in private equity and management consulting.  He started his entrepreneurial career at 27 when he helped start an information management and health care technology platform company which he sold 10 years later with 80 people.

Jim comes to Chaordix at a key point in their history as they begin their transition into a global commercial and business success driven through increased market success and timely capital infusions.

Mr. Gibson will work out of the Calgary office and work closely with Chaordix globally in New York, London and Boston.

About Chaordix
Chaordix is the global standard in crowdsourced market intelligence. Chaordix uses the power of crowdsourcing to help the world’s leading companies and organizations gain business insight and competitive advantage. Our Crowd Intelligence™ community solutions are helping clients such as E.ON, IBM, The Government of Ireland, Orange, P&G, and PwC leverage our unique crowdsourcing techniques and technology to drive market research, brand loyalty and innovation. Visit www.chaordix.com to find out more.

– 30 –

For further information, please contact Cynthia van Sundert at (403) 263-2655 – press@chaordix.com

Chaordix and Crowd Intelligence are trademarks of Chaordix Inc.

However, a perhaps less-used definition is actually the original one, coined by Alvin Toffler back in 1980, who first identified a prosumer as one who is highly interested in a particular product, service or brand, and wants to become involved with it to help fashion its future. In other words – a “proactive consumer”.

It is Alvin Toffler’s definition of “prosumer” that is highly relevant to crowdsourcing as it enables the identification of these individuals, who can be immensely valuable to any organization. Prosumers are often word-of-mouth powerhouses that can influence a large number of people and therefore promote your product, service or cause.  They are also consumers or advocates who can become actively involved in the design or production of a good or service, or simply raise awareness of a movement by helping to shape its impact regionally, or globally.

So how does this all fit into crowdsourcing?  Crowdsourcing is perhaps the most effective way to identify the prosumers, to bring them into your brand (or cause) and give them a meaningful way to engage, contribute and grow their relationship with you. Crowdsourcing can also provide a way to bring prosumers together with other prosumers and engage on innovation and co-creation initiatives. Prosumers can be hidden assets for any organization, but through crowdsourcing you can make them known to your company, and begin to build lasting, highly productive and mutually rewarding relationships.

What can prosumers do for you?

Prosumers can contribute in three major ways to your organization: through abundant feedback and input, insightful conversations in consumer groups focused around brands and ideas, and ultimately, co-creation and open innovation.  Therefore prosumers will touch three key aspects of your business: market research, brand and innovation; and successful crowdsourcing programs do just that, enable any form of contribution from the crowd through microtasks to hands on co-creation.

Prosumers are most insightful in co-creation by providing real-life feedback in testing new concepts before rolling them out to the market. Prosumers can also raise awareness or elevate a cause in their network and are motivated more by the bond with your organization than they are by awards or external incentives. We often give prosumers a special role in our crowdsourcing programs – by inviting them into private areas for hands-on innovation or acknowledging them through brand affiliated reputation and/or influence.

Our team has aspirations for some of the brands we touch every day, like RIM, Air Canada, Rogers, Shaw, and HSBC as they have so much to gain from their prosumers that are just waiting to be invited in.  We’d love to help them to build their communities or make their brands participative.

As for the rest of you, take a step – a bold step – and extend an invitation to your consumers both current and future via social channels, mobile and web-enabled engagement; capture all that they are trying very hard to contribute, and remember to acknowledge and reward them.  There is no better investment for your brand, products, services or cause – we’ll see many cases studies of ROI very soon.

Originally posted on The Daily Crowdsource here.

Predictive. It begs the question, what makes a legendary CEO different than anyone else? How can this person be so good as to change the fate of an entire market? There is one very important ingredient: the ability to predict the future. I’m not suggesting that Bill Gates held seances and looked into a crystal ball before investing his life into Microsoft, but I am suggesting that he had a pretty good idea of what he was doing. The ability to absorb huge amounts of information and make accurate judgements about them leads the CEO to make smart, and ultimately successful, decisions.

Resilient. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the land of the CEO. They are often asked to endure punishing travel and meeting schedules. And there is no room for a bad performance for any reason. At this level, you need to be on your game at all times. And what if you’re not? That’s right, even CEO’s can be fired. Yahoo‘s Carol Bartz was fired abruptly, leading to a huge stock market jump for the company. It is a very bad sign when everybody wants some of your ex-company’s stock just after you are fired. For a CEO, this is part of the job. You put yourself back together, and try again.

Inspirational. CEO’s are not self-contained entities. It is meaningless to have a leader without a team. And team performance is often just as (or more) important than the forward thinking actions of the CEO. Think of the CEO like a helium balloon attached to the company by a string. If they pull at just the right times, in just the right ways, they can guide everything to great outcomes. If they pull too hard, or in the wrong directions, or at the wrong times, they won’t achieve the action or direction they were hoping for. A legendary CEO will rally their team to achieve amazing outcomes, and appear relaxed and at ease. Finesse will ultimately be the measure by which they are judged.

Here at Chaordix we are lucky to have a CEO with all of these qualities. Thank you to Shelley Kuipers for your excellent leadership!

Consumers throughout Ireland will be eligible to win prizes simply by sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions through bigalskitchen.ie. Participants will collaborate, engage and contribute, to help develop ideas for Big Al’s. Some of these may include new products that could appear on shelves in-store.”

Originally posted here.

Check out the listing of all the charity participants and supporting vendors! http://www.suntimes.com/charitytrust

Thank you again for shining a light on deserving youth charities in the Chicago region! You made the Sun Shine Project a huge success.

Sincerely,

The Sun Shine Project Team
Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust

Originally posted on December 2, 2011 by Lesley.Ochoa via http://www.chicagosunshineproject.com/blog/

The Daily Crowdsource just released first of its kind market research on the state of the microtasking industry.  We applaud this effort and think it is evidence of the maturation of the crowdsourcing industry in general.  We expect to see much more of this type of research come out on different facets of the crowdsourcing market (crowdfunding, etc) and in fact in their announcement, Dailycrowdsourcing indicated that additional studies are forthcoming.

To read more about this announcement visit http://dailycrowdsource.com/intl/crowdsourcing-research/industry-reports