I just read on TechCrunch that Cambrian House is sold for an amount far below the investments the company received. This is just a link to the article for newsjunkies and my promise to you to figure out what to make of this…

What’s clear already is that it would be a shame if such an energetic company would die. So I’m very interested in the new owner and his strategy with the community…

I’ll be back…

Jeff Howe, the inventor of crowdsourcing, calls upon the crowds to comment on his soon-to-be-published book: Crowdsourcing. After crowdsourcing the artwork for the cover of the British version of his book he now searches for the intelectual improvements that the crowds have to offer.

Here are the chapters that need your unsalted critique, deep insights and experience:
Chapter Two: The Rise of the Amateur 
Chapter Two: Rise of the Amateur, Continued
Chapter 3: From So Simple a Beginning
Chapter 3: From So Simple a Beginning, Continued
Chapter 4—Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier: Democratizing the Means of Production
Chapter 4: Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier, continued.
The End of Chapter 4: Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier
Chapter 5: The Rise and Fall of the Firm: Turning Community Into Commerce
Chapter 5: The Rise and Fall of the Firm, Cont.
Chapter 6: The Most Universal Quality—Why Diversity Trumps Ability

See Jeff Howe in action and give him your feedback face-to-face on our event in Amsterdam, May 22nd: SocialStrategyTalk. (subscribe via meetup).

Microsoft thinks engagement is more important than clicks and I can’t agree more. Although Microsoft is not very clear on what they mean by engagement they share they acknowledge that the age of advertising as we know it is over and we are moving steadily into the age of engagement.

Why is this relevant to a blog about Crowdsourcing? (We’ve even made it a category). I believe Crowdsourcing is a means for engagement and is fueled by the same trends. To lean on my MscBA for explaining this a bit: Treacy and Wiersema (1993) modified Michael Porters generic strategies into three “value disciplines: Cost Leadership, Product Leadership, and Customer Intimacy. Cost leadership is harder than ever due to globalization. Moreover product leadership is more expensive than ever: R&D cost are increasing (ROI decreasing).

What is left is Customer Intimacy: focussing on user groups to meet their needs better. This strategy is very much technology-driven. On the one hand companies have the ability to produce taylor-made products (think Lego and Ponoko). On the other hand customers are more able than ever to create their own designs with software and let companies know what they want with social software. Crowdsourcing is all about these two groups joining forces in an intimate relationship.

The following presentation by David Armano is an inspiring presentation about this topic from another angle.

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ABN Amro started offering support for private loans. The bank is part of Fortis, the third largest bank in the world.

The bank takes a different angle than do crowdfunding/p2p loan sites, like zopa, prosper, the Dutch boober and many others. The site offers free loan contracts, a calculation tool for redemption schemes and offers paid legal services.

I think the service is interesting; it will definitely bring value to people that want to loan money to privately. But it will not threaten the existing p2p players. The essence of p2p funding is that not just financial and commercial motives are important. Moreover the emotional satisfaction that you get from helping others financially is important.

When you have some money left you can put it on an account with high interest, or you can really help someone financing his marriage, study or that car he is so passionate about.

In my opinion big banks need to be looking on for the right way to fence off the threat posed by p2p…

May 22nd will be the day our event SocialStrategyTalk kicks off with no one less than Jeff Howe: the inventor of Crowdsourcing.

SocialStrategyTalk will be a recurring event about organizations that are connecting to the people around and within them. The event will be the offline part of a discussion amongst people that are involved with the social strategies of their organizations. A strategic approach to the socialenterprise is needed, SST aims to be a place where people can be inspired, informed and connected to other people facing similar challenges.

The theme of the first meeting is “Crowdsourcing” and we have two great speakers to discuss it.

Jeff Howe is a contributing editor at Wired Magazine, where he covers the media and entertainment industry, among other subjects. In June of 2006 he published “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” in Wired. He has continued to cover the phenomenon in his blog, crowdsourcing.com, and is currently writing a book on the subject for Crown Books to be published in July 2008. The Crowdsourcing trend seems to be getting an increasing amount of attention as it touches on many developments in a broad array of industries. We are proud to have Jeff coming over to Amsterdam!

Menno Bouwes works at the ministry of Justice of the Netherlands and is involved in a project in which Legislation is being crowdsourced. Menno will tell us the ins and outs of the project and share his insights and learnings. We are very enthusiastic about Menno’s appearance at SST because it will give us a hands-on example of crowdsourcing showing the broad potential for the application of the trend.

SocialStrategyTalk will take place May 22nd in Amsterdam at the WesterUnie (Westergasfabriek, directions here). The program starts at 15:30. SocialTalk (without the strategy) can start 19:00. Check the site for more info and subscribe via Meetup.

Subscribe to SocialStrategyTalk for free via Meetup.Com

SocialStrategyTalk is a co-production of CreativeCrowds and ViNT.

A new report by Forrester teaches that companies’ budgets for web2.0 technologies will radically increase over the next five years. “This increase will include more spending on social networking tools, mashups, and RSS, with the end result being a global enterprise market of $4.6 billion by the year 2013″ (source).

An interesting finding in the report is that external Web 2.0 expenditure will surpass internal expenditure in 2009, and, by 2013, will dwarf internal spending by a billion dollars. I think this is trend is moving simultaneously with the notion within companies that there is a lot to gain outside of their companies. It is exactly this notion that will drive the adoption of new crowdsourcing applications as well.

One of the interesting explanations for the trend is that a lot of baby boomers will start to retire in the coming years, creating more room for younger people who are far more at ease with new technologies. Read readwriteweb for good coverage of the report.

Our friends at ViNT have launched their latest book Me the Media. I haven’t read it yet but highly recommend to take a few minutes for their movie on Youtube. It is totaly made up of other Youtube movies and makes clear the vision on the evolution of media.

The guys at Kluster.com sure know how to keep people talking. The biggest tech blogs started talking about the community even before they went live and their launch on the TED conference got quite some coverage. Kluster keeps pace and launches Knewsroom.

What I understand from Mashables’ coverage is that Newsroom will be published daily with content created by the crowds. Contributers earn money if their piece makes it to the front page. It has large similarities to OhMyNews in that respect. Knewsroom will go live later this week, so we’ll have to wait to see for ourselves.

Although I admire the productivity of Kluster, as well as their ambitions (they plan to launch a community driven business every six weeks), I have some critique on the site itself. The makers clearly thought a lot about how communities can collaborate, but it just isn’t easy enough. Maybe it’s just me but surfing on the site leaves me rather clueless about what to do, or what others are doing. Maybe some simplicity should be higher on their agenda than pulling in a second round of funding (first round was $3mln).

Another promising Crowdsourcing startup went public last week. US-based ‘Local Motors’ aims to make, sell and service cars in a totally new way.

In a process they call ‘Micro-factory retailing‘ Local Motors is putting up a network of local workshops that will produce and sell the cars that are co-created by the community. This decentralized way of working, combined with a vision on the new generation of automobiles will challenge the outdated paradigm of the automobile industry.

“The outdated paradigm of the automobile industry“:

*High capital intensity, current global auto manufacturers.
*They design a single model, make hundreds of Continue reading ‘Industrial Giants meet Local Motors’

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