Comments on: Crowdsourcing Products and Services: Trendy but Boring (Part 1)

By: watch5

watch5 — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:31:59 +0000

I love it,Excellent article.I am decide to put this into use one of these days.Thank you for sharing this.To Your Success!

By: Rickey Euresti

Rickey Euresti — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:37:11 +0000

I only in the near past picked up the ipad,havent dug through it to figure out all the ins and outs however from what I can see its a fairly decent little piece of technology.

By: PB

PB — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:52:34 +0000

Good stuff Kevin. Facebook to me does get both sides of the issue to a point. They know there are some things that they can leave up to the community at large, and other things, like design changes to help build a business model, that they have to do on their own. Mark Zuckerberg and friends have realized that they do know whats best for the company, even when large numbers of users disagree. Companies need to rely on their own knowledge and creativity to move forward, taking lessons from the community when its feasible.

By: Crowdsourcing be be | crowdsourcing.pl

Crowdsourcing be be | crowdsourcing.pl — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:27:06 +0000

[...] tym tygodniu ukazał się krótki wpis na blogu Zacha Hellera temat zalet i wad crowdsourcingu. Autor uważa, że crowdsourcing jest znakomitym narzędziem ale [...]

By: Crowdsourcing be be « crowdsourcing.pl

Crowdsourcing be be « crowdsourcing.pl — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:20:36 +0000

[...] maj 2009 · Brak komentarzy W tym tygodniu ukazał się krótki wpis na blogu Zacha Hellera temat zalet i wad crowdsourcingu. Autor uważa, że crowdsourcing jest znakomitym narzędziem ale [...]

By: Crowdsourcing Products and Services: Trendy but Boring (Part 2) « Be Innovation

Thu, 21 May 2009 15:46:23 +0000

[...] Products and Services: Trendy but Boring (Part 2) On Tuesday, I wrote a post about the pros and cons of crowdsourcing with respect to choosing styles and services based on feedback from an entire community. After [...]

By: Zach Heller

Zach Heller — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:06:20 +0000

By: Kevin Pruett

Kevin Pruett — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:22:47 +0000

This is such a great topic, and such a hard one to really “get right.” I think one of the biggest issues concerning crowdsourcing in general is that it really only became feasible about 10 years ago with the advent of the internet. Before the massive ‘connection’ otherwise known as the internet, massive crowdsourcing was a huge task rarely achieved.
For me personally, I think crowdsourcing is an extremely powerful tool for businesses. Let’s face it, having customers participate/interact with a company’s offerings is a huge step forward for true “customer satisfaction.” That said, I completely see where it does comes up short. Primarily, as you mentioned, innovation tends to stagnate with such massive groupthink.
This is a hard one, but I will say this. Companies who completely deny aspects of crowdsourcing are at risk. It’s the companies who acknowledge and treat there communities with integrity AS WELL as maintain there unique offerings that will be the most successful.
Facebook exemplifies this mentality to me. They continue to impress me with there fair balance between users rights ALONG WITH their ability to push the envelope in terms of the service’s functionality. I believe the users should have a say in their ‘Terms.’ However, when it comes to service updates, Zuckerberg and Co. have displayed great determination as they continue to piss off a lot of vocal Facebook die-hards. Of course, if Facebook had listened to the opinions of these crowdsourced bozos, Facebook would not be where it is today.
This is a glimpse at the ‘connected’ future of business.

By: Zach Heller

Zach Heller — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:36:55 +0000

Thanks a lot Paul, and yes you are so right. This is the type of feedback I was looking for here. The great innovators in the past have “invented” the market for their products and services. That is not a realistic goal of crowdsourcing.

I do think, if done the right way, companies can have success with it in a more controlled environment. But some of the companies I have heard about using some form of crowdsourcing are worrisome because of the risk of going mainstream/boring.

By: Paul Miser

Paul Miser — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:32:53 +0000

Excellent post Zach! I think the idea of crowdsourcing is spectacular. But there are downfalls. If left to the masses a lot of products wouldn’t exist. Didn’t Steve Jobs say something one time that people didn’t know they wanted the iPod, or something like that? And didn’t Ford say that if you asked people they’d want a faster horse? Without the innovation and expertise of the Dreamers like Jobs or Ford, we would be left with continually enhancing old products, with no innovation of what’s possible.

Having said that… I do think there is tremendous opportunity for crowdsourcing with Mass Customization. Look at what Nike is doing with certain shoe lines. It’s great that people have a voice now, but companies like Apple should keep dreaming and innovating.