CrowdSpirit announced that their beta platform will be launched in the coming days. All participants who joined the CrowdSpirit community here (before Wednesday 1st of August), will receive an invitation for participating to this beta testing.

CrowdSpirit is trying to revolutionize the consumer electronics business by involving end-users in every aspect of a product’s life-cycle. This is how it works: inventors submit ideas for innovative new products and contributors submit problems for inventors to work on. Members vote, define a product’s specifications, and can invest money to finance development. After a first prototype has been created, selected members test and help fine-tune in cooperation with manufacturers. Once the stage of product development has been completed, customers can purchase products thanks to the CrowdSpirit Supply chain. The community ensures the product support and recommends products to retailers. In the first stage of the project, CrowdSpirit will primarily focus on consumer electronics products with a market price below €150 or 190$. Products will be launched in parallel, so the community will be able to work on several projects at the same time.

It will be interesting to see how this crowdsourcing initiative unfolds in the coming weeks and months. CrowdSpirit is setting up a pioneering crowdsourcing business model that could have a far-reaching impact on the traditional way of thinking about business structures and companies (if successful). The most important hurdles will most likely be issues concerning Intellectual Property and Rewards. CrowdSpirit clearly states that contributors give up all intellectual property rights when they submit an idea or product, or when they help define a product (if the idea is accepted and only for a period of 12 months). I think that given the arguments they provide in their faq, this is indeed the best way to avoid some possible problems. It remains to be seen however, how people’s contributions will be valued, and how and when these contributions will be rewarded. Anyhow, a crowdsourcing initiative to keep an eye on in the months to come!

Interested in Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing? Subscribe to RSS!

A new presentation was added to the Open Future series. The slideshow discusses the shift from growth to contribution. People are increasingly connected, and create their own connected markets (f.e. web 2.0). On the other hand, companies are isolated and focused on growth and profit. Because many new companies will arise from within the connected networks, existing companies will have to change their strategy from growth to sustainable contribution in order to survive. Apart from some statements being a bit simplistic, the presentation gives a good impression of the current shift in many businesses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide a framework to practically implement the necessary changes.

From Growth to Contribution

Most of you propably already know Sami Viitamaki’s FLIRT model of crowdsourcing. Those who don’t , should take a look at…

• The FLIRT model of crowdsourcing
• Creators, Critics, Connectors & Crowds
  

I am writing this post because I wanted to point to Sami’s slideshow on slideshare. I have added it below, as it provides inspiration for managers and others preparing a presentation on crowdsourcing. Please feel free to share other interesting slideshows about crowdsourcing through the comment function below.