Companies are flocking to social media and crowdsourcing platforms in the hopes of finding cheaper or more effective ways to market their wares. This is understandable for we all need to make a living, however, I think the real promise of social media is bigger than just a financial transaction. People give their time and money for reasons above and beyond financial gain.

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter is a great example of non-financial motives for giving. Kickstarter is a platform to fund creative ideas. It is not investing, project creators retain complete ownership of their projects.

“Project creators inspire people to open their wallets by offering products, benefits and fun experiences.”

The great thing is that people do fund projects for “fun experiences.” There are many people completely willing to part with a little cash in order to play a small role in a community. And yes, each project is a community because like minded individuals are connecting around a single idea.

At the time of writing this post, Bud Caddell has attracted $6377 in funding from 88 backers for his book project, The Bucket Brigade: How Everything in the Attention Economy Actually Works and 10 Rules to Profit from it. Pledges of $25 or more get their name and URL in the book. More than $100 earns editorial membership. Backing of more than $500 gets “special attention from me (Caddell) far beyond the production of this book.”

Think about that for a moment, if you donate more than $100 you also get to edit the book for free. Caddell’s successful funding proves that money isn’t the only motivator. I think this is a positive and very powerful cultural advancement. Some professional connections and engagements are more valuable than a mere financial exchange.

That to me is the real power of social media. We are connecting around ideas and beliefs and not only trying to sell each other something. As we develop as societies and continue to climb Maslow’s Hierarcy, money is becoming less of a motivator.

Caddell was only asking for $5000 in funding, which is not a lot of money to write, edit and publish a book. Clearly it is not only about the money for him either. Lumi Co. on Kickstarter said,

“Kickstarter is an incredible platform. Its obvious purpose is funding, but we find ourselves gaining so much outside of collecting pledges. For us, Kickstarter has been a powerful tool to connect with a community passionate about our work.”

Many of us blog, upload videos and pictures, contribute to open source projects like Wikipedia and Linux with little or zero financial benefit. There is definitely more to life than money. Being part of a community and connecting with fellow humans has value in and of itself. We really are putting the ’social’ into social media.

Thanks to Edward Boches for inspiring this post.

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Spudaroo.com is new site allowing companies to crowdsource business documents like copy writing, resumes, brochures and business plans. Now you can have writers compete to create documents and companies can choose the best among many submissions. This is following crowdsourcing design sites like 99Designs and CrowdSpring, but will it work for documents?

The site is new so there is not much activity  yet, but I suspect that many companies will not want their business plans and company documents out in the public before they are officially used. Or maybe it doesn’t make a difference?

I will definitely be following this start up to see how it develops.

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Crowdsourcing is a big idea, but many companies still don’t get it. Having the general public co-work on projects together just doesn’t make sense. Yet, it works and sometimes it works better than anything else.

The best example has to be Wikipedia. The idea of having volunteer writers create the content and edit the world’s largest encyclopedia must have seemed ludicrous to many. It probably still seems crazy. How can it work? Yet it does. In fact, it couldn’t have been as successful any other way.

Now sites like 99Designs an CrowdSpring are allowing companies to open up design projects to the world. Instead of having one person or company create your logo, you can have dozens of people competing for the chance to win your business. As the buyer you only pay the best choice, yet you can get ideas and designs from many different vendors.

Content is Dead

Sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, iStockPhoto, Flikr and virtually any rapidly growing web business have proved that user generated content is a fantastic business model. Why pay to have content created when users will do it for free? The value is in the platform. In fact, if you want a truly scalable business model you have no choice but to have user generated content.

Is Crowdsourcing always the best idea?

Edward Boches has a good post called,  Should you crowdsource even if you’re only gonna get crap?

A talented company or individual can often, but not always outperform low cost crowdsourced alternatives, but there are other reasons to crowdsource. Boches talks about the importance of getting your fans and community emotionally involved with your brand. What better way for your customers to show their love for your product then to have them create their own videos or mashups?

Further Reading
The Rise of Crowdsourcing – Wired.com

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Edward Boches of Creativity_Unbound has a great article framing social media into real business objectives.

I don’t talk to clients about Social Media any more.

He has five ways to reframe the questions.

Want to improve your organic search results?
Start a blog.

Looking for a better way to conduct real time qualitative research?
Listen in on ongoing conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

Would you like more out of your advertising creative ideas?
Try a crowdsourcing contest.

Interested in stretching your media dollars?
Use embedded YouTube videos and encourage sharing.

Looking for ways to increase positive word of mouth?
Introduce all of your customers to each other, on your site, on Facebook and on Twitter.

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Here is a great video discussing the shift from the institutional control of ideas to opening them up to the world. Clay Shirky mentions examples of Flickr and Linux and how the users or community freely contribute to large projects without any material rewards. A particularly cogent example, is how mobile phone ubiquity has greatly reduced the need to pre-plan and organize in favor of real time communication. We don’t have to plan exactly where and we meet up with people. We can rely on our collaboration tools, the cell phone, and just say, “I’ll call you when I get there.” Planning can largely be eliminated in a world of constant communication.

The sheer quantity of the contribution can not be matched in any corporation or institution. It is impossible to create plans, structures or incentives to deliver what open source or freely collaborative environments can.

Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. Collaboration

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