Crowdsourcing. It’s one controversial yet increasingly popular topic. From marketing agencies to scientific research, many industries are taking a hard look at how crowdsourcing may be a solution for problems too big for one person or even one company to solve.
But why is crowdsourcing catching on—and how will it affect the future?
The specific solution varies by industry, but for most, crowdsourcing is a low cost way to acquire a greater (in quantity—and hopefully in quality) solution set to a defined problem. In other words, crowdsourcing is fulfilling an unmet need for many industries—the need to attain more for less. But what about the flip side of crowdsourcing? What about the consumers?
Without willing participants, crowdsourcing simply doesn’t work. If people are unwilling to participate, then there’s no content. And that chance is a big gamble. So what makes people want to contribute their time and effort?
A cause. Beyond cash, (see Chicago based CrowdSpring for an example of how some people make a living from the flip side of crowdsourcing) most people find that either helping others or contributing to a cause is a worthwhile investment—a good reason to be part of the crowd.
Take a look at the Aha mobile app, for instance. Sure, Aha guides users via GPS, allows users to customize food alerts on the travel path and has even been designed with a 65MPH-safe interface. But it’s the community aspect that sets it apart. Aha is a driver to driver network that connects drivers to each other and to relevant information from the internet. For instance, if a user is motoring down a busy interstate and traffic suddenly slows due to an accident, that user can record a voice memo alerting fellow drivers traveling (or planning to travel) down the same roadway. After all, news does travel faster via networks as proved by events like the Hudson River plane crash in January of 2009—the public was notified via Twitter first, not by mainstream media—an example of self-initiated, crowdsourced news reporting.
And speaking of networks, Facebook has also integrated crowdsourcing to solve content and policy problems—The Facebook Community Council. This council is a crowdsourced tagging application open to only select members. And once invited, the user can tag content that has been pulled for review with one of 8 tags—Spam, Not English, Skip, Nudity, Drugs, Attacking, and Violence. In effect, Facebook users are now patrolling the network for free in an attempt to keep up with content created and shared by its 350 million users.
The most innovative companies of the near future will replace less efficient and commoditized processes with crowdsourcing to bring tangible value to stakeholders and consumers through increased operating efficiency and higher quality products, services, and business models.
What areas of your industry could benefit from crowdsourcing, and how will it affect you?
Making predictions is no easy business. Take this, for example:
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
— Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.
But, with accurate insights and reflection and analysis of those insights, we can begin to develop a sense of what the future might hold. For 2010, many are predicting change to occur in technology, pop culture and personal life. Here’s what we think is next for products, services, and business models:
The integration of Conscious Capitalism will spur long-term growth.
Conscious capitalism is a way of thinking about "social responsibility," the idea that an organization (government, nonprofit, business) has an obligation to act not only in its own best interests but also in those of all its stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society).
In the developing consumer driven market, companies will no longer be responsible to only their investors—not if they want sustainable profit, anyway. Instead, companies will either adopt Conscious Capitalism or be forced to once they realize that doing good allows businesses to advance beyond previous limitations.
And the proponents of this change? First of all, they will be people like John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods. Along with John Mackey, many CEOs in parallel industries have already built the essence of Conscious Capitalism into their business models.
Secondly, but more importantly, the consumers will drive this change. With the power to choose products and services created by companies who no longer see business as a machine driven by profit only, consumers will exercise this measure of control to empower corporations and facilitate change for the world.
Vertical learning will be of increasingly high value.
Vertical Learning is the pursuit of knowledge of our own assumptions, ways of interpreting experience and our beliefs. But, it has been long overlooked and placed secondary to Horizontal Learning—knowledge acquired through training, education and work experience—expanding our skill sets, in short.
Horizontal Learning is, of course, absolutely necessary. For instance, those who want to design products must learn the proper techniques and acquire the necessary technological information to do so. But Vertical Learning is seen as a lesser skill—introspection is not currently viewed with equal value.
However, with the two working in tandem, we are less likely to think about products, services, and business models in binary terms. Instead, we are encouraged to “think through” and think around the obvious obstacles to innovation and renovation—therefore building something of far higher worth.
If we take both into account, we can better see developing trends with objectivity in relation to each other and discern the implications of those relationships as opposed to seeing the individual issues and tasks involved in innovation.
Although making predictions can be tricky, there’s nothing outrageous about our predictions and other future trends. After all, businesses and consumers are ready for positive change in the world—the most successful companies of 2010 and beyond will embrace this unmet consumer need.
Let’s say you’re driving home from work when all of a sudden your front left tire drops into a massive pothole causing you to swerve right. Luckily, there are no cars in the right lane, but regardless you’ve narrowly avoided an accident, and with good reason, you’re upset.
So what?
Well, a few years ago, you might have complained to your friend in the passenger seat and just kept on driving. But now, people have the power to report local issues with the click of a few buttons and the power of GPS.
City residents can now use an app like SeeClickFix, a mobile application that allows its users to take a photo of a pothole, a burnt out street light, fresh graffiti—basically anything that needs to be fixed by the local government—and report it using a mobile GPS device. Along with a photo and GPS location, users can add notes and track progress, as well as receive and view alerts on nearby city issues. Then, users can see how many other people have reported the same issue and monitor the most reported, a.k.a “hot issues” in the selected city.
Just one app out of the many that have been dubbed “Gov 2.0” by the tech community, SeeClickFix is utilizing GPS location in an attempt to make local government more efficient and responsive—and the app supports a trend that we’ve watched develop over the last decade called “Track Me, Help Me.”
The “Track Me, Help Me” trend was sparked by recognition of not only the popularity and functionality of GPS navigational systems on-board mobile devices, but also by the recognition of consumer willingness to offer up a very valuable piece of the puzzle:
Location, location, location.
Many people with smart phones have come to depend on apps like Google Maps, but now, as demonstrated by apps like SeeClickFix, people are ready to take location to the next level. Whether it be the power to innovate local government operations or the pleasure of playing virtual put-put, consumers are receiving relevant benefits when they give this information away—more evidence of not only “Track Me, Help Me,” but also of the evolving consumer-driven market.
But the GPS centric apps currently available are just the tip of the ice burg. As app developers begin working in tighter conjunction with the government, corporations and organizations, GPS innovation will be streamlined and even more integrated into our daily lives. In fact, many industries have just now recognized this trend and are developing applications to catch up to this unmet consumer need, meaning that even more people will be saying “Track Me, Help Me” while being enabled to accomplish tasks—no matter how big—with efficiency.
There’s been a lot of buzz around 4G and what it means for innovation. Maddock Douglas recently interviewed Jeannie Weaver, Regional General Manager at Clearwire, the first 4G network already up and running, to talk about the future of mobility.
Innovation is defined as the synchronized intersection of an unmet need or insight, the idea (business model, product, or service) that meets that need and the communication that connects the two. Let's uncover the innovation behind Clearwire and what it means for the future of mobility.
What was the unmet need or insight that Clearwire is responding to?
Consumers want and need to be able to access data at broadband speeds on the go—and we don’t think that experience should be painful.
What was the idea that inspired Clearwire - how are you filling the unmet need?
The current 3G network is provided by voice-centric cell phone companies who are accommodating the data needs of consumers. Clearwire is just the opposite—we are a data centric network. The reason AT&T is having trouble bringing quality data service to market right now can be attributed to building a network based on voice and having to retrofit for mass data use thanks to the iPhone. Clearwire is built for data volume from day one.
And the communication—what has Clearwire been doing to make yourselves known to your target consumer audience?
We want people thinking about CLEAR—we want to intrigue them. We are currently implementing multiple layers that include grassroots salespeople, partnering with local businesses and street teams. We are talking to people the way they want to be communicated to.
With 400 million people already using 3G (HSDPA/WCDMA) technologies today, what is Clearwire’s plan to increase mobile usership?
We ideally want to take marketshare and entice those customers on an inferior network to utilize our faster 4G network.
Clearwire has been extraordinarily helpful in industries with location challenges, construction for example, where people are working in remote areas—CLEAR is plug and play and the pricepoint is very attractive for small and medium sized businesses.
What roles do you see big investors, Sprint, Google and Intel playing in Clearwire’s future?
Sprint holds 51% of Clearwire and they have provided the funding that is allowing us to build out our network. Intel is creating laptops and other hardware with built in WiMAX capabilities, and Google will continue to assist Clearwire strategically.
Comcast is currently reselling our service under their brand, and advantage to Clearwire because we benefit when network usage increases.
What does the future of mobility look like and how do you see Clearwire affecting that future?
I think we already are. Having the capability to accomplish things on the go, but have an experience like a home broadband connection is amazing. Clearwire will effectively support and drive a better mobile experience while helping to feed the cloud.
Also, imagine if the 4G network were implemented in, for instance, Chicago’s parking meter system—there’s a huge lag time when a customer uses a card to pay, resulting in a long wait. The ability to speed things up can make so many day-to-day things easier—and safer. For public safety purposes, the ability to live stream video could bring surveillance to a higher level of efficiency. Devices with built in WiMAX capabilities will become more common as manufacturers rush to provide consumers with the ability to lifestream rich content to their personal and social networks on the go.
Both technologies are sound and in the future, 4G will seem like a commodity. Yet, we have the advantage of speed to market. We'll see how the rest plays out in 8-12 months as LTE goes online in major metropolitan areas.
The top four free Finance category iPhone apps all have something in
common (besides being located in the iTunes store):
Practical Functionality
With these four apps users can check balances, look at statements and monitor their finances with no unnecessary add-ons or frills. In other words, the apps are a complement to the already existing online banking sites, not a replacement. And while some users describe these apps as “nothing special,” that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Although mobile devices are quickly becoming a primary means to accomplish tasks, find information and experience media, their very scale and design helps dictate functionality.
You wouldn’t use a snorkel mask to go scuba diving. (You wear one so you can explore the ocean—but not to the extent that you would with air tanks and scuba gear.)
So what does this say about the future of financial apps?
Although we will be capable of accomplishing more through our mobile devices as technology, bandwidth, and battery life evolves, the medium will continue to dictate the material. Applying for a loan, reading terms and signing a contract on a mobile device simply isn’t practical. Financial apps will allow users to accomplish the tasks they deem necessary on the go. In effect, there will be more financial apps for more financial institutions as the consumer needs grow, but the depth of the apps may not increase at the same speed. Yet, mobile banking and monitoring interfaces will become more intuitive and therefore easier to use—driving mobile banking usership alongside smart-phone technology.
Consumers are already considering mobility a factor when deciding on financial institutions. Does the user find functional value in the app? Is the interface user-friendly? These mobility-centric questions will continue to fuel innovation in the financial services decision-making process. One of biggest challenges for the future of financial apps is to, as Mike Maddock puts it in Always Bring Donuts, “Design useful things."
According to a new “Kids and Gaming 2009” report from the NPD Group, among all children in the United States aged 2-17, 82 percent or 55.7 million, are currently gamers.
And, to take it further, of these gamers, 9.7 million are aged 2-5, representing the smallest segment, while 12.4 million are aged 9-11, making up the largest segment.
Kids today aren’t becoming less and less passive—they demand interactivity with little or no wait time. They have grown up experiencing interactive media instead of gradually acclimating to it. And to leverage that fundamental truth, game developers, scientists, teachers and even NASA engineers are coming together to innovate one of the most important subjects of our future: education.
Of course, in the past, video gaming has been parlayed into various attempts to sneak educational material into the minds of kids—but it didn’t work, at least not on a large-scale. But now, with game developers like ARA/Virtual Heroes collaborating with NASA astrounauts to create games like “MoonBase Alpha” to better convey science, technology, engineering and math ideas to students across America, it seems that the video gaming trend is being recognized for the first time as a relevant solution for a very serious unmet need.
And the great thing about this innovation? It’s working.
As more industries realize the potential of gaming and the relevance of this future trend, adults may find themselves playing a lot more—or at least more regularly—to stimulate new ideas and observations about the world around them.
Let's start with some numbers: in the first 24 hours of it’s release, Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million units, or 310 million dollars in the US, Canada and the UK. Within the first 5 days, MW2 took in US$550 million worldwide. And yes, these numbers beat out music, book and movie releases during the same period. For some people, this shift in popular media might seem ludicrous. But for Maddock Douglas, it’s an event among many that continues to confirm a future innovation trend:
My Life is a Video Game.
Today, video games are becoming less ancillary and more integrated within our daily lives. As Mike Maddock said at Future Trends 2009 (video link) we use a Wii fit to get in shape—and to build on his point, we already are using video games to:
As the definition of “video game” becomes broader, individuals continue to utilize gaming for not just entertainment, but also for functional purposes.
Consider foursquare, the mobile app that allows you to “check-in”, tells your friends where they can find you, and recommends places to go & things to do near your current location. Foursquare openly credits a gaming component to their success, as every foursquare check-in (when users find new places—i.e. restaurants, stores, bars etc. in their neighborhoods) earns them points. And, after accumulating a certain amount of points, they’re awarded badges or even made “Mayor” of that location, which may qualify them to earn freebies.
It might seem silly to some, but to foursquare’s investors—the likes of Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, and SV Angels LLC, The angel group founded and backed by Ron Conway, it’s a seriously fun way to “make your city easier to use.”
As demonstrated by many forward thinking companies like foursquare, where function and gaming mesh together, the chance to innovate is far beyond maps or joysticks.
Orbitz has been doing it for years. And, so has Ebay. In this digitally inclined age of emerging e-commerce in which demand for evolved/innovative business models has risen dramatically, cutting out the middleman (or agent, dealer, distributor, etc…) sounds obvious and easy enough. After all, taking steps out of the picture always leads to lower prices for the end consumer and results in higher margins for the company- therefore it is the best thing to do, right? You might have guessed this was coming:
Wrong.
Disintermediation, the removal of intermediaries from traditional distribution channels, is never such a cut and dried issue. For a company like Amazon.com, disintermediation is a part of their business model—not just a marketing plan ; yes it works, for them. But for other companies that have jumped on the disintermediation trend in an attempt to innovate, stay relevant and generate more revenue; confusion and failure can follow. Just ask PeaPod (who at one point was expected to put grocery retail chains on their heels, but now remains an ancillary service). In every case, there is a delicate strategic balance of dancing with the one that brought ya and “working the room.”
So how do you decide whether or not disintermediation is the right path to travel down? What indicators signal the future of your industry lies in disintermediation?
1. Tune in & Evaluate.
Take an intensive, analytical look into not only your company’s channel strategy, that of your direct and indirect competitors and also at your industry as a whole. Is it slow to change? Ripe for change? Time for a challenger to shake it up? Most importantly, do your customers see value in the intermediate? Can you specify and quantify that value? Sometimes the consumer’s need can only be met by the intermediate – in homeowners insurance for example, the complex nature of the buying cycle can best be met by the agent (and only the agent), in other cases the best way to meet the need is to get the intermediate out of the way. Do segments of your customer base work around your middle man and flock to your competitors’ sites in droves to make purchases -(e.g., auto insurance : Geico, Progressive)?
Pay very close attention to your channels. Are they growing around you or with you? What is your channel strategy? Are they appropriately integrated? (From your customer’s perspective – not yours). Do they converge with your web strategy in the right places to add value—or not? By examining the foundation on which your distribution rests, as well as the channels of parallel industries, you’ll find even more insight that will be extremely useful in developing and executing industry & brand-specific strategies.
The answers to these among many other questions will allow you to assess whether or not there is a strong unmet need that may be fulfilled by disintermediation.
2. Diverge.
Compare your market’s trends and challenges with other parallel industries that may be sharing the same issues. By observing and learning from the strategies that thought and business leaders have executed under similar conditions, you’ll have a wider solution set and a helpful frame of reference.
3. Shift your perspective.
Consider looking at your channel as a stakeholder model, in which the elements are interdependent. This perspective demands that all strategies and upper level decisions are created based on their interwoven relationships and on solutions that deliver a win-win-win. And since removing the intermediary will affect the other interdependent components of the channel, you’ll have a leg-up on deciding if disintermediation is the best choice for your business, and your customers.
So should you disintermediate? Or not? The answer is simply relative.
We’ve discussed the importance of content, the power and potential of 4G, and now we’re ready to highlight some of our favorite mobile innovations picks:
Alertme is a UK energy management start-up creating devices that read and monitor energy data—no electrician necessary. The components, a Nano Hub (the “brains of the kit”) requires power and a broadband connection so it can talk to the reader and transmitter, gathering and distributing energy data to the AlertMe dashboard—an online interface for adjusting and monitoring your home energy spend in real time.
Without any further additions, AlertMe is already a wonderful idea. The fact that people using AlertMe services can, for instance, turn the heat off from work, and monitor those changes to save money and help decrease their footprint is hands-down innovative. But now Google had stepped in to take things to the next level.
Google recently partnered with AlertMe to add what they’d been missing—the device component for their PowerMeter offering. PowerMeter, a free application that allows users to “see electricity use from any Google PowerMeter enabled device,” brings real-time energy data to the mobile, anytime, anywhere level.
And with 4G speeds already up and running in major markets, going green never looked so fast.
There’s no doubt that for many, IKEA is the place to find forward thinking design that’s in line with conservative budgets. But, since the beginning of furniture buying, there’s been a problem:
How can people accurately envision how furniture will look and how can anyone know if the item will even fit in the envisioned area?
This problem is obviously a deterrent for purchases. But now, all you need to do is go to your Portable Interior Planner app, take a photo of that sofa you’ve been thinking about, aim your camera at the proposed area where the furniture might be placed, and see the sofa superimposed over the image of the room. Then, the product can be scaled up or down to match room size and saved for later reference. The Portable Interior Planner is a solution to a long overlooked problem—and the need is met by a mobile app that utilizes augmented reality.
Mobile represents one of the greatest untapped markets for 2010 and beyond. These are our favorite recent evolutions in an ever expanding new product, service, and business model environment. What are some of your favorite innovations in mobile technology?
Maddock Douglas CEO Michael Maddock recently shared his industry shifting predictions for 2010 and beyond. Watch an excerpt from Future Trends 2009 below:
"Spend enough time around innovation and you become aware of a startling
analogy: Ideas are just like children. Ideas need a loving set of
parents to conceive them, encourage them, challenge them, and protect
them until they are ready to stand on their own. Good parenting will
produce ideas — born as simple insights — that can change the world.
The problem is, we as corporate executives (parents) abandon our
nurturing role too early. And just like in any family (or company),
once the core set of parents is gone, the child (insight) suffers."
Watch a brief excerpt from the discussion below, and remember to raise your ideas correctly!
Intelligence is learning from our own mistakes. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others.
At Future Trends 2009 I spoke about infusing outside experts to solve problems you are working on right now.
At Maddock Douglas, we call upon our Global Expert Network (GEN) to help create solutions to complex problems. GEN is an exclusive group of thinkers that includes entrepreneurs, professionals and specialists that span the globe and hand picked to meet specific opportunities and challenges. These experts often come from a parallel industry or have a specialized skill that relates to the challenge at hand. This cross-section of thinking creates relevant, and frequently groundbreaking, ideas. Do you have a GEN? And if not, how do you plan to infuse outside expertise into your next big challenge?
Michelle Oldham, Vice President of Innovation (@mahdlo1)
If you are attending, be sure to join us in Salon B (Track 1) on Tuesday, November 2, 2009 from 1:45-2:30PM for Michael Maddock's presentation on Trends from the Trenches: Tapping Networks to Find the Next Blockbusters.
FT'09 is your opportunity to join industry experts, corporate
visionaries, trendsetters and other revolutionaries to uncover and
action the trends that matter most to your business, brand and service.
Look not only into the immediate future and way ahead- where will we be
in 50 years or more? And focus on making it relevant for your business
- before others do. Lead your team to relate trends to make decisions,
engage in real conversations, and create meaningful change.
Crowdsourcing. It’s one controversial yet increasingly popular topic. From marketing agencies to scientific research, many industries are taking a hard look at how 
Take a look at the 
Making predictions is no easy business. Take this, for example:
Let’s say you’re driving home from work when all of a sudden your front left tire drops into a massive pothole causing you to swerve right. Luckily, there are no cars in the right lane, but regardless you’ve narrowly avoided an accident, and with good reason, you’re upset. 
There’s been a lot of buzz around 4G and what it means for innovation. Maddock Douglas recently interviewed 
Let's start with some numbers: in the first 24 hours of it’s release, 
