Swarm Creativity Blog

I discovered this Wired article about Crowdsourcing in Kai Fischbach’s new blog Open Business Models . It describes how professional photographers selling their pictures on the Web for $150 per shot are put out of business by Web sites like iStockphoto . Millions of amateur photographers are putting up their photos there for $1 per picture. The same has become true for videos, where companies can get video clips from Web sites like iFilm at a fraction of the price it costs to produce such a video. The other two examples in the article, the innocentive marketplace who is outsourcing chemical and pharmaceutical research to individual researchers, and P&G’s connect&develop program sending out technology entrepreneurs on a global hunt for new product ideas are well-known examples of highly successful collaborative innovation also. Recently I stumbled into another great example, when I was speaking at the 125 year anniversary of Telekom Austria in Vienna. Besides eating...

Today’s New York Times has an article on the growing attractiveness of Atlanta, Portland, Oregon, Charlotte, Denver, and Austin for the young and restless generation. With an overall aging population, the group of the 25 to 35 year olds becomes a shrinking minority, courted by cities because studies show that once people are over 35, they are much less likely to move and relocate again. According to one of the marketers for Atlanta …”had the chamber tried to advertise Atlanta, they might have screwed it up —because they [the youngs] are much more trusting of their own network than they are of any marketing campaign." In studies, the most attractive factors for such cities were the low cost of living, an airport hub for easy travel, and a diverse and open culture. But what really makes an open and diverse culture remains a mystery. In surveys the young and restless like downtown living, good public transportation, and lots of entertainment options. The point is, however, that cit...

… at least on the Web, and Al Gore would be Vice President. I ran a coolhunting query yesterday Nov 19, 2006 on the Web, checking out the standings of the presidential contenders. The rankings are as follows (see the picture): 1. Barack Obama 2. Al Gore 3. Newt Gingrich 4. John Edwards 5. Rudy Giuliani 6. Mitt Romney 7. John Kerry 8. Hillary Clinton Coolhunting on the Web can give a skewed picture of the real world, as it basically measures how much somebody is mentioned on the most important Web sites. In this case the most central Web sites (see the picture) were dailykos and ovaloffice2008 . Other Web sites linking back to the most important Web sites “vote” for their importance in boosting the standing of Barack Obama and his competitors. In particular, coolhunting does not really care if you get positive or negative mentions, just being talked about on high-profile Web sites helps. This is not so different from real-world marketing, however, where it is said that there is no goo...

Yesterday I was listening to the project presentations of the MIT I-Teams course, an entrepreneurship class taught by Ken Zolot and sponsored by the Deshpande center. In this class students are exploring the commercial viability and developing go-to-market strategies of innovations made by MIT researchers. In other words they are working together as COINs (Collaborative Innovation Networks). While all of the innovations were undoubtedly of high scientific merit and had commercial potential, I was struck by the differing quality of the presentations. While for some products it was hard to understand what the uniqueness, barrier to entry for competitors, and the market was, others had really well-thought out go-to-market strategies. One of my favorites was the team presenting a new and safer bike helmet. While all the other teams had chosen a speaker to present their go-to-market strategy, this team had chosen to get on stage as a team. It was obvious that some of the presenters had ...