Why Crowdsourcing Isn’t All About Spec Work Anymore
Posted September 14, 2011 in Lifestyle, Tools/Resources
There’s always controversy surrounding crowdsourcing. Many people think that it means getting a lot of people to do something for nothing. But as the crowdsourcing industry evolves, there are many companies that look at crowdsourcing as a new way to approach work.
In this post, I’ll discuss what crowdsourcing is and explain how the new hybrid crowdsource agencies have evolved away from the spec model. I’ll also provide examples of four of those new agencies.
What Is Crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing as a set of principles, processes and platforms isn’t all about doing spec work. Spec work can be an element of some creative contests out there such as design and naming, however, for the most part, crowdsourcing companies are compensating workers for work and workers can bid on jobs without having to turn over a nearly finished product.
Nowhere is there a “rule book” that says crowdsourcing should translate into getting work done for free. Crowdsourcing starts with an online crowd, an open call that goes out to the crowd, and a system for receiving and managing input from the crowd. Crowdsourcing happens because of the Internet and Internet technologies that allow companies to cast a wide net to reach workers and participants. After that, it is up to the crowdsourcing company or site and the workers themselves to agree on–or accept–the terms.
There are more and more hybrid creative agencies forming that carefully vet their crowd, meaning that they only allow people into their crowd community who have specific skills rather than allowing anyone to participate. They hand-pick workers for a project based on a proposal in response to a client’s creative brief. Then they pay members of their crowd community for work rendered.
Four New Model Crowd Source Agencies
Here are some agencies that bring freelancers into vetted and managed communities, particularly creatives and marketers, and that use a more typical bidding approach where the best proposal wins the job or a portion of the job.
- blur Group–This UK-based full-service “integrated creative agency” leverages crowdsourcing to create a “services exchange” that taps into solo creatives and smaller agencies as their “crowd.” They gather and manage five specific crowds: designers, writers, marketers, photographers/videographers/artists and innovators or entrepreneurs. As an agency, they work closely with clients to develop creative briefs that are put out as an open call to the relevant crowd. Then they help narrow down the choices to find the right person or people for a particular job. Compensation is pretty much market value and being part of their communities means you are privy to multiple open calls each month.
- GeniusRocket–Focusing on video content production for television and Web as well as animation and motion graphics, GeniusRocket holds creative contests, but with the assurance that creatives are paid. They call their model of carefully vetting participants Curated Crowdsourcing and their crowd members can pitch ideas first rather than doing work on spec in the hopes of winning the contract. Participants submit their ideas privately and they retain ownership of any ideas they submit.
- Victors and Spoils–This is an ad agency that works with top brands such as Harley Davidson, Gap and Levi’s. They have account directors, strategy directors and creative directors on staff, but they are also “built on crowdsourcing principles” and manage a carefully vetted creative community of writers, artists, art directors, designers, producers and strategists. They match creatives to the right creative brief and manage and pay them for the work they do or for ideas the client buys.
- Whinot–What began as a marketing and business consultancy with a crowdsourcing component is morphing into a more sustainable model that may become closer to “Expert Sourcing.” The new site and business model is still under wraps, but it is worth reading about the lessons the company learned from its first iteration and finding out more about their new direction.
Your Turn
For freelancers, being a part of agencies with a crowdsourcing component can be like having a business development department drumming up work opportunities. Sure, you still have to win the business, but you usually don’t have to create work on spec in these work eco-systems, and when you win the business, you get paid.
Do you know of any other new hybrid agencies that don’t require work on spec? Share your answer in the comments.
Image by IAN RANSLEY DESIGN + ILLUSTRATION
Related posts:
- What’s Your Take On Spec Work?
- Building Your Portfolio With Zero Clients & No Spec Work
- 5 Ways Crowdsourcing Can Help You Make Some Money
- Design Shui: The Art of Creative Work Environments
- 30 Creative and Professional Portfolio Inspiration
About the author: Aliza Sherman is a Web pioneer, digital strategist and commentator specializing in exploring how tech affects human work and life. She speaks around the world and writes about Internet, social media, and mobile, as well as women's tech and business issues. In 1995, Newsweek named her one of the “Top People Who Matter Most on the Internet” after she founded the first woman-owned, full-service Internet company, Cybergrrl, Inc. and the first global Internet networking organization for women, Webgrrls International. Aliza’s books include The Everything Blogging Book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Crowdsourcing and Mom, Incorporated co-written with Danielle Smith. Her company is Mediaegg.
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14 Comments
Gold
September 14th, 2011 at 9:00 amAliza- “Then they pay members of their crowd community for work rendered.”
Does that mean everybody gets paid for their spec work?
Szakif
September 14th, 2011 at 11:06 amI do, among others services, translation service. As I got other jobs to do, I make an announcement in Facebook that I have translation job to be given to anyone interested. Those interested have to send to me an email asking for the job. Then they will be given a short translation test taken from the document to be translated.
After a few test answers gotten, I will pick the best one or two to work with the actual document to be translated, dividing it into a few parts. After they have finished translating the document, I will do the translation editing, making sure that all terms and phrases are correctly translated and coordinated.
That I believe is among the examples of crowdsourcing, right?
Aliza Sherman
September 14th, 2011 at 12:16 pmGold – if they participated, they get paid. But these models are more about bidding and not doing any work upfront – so if they bid, get the job, and do the work, they get paid.
Szakif – I would say that is an ad-hoc form of crowdsourcing, the DIY model. There are platforms built with a back-end that help manage the back and forth (the agencies above have their own platforms to manage their crowd communities). If you are using Facebook and email, that’s cobbling together online tools that weren’t meant for this kind of process but work on a smaller scale or in a pinch.
Gold
September 14th, 2011 at 1:23 pmAliza – Are you telling us that spec or bidding is not work? Should I copy-write my bid so they can’t use my ideas unless I get the bid?
Rebecca Gutierrez
September 15th, 2011 at 2:24 amAnother great article, Aliza! Thanks for sharing these insights. You can find more examples of agencies that utilize a bidding approach at http://crowdsourcing.org/l/28.
Sharon Stewart
September 16th, 2011 at 5:34 pmAwhile back, I was reading a scholarly article about using crowdsourcing for proofreading jobs. From what I can remember, it works something like this: (1) Many people (not necessarily editors or proofreaders) read the same paragraph (pay = cents) and highlight what they believe to be errors (whether an error is considered an error depends on how many people highlighted it, and those people that did spot it get a higher ranking than those that didn’t). (2) Other readers get the highlighted paragraph and repair the highlighted items. (3) A smaller pool of quality control readers check those changes (the majority answer wins). (4) The manuscript is returned to the client. This process costs the client very little, compared to professional proofreading. However, only errors found by consensus get corrected.
This article had screenshots of every stage the paragraph went through. I saw several mistakes that the crowd had missed altogether. Indeed, these researchers said they found that a high percentage of errors (I think it was about 40%) are missed in crowdsourcing. Professional proofreaders generally are expected to miss no more than 5 errors in 100 (5%). In my opionion, even 5% is too high.
I’ll see if I can find this article — I read it in a hurry when I was looking for something else one day.
Aliza Sherman
September 16th, 2011 at 8:14 pmGold – responding to an RFP which has been a long-standing method of getting work – or responding to a query – takes time. Preparing a proposal is definitely work. Any of us in consulting do that all the time but it is an accepted method of bidding on business. Crowdsourcing just offers a different platform where this can happen and there are various models and permutations of this. Hey, it is all work in the end. The end goal should be that both or all parties are satisfied with the terms and good work is done.
Sharon – that article may be referring more to crowd collaboration which can sometimes be akin to too many cooks in the kitchen if it isn’t the right type of work, process or platform.
Gold
September 17th, 2011 at 6:59 amAliza- It would seem to me that you have to better define the source with something like “The Contractors Crowdsource.” Something is wrong with your ambiguous reference to “crowdsourcing.”
The blog is either as I interpreted it or the way you interpreted it. Sharon’s comment as it appeared to me was about her interpretation of what you wrote.
Aliza Sherman
September 17th, 2011 at 10:59 amGold – I think you’ve hit upon a challenge right now faced in crowdsourcing circles. There is no single, clear definitive definition of it and several schools of thought about it as the concept continues to evolve.
This article was meant to show that there are crowdsourcing models that are blended with more traditional models where many people are part of an organized, vetted online community and then tapped into as a pool of skilled workers to bid on work and get paid for that work. In some cases, they may also participate collaboratively but usually not as the crowd at large but instead a smaller subset of that crowd.
Some of the benefits include being able to tap into a larger talent pool and come to ideas, solutions and execution beyond the capabilities of a smaller core team.
Despite the intricacies – and yes, possibly multiple interpretations or misinterpretations – of crowdsourcing, the “hybrid agency” model means people are getting paid for work without the need to do something on spec which I think we can all agree is a good thing.
Gold
September 17th, 2011 at 12:17 pmAliza – I do believe what you suggest sounds good for the prospect (the buyer of the service) but I don’t believe that it is best for the independent contractor or freelancer.
It sounds like the freelancer could quickly become pigeonholed and only asked to work on financially limited types of assignments.
It also sounds like the freelancer could quickly become an employee.
Houston Web Designer
September 18th, 2011 at 12:23 amI use crowd sourcing for content for the websites I build and I also have been known to crowd sourcing logo designs that I do not have the time to complete in my own time.
Ronald Miller
September 19th, 2011 at 2:28 pmThanks for this nice article!
A great example of crowdsourcing is http://choosa.net
The designers can build their reputation based on how good they are and make money.
This reputation can be used as a portfolio in the future. So I actually think it can be good for the freelancers, but it depends on the crowdsourcing platform and the provider of the platform.
Explainer Video Production
December 12th, 2011 at 2:54 amI’ll discuss what crowdsourcing is and explain how the new hybrid crowdsource agencies have evolved away from the spec model. I’ll also provide examples of four of those new agencies.
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