What a difference a year makes!  We’ve had a pretty amazing year here at crowdSPRING – we’ve seen some amazing company’s making the switch to the crowdsourcing platform, we’ve paid out $2.5 million in awards to our more than 40,000 creatives and we’ve expanded our office personnel.  We’re feeling pretty darn loved and lucky and because of that, we want to share the love! We really appreciate everyone and everything you guys are doing and have done and to show our appreciation we are pleased to announce the inauguration of our annual Springy Awards! These awards will take place at the end of each year and include four different categories for you to win:

Most Winningest Designer of the Year - The word may be made up but it’s the only word that’s able to capture how much you do for us as designers. crowdSPRING will award the designer who won the most projects this year.

The Community Award - This is awarded to the designer who contributes the most to our crowdSPRING community, whether it’s through the blog, our forum or feedback on projects themselves – we appreciate your mouthiness.

And here’s where you guys come in - the following are crowdSPRING’s People’s Choice Awards:

crowdSPRING Buyers:
Speak up!  We need you to nominate the designer you think deserves the Frenchie Award, named after our French customer service representative, Jerome. This is awarded to the designer that demonstrated their own customer service to their potential client - the designer that gave the most and best feedback.

crowdSPRING Designers:
It’s your turn to speak up and nominate the buyer you think deserves the Buyer of the Year award, which is given to the buyer who you love working with the most.

If you are a creative or a buyer in the crowdSPRING community or even just a friend of one, we would love to hear your nominations to find the best buyers and creatives that deserve an award this year (don’t be afraid to nominate yourself! We’ll never tell.)

Please submit your nominations no later than November 20, 2009 to springy@crowdspring.com.

Simply email us the crowdSPRING username of your nominee and a quick reason why you believe they should win the award. Put the award you’re nominating for in the subject line of the email.

The Winners will get a special crowdSPRING winners package complete with award!

Thinking about the health-care debate has caused me to reflect on our own approach to our team has given me a chance to consider some ways in which we add value to our own venture, create a stronger company, and (hopefully) achieve a real competitive advantage.

When Ross and I started crowdSPRING, we were determined to hire the best people we could find, treat them fairly, allow them to grow into their jobs, and share with them the responsibility for building our community and our business. Among our priorities was to provide a package of benefits which would communicate not just our commitment to the folks we hired, but also the values we held. The health care benefits we provide to our workers and their families are just one way in which we try to make the team feel valued and secure.

It shouldn’t stop at health care benefits; all aspects of human resource management should be considered and thoughtful policies established. Business owners should carefully apply several “levers” which, when operated effectively, can have a huge impact on a company’s vitality and sustainability. Among the strategies to consider to build a strong team are: recruiting, development, reward, empowerment, job/team design, and modeling. These levers, when implemented with clarity, transparency, and integrity, can give a business a sustained advantage in a competitive landscape and create an environment of trust, learning, and growth. We believe that it is our responsibility to create such an environment, and we also believe that, by doing so, businesses can directly benefit.

RECRUITING: Take the time to develop a detailed job description, distribute it through the correct networks, and post it in the appropriate forums. How you talk about your company and the job you’re trying to fill, will go a long way to attract suitable applicants, and will also help you to screen those to uncover the best fit and the most promising candidates. In writing these descriptions, we try very hard to use language and a voice which reflects our own values and the “flavor” of our company and this also helps to attract strong applicants.

EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT: We are life-long learners and committed to our own ongoing educations in business and in life, and we hire for this quality. But it’s not enough to just employ people who share this value. When we hire someone, we make a commitment that we will help them to develop new skills; allow them to take on new responsibility; and  empower them to share their own knowledge to help other team members. We encourage them to pursue other avenues of creativity away from their jobs, and to communicate to us ways in which they can grow for their own benefit and the benefit of our venture.

REWARD SYSTEMS: It is critical to pay people fairly and to be competitive in reward packages. We mentioned health benefits, but we are also believers in incentivized workforces. To this end we have established a cash bonus system that rewards folks for their own growth and contributions to the company. We offer a 401k savings plan and encourage people to grow their investments by matching a percentage of the savings they commit to make. We provide everyone with disability and life insurance; we want them to feel secure that, should something outside of their own control occur, that they will be able to provide for themselves and their families. And finally we offer a “profit-sharing” plan in the form of an options plan, which allows high performers to earn equity in the company.

EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES: One of the first values we impart to new hires is our own desire that they grow outside the boundaries established by their job description. We don’t just encourage them to take on other responsibilities, we award them when they do so and try to make opportunities for new tasks, new functions, and new growth available to all. It matters little to us how many hours someone spends in the office; rather we let people know that we are truly flexible on this point and encourage the team to work when and how they wish to. Everyone on the team participates in designing and enhancing the product, improving customer service, and participating in the community. Everyone is held answerable for discharging their own duties, but also must be accountable for their own role on the team; no one should be a bottleneck and all should strive to uphold their own end. It can be difficult for managers to let go, but we do try hard to let everyone make decisions, take risk, find success, and sometimes make and learn from) their own mistakes.

JOB DESIGN: First and foremost we consider the fundamental aspects of a given position; obviously, the design of the job must serve the goals and strategies of the business. We define job-by-job exactly how it will help us accomplish our goals; however, once these basics have been provided, the remaining aspects of the position should be approached organically, with the employee having a meaningful role in designing their own position. We try hard to balance a team member’s core capabilities, experience, capacity, and knowledge with the larger departmental and company-wide responsibilities and the job design should always remain fluid enough to accomplish this.

MODELING BY MANAGERS: Finally, what is perhaps the most critical element in all of the above: walking the walk. Managers must directly an unequivocally display for the entire team how they are living testament to the values they articulate. If we seek to empower, we must display empowerment. If we encourage personal learning and development, we must always be learning and developing ourselves. If we hope to empower, we must be true to this; as hard as it is sometimes, we have to bite our tongues and let someone succeed of fail on their own. And is we are truly committed to doing the best job at designing jobs, then we must use imagination and creativity to do so, and allow others to assist.

end povertee

I just love when I find a project posted on our site from a company that is just an amazing feel-good.  And this company mixes fashion with the feel-good.  To me, it doesn’t get any better than that! end povertee® clothing line was created as a platform that would inspire, bring awareness and empower every one of its customers to make an impact to reduce extreme poverty in our Global family.

Every time you purchase end povertee® tees and products 50% of the net profits raised from the sale of the goods is given directly to charities/organizations working to eradicate extreme poverty. The money is used to provide a variety of basic needs including; education, food, shelter, clean water and proper medical supplies.

When you wear their stylish and sweatshop-free t-shirts not only do you look good on the outside but you feel great on the inside knowing that your purchase changed the life of someone living in extreme poverty. How cool is that? And making their logo for them is even cooler.

I recently asked Jenni Young of end povertee about their business and needs and here’s what she had to say:

1.     Before crowdSPRING, what method did you use for creative service work?

In the past, I was part of creating several websites for films etc and I would find creatives to do work through networking with friends, co-workers or posting ads to craigslist.

2.     What made you decide to use crowdSPRING?

While we were in the beginning stages of the launching the business, the web designers kept giving us ideas for logos but nothing seemed to fit.  We never had the wow moment of THIS IS IT!  When we were just about to choose any logo, assuming we needed to make a decision and move forward…we happened upon the crowdSPRING website.  I don’t even remember how we found it but when we did…we thought wow!  This could be the answer to our problem.  We looked around other projects… got so excited and listed the logo ad immediately! Approximately one week later…we had the moment of saying…WOW that’s our logo!

3.     What is your small business bible?  As in, what is a must-read every day for all small business owners and employees?

As a small business I wish I had more time to read everything but I don’t.  I depend a lot on friends who have small businesses for advice.  I do keep up with and love Entrepreneur magazine, which I have been reading for over 20 years.  I also read my daily dose of affirmations from Neale Donald Walsch to keep me on a positive note and moving forward fearlessly.

4.    If your best friend told you they wanted to start a business and asked for your best piece of advice, what would it be?

1) Make sure it is something you are very very passionate about…it could take a very long time to reap any type of financial benefit.   2) Make sure it has something new to offer your customers.  3) Make sure that your company makes it a priority to give back to the community in some way!

Oh and Jenni wanted to make sure we gave a great shout out to the winning creative – Great job YuSee Grafisch!

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

Web Design Trends for 2010 - http://bit.ly/458nIe

45 Animal Inspired Logo Designs - http://bit.ly/u5JWi

40 Incredibly Useful Web Design Tools You Should Use Daily - http://bit.ly/44p4ik

The 16 Most Influential Web Design Blogs of 2009 - http://bit.ly/2K8sRX

45 Inspiring Navigation Menus That You Must See - http://bit.ly/2kpZQ9

Build a Slick Rich User Interface in Photoshop - http://bit.ly/2sbi1g

50 Clean, Sleek, and Modern Website Designs - http://bit.ly/3IeGxx

50 Clever, Creative Logos - http://bit.ly/3wnyzA

Ten great Twitter bird design tutorials - http://bit.ly/5D0Y0

Fonts Used In Logos of Popular Websites - http://ff.im/-b05Fv

Photoshop Brushes • Free Hi-Resolution Paint Stroke - http://bit.ly/KfkX1

Photoshop Tutorial: Dull Color Fix: Duck girl - http://bit.ly/KRSCh

A-Z of Free Photoshop Plugins and Filters - http://bit.ly/2VP6Xs

Mega Drop Down Menus w/ CSS & jQuery - http://bit.ly/30f6Ic

The Ails Of Typographic Anti-Aliasing - http://bit.ly/31rFKz

70 Of The Best Photoshop Actions For Enhancing Photos - http://bit.ly/1gA3Ir

Anatomy of Colors in Web Design: Green and Environmental Concept - http://bit.ly/1ZGOZH

20 Beautiful Examples Of Creative Text Used In Advertising - http://bit.ly/118F0E

5 Must Read Presentations about CSS Coding - @woork http://ping.fm/iQYPV

35 most shocking Photoshop tutorials ever - http://bit.ly/2q08WI

10 Important Tips to Optimize Wordpress for Search Engines - http://bit.ly/3X8r8j

Timeline: Version Control Plugin for Photoshop - http://bit.ly/14aPUb

Most problematic aspects of web design: 1) CAPTCH 2) bad Flash 3) bad link text - http://bit.ly/2kaiji

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) - http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) - http://bit.ly/XTLkS

MUST read post from Paul Graham - What Startups Are Really Like - http://bit.ly/2wEosq

Startup Tip: Focus On Real Products And Services, Not Vaporware - http://bit.ly/2IGA3E

5 Tips To Promote Better Collaboration (and avoid having “too many cooks”) - http://bit.ly/4DNiQz

Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn? - http://bit.ly/3fZIaa

Video Book Review: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk - http://bit.ly/VwbDB

10 Leadership Battles, and How to Win Every One of Them - http://bit.ly/cH5yD

Do not be afraid of new thinking simply because it contrasts w/ existing beliefs - http://bit.ly/EYwnK

5 Tips on How to Emphasize Action Over Inertia - http://bit.ly/cIsv6

More On: Everything I Need to Know About Business I Learned From Google - http://bit.ly/3V5uAB

“When Is the Right Time to Start a Business? Now.”  - http://bit.ly/2v6Ozr

Are Business Plans Still Necessary? (absofuckinglutely says Mark) - http://bit.ly/41vnYf

Top 5 things missing from most startup pitches - http://bit.ly/3y3Twz

Startup Communication Trumps Privacy - http://bit.ly/RealStartupsTearDownWalls

“Founders Make the Best Startup Marketing Leaders” - http://su.pr/1pNa7C

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips - http://bit.ly/1s37JX

10 Ways Small Businesses Can Harness Big Crowds - http://bit.ly/4B1sE1

Leadership in startups and small business - http://bit.ly/33awtj

Small Business Spotlight of the Week - Fete - http://bit.ly/2EYYtO

5 Tips To Promote Better Collaboration (and avoid having “too many cooks”) - http://bit.ly/4DNiQz

9 Quick Tips for Small Business: Use Social Media Marketing to Make Some Noise - http://bit.ly/nOoUP

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips - http://bit.ly/1s37JX

Video Book Review: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk - http://bit.ly/VwbDB

2010 Predictions: Will social media reach ubiquity? - http://bit.ly/3iPPbW

Privacy is dead, and social media hold smoking gun - http://bit.ly/2wEHqT

13 Ways to Network Beyond Facebook & LinkedIn - http://su.pr/21FeSQ

Personal Brand & The Humanization of Corporate Brand - http://bit.ly/Hip8S

Do not be afraid of new thinking simply because it contrasts w/ existing beliefs - http://bit.ly/EYwnK

How To Write Great Surveys with Actionable Data Results - http://bit.ly/1tCFIu

Do you still care? by @sethsimonds - http://bit.ly/Y9aoQ

How to create advocates for your business - http://twurl.nl/ncgxjc

Grinding vs Clocking (video) - http://bit.ly/2EpmVi

When thinking about *ucking, we just lose control, says @benkunz - http://bit.ly/3TB5aG

Twitter lists: You are no longer the center - http://bit.ly/yln2H

Highlights from the #140Conf http://bit.ly/2utdfJ

Give before you get - http://twurl.nl/8kxrc2

How brands can use Twitter lists - http://bit.ly/1koGNh

AdAge piece on “What Social Media” can’t do.” - http://bit.ly/2lz3QT

A Social Media Business Model That’s Really Social - http://bit.ly/1PxtDD

“Founders Make the Best Startup Marketing Leaders” - http://su.pr/1pNa7C

Google is now discovering web sites by automatically scanning RSS - http://j.mp/1EPZLq

How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro - An Insiders Confession - http://bit.ly/2npvD4

Trust Agents named top biz book of 2009 by Amazon - http://bit.ly/2RIFNm

Pepsi crowdsourcing - New Pepsi ‘Dewmocracy’ Push Threatens to Crowd Out Shops - http://bit.ly/1xfKCW

Type Nerds, Take the Test - http://bit.ly/1BEW3p

The entire crowdSPRING team is fascinated with the handerpants. Do they offer boxer briefs? - http://bit.ly/44FHrV

What bathroom stance do you take? - http://bit.ly/2vwoHP

I hope you enjoy these links! If you can spare a minute, please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.

The crowdSPRING message is all over the place - we have a blog, we use Twitter, we have Facebook, we have email, we have customer support tickets and oh yeah, we even have phones. We’ve tried to cover all our bases on how to get out our message and constantly work on ensuring you’re able to talk to us as well. We think we’ve hit all the angles, but being the matchmaker that I am, I want to make sure you’re 1. getting information from us that you’re looking for and 2. able to contact us any way you want to.

We want to know:
- what news/information do you want to hear from us?
- how do you like to get that news?
- how do you like to share information about your experience with crowdSPRING?
- what is the easiest way for you to contact us if you have accolades or concerns?

As you know, a relationship can only work if there’s open communications and you’re on the same page. We want to make sure we’re not that annoying girlfriend sending you non-stop emails about things that you could care less about or that emotionally distant boyfriend who will only communicate with you the way he wants to and when he’s good and ready.

Let us know how we can make our communications better for you. Come on–we want to hear you!

Would your small business benefit from reducing costs, improving product and/or service quality, more effectively competing with bigger companies, innovating more, enhancing your expertise, and better managing your own capacity and the capacity of your small team? You bet!

In this post, I discuss 10 ways that your small business can leverage crowdsourcing. I’ll explain each suggestion and will recommend ways that you could take advantage of the service for your small business. I’ll include examples for each suggestion to show how a small businesses can leverage each service.

First - a short background. For the past 20+ years, many companies have outsourced certain types of work - such as product design, manufacturing, or customer service - to a third-party. Often, the third-party was located overseas (India, for example). Historically, outsourcing was the done mostly by larger companies. Although outsourcing continues to be a popular option for companies in many different industries, the diminishing savings from outsourcing, coupled with some of the disadvantages (quality, communication issues, turnover, etc.) have made outsourcing a less attractive option.

Over the past 6-7 years, some companies have found new, more creative ways to leverage others - through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing involves taking a task which is traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a large group of people - rather than to a specific third party (like one would do when outsourcing). Some large companies have been leveraging crowdsourcing for years (see Innocentive below).

How can your small business leverage crowdsourcing? Here are 10 suggestions:

1. uTest.

What it is: uTest is the world’s largest marketplace for software testing services. A community of 20,000+ quality assurance professionals from around the world help software companies test their web, mobile, gaming and desktop applications.

How You Can Leverage uTest: If your company develops software, you can leverage uTest to provide functional, usability, load and performance testing. Companies that develop software know that testing is time consuming and tedious. And while larger companies often have quality assurance staff - or entire departments focused on testing - small businesses must rely on their own employees or third parties to thoroughly test their software products. By crowdsourcing software testing, you can both control and reduce your costs, and make sure that your products are thoroughly tested before they are released, without putting tremendous strain on your small development team. You pay only for the services you need/use.

2. Innocentive.

What it is: InnoCentive is an online marketplace where organizations in need of innovation can leverage a global network of over 160,000 people to solve technical and business problems.

How You Can Leverage Innocentive: If your company runs into a business or research and development problem, Innocentive could be a great alternative to help you overcome that problem. You set the challenge reward (these are typically in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars). While the cost to post a problem to Innocentive and attract a robust community of people to help you is not small (you set your own reward amount), many small businesses developing complex chemical or electronic products incur much higher costs when working with third-party contractors. And while Innocentive has traditionally been a great option for large corporations - it is equally attractive to smaller companies that must find ways to overcome complex and expensive problems that are delaying product launches.

3. Amazon Mechanical Turk.

What it is: Mechanical turk is a marketplace for getting various tasks performed by distributed groups of people. Tasks posted to Mechanical Turk are typically broken down into small components and multiple workers typically work on different components of each task.

How You Can Leverage Mechanical Turk: There are unlimited ways that you could leverage Mechanical Turk. For example, you can post tasks to have people write short blog posts for your small business blog or newsletter. You can have people create lists for you if you are developing a website focused on sports statistics or other types of statistics. You can have workers on Mechanical Turk transcribe audio and/or video files for you. (Tip: for transcription, you could also use a service like CastingWords, which uses Mechanical Turk to manage the process for you). You can have workers on Mechanical Turk answer surveys about a product or service (your own or a competitor’s). You can have workers on Mechanical Turk obtain data from multiple websites on a regular basis and provide it to you in a specific format. Think about any task(s) in your business that require large groups of people and you’ll come up with simple, low-cost (you set your own price) and effective ways to leverage Mechanical Turk for your business.

4. Inkling.

What it is: Inkling runs prediction marketplaces. These marketplaces could provide, among other things, early risk warnings about products and services (or about interruptions to your supply chain, for example), could help quantify the probability that an event will occur, and can predict how your business will perform.

How You Can Leverage Inkling: Inkling at first look appears more appropriate for larger companies - and the case studies posted on Inkling’s site promote use by large companies. However, there are many ways that small businesses can leverage Inkling. For example, if your company is developing a new product, you can use an Inkling marketplace to predict whether your product (or several variations of your product) will be successful in the marketplace. Given the often high costs of marketing and advertising, being able to predict which variation of a product is likely to be most successful is an incredible advantage to blindly launching a new product (or service).

5. Get Satisfaction.

What it is: Get Satisfaction allows companies to support customers, exchange ideas and receive feedback about products and services.

How You Can Leverage Get Satisfaction: Get Satisfaction has numerous price points, ranging from FREE to $899 per month. It’s a good alternative for small businesses that have popular products and active communities, but small teams. Many small businesses use Get Satisfaction as their primary channel for customer support.  For example, if you’re marketing a popular free product, you may have a very active and devoted community, but little money to provide customer support. Similarly, if you’re a startup, you’re most likely spending your money on development and not spending enough on providing customer support. Get Satisfaction helps you to leverage your community to help you deliver customer support to your users and lets your team focus on building and improving your core product or service.

6. Twitter/Facebook

What it is: Twitter is a social network. Users on Twitter communicate by sending text-based messaged of up to 140 characters in length. The messages are public (there is a private message option) and other people can subscribe to receive all your messages or find your messages by searching or visiting your page on Twitter. In turn, you can subscribe to other people’s messages. This process - “following” - allows people and companies to build communities of “followers” on Twitter (some of these communities are small - numbering in the single digits, but some communities are in the thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of people). Facebook is also a social network. In addition to text based messages, Facebook allows you to upload photos, videos, and interact with other people who can become your “friend” on Facebook. Like on Twitter, your friends on Facebook can see your public messages and you can see the public messages posted by your friends. Companies can set up “fan” pages on Facebook where companies can interact with their customers and fans.

How You Can Leverage Twitter and Facebook: You can use your communities on Twitter and Facebook to help you generate ideas, to give you feedback about ideas, to help you with research questions, and in many other ways. For example, if you’re a freelance journalist or a copywriting agency, you could ask your communities for ideas about stories. Or if you’re a manufacturer of electronic products, you can ask your communities for ideas to improve your products. If your small company makes a popular software product, you could ask your communities for feedback about your latest public beta release. If you have a gift basket business, you can ask for feedback on your latest basket designs on several newsletter templates you’re considering. The possibilities are unlimited.

7. Mahalo Answers

What it is: Mahalo Answers is a social community where anyone can ask questions about anything. Members provide answers to the questions and in some cases, earn “tips” for the best answers.

How You Can Leverage Mahalo: Small businesses that do not have large communities on Twitter or Facebook must find ways to get help from existing communities. Even if you have existing communities, it sometimes helps to seek opinions outside your communities. Let’s say you have a small business on Etsy, selling various kinds of crafts. How should you effectively and inexpensively market your Etsy business? You can ask for advice on Mahalo. What if you’re building a voice mail application and doing market research to find out how many voice mails are left in the U.S. every month? You can spend time looking for the answer on Google or Bing - or you can ask for help on Mahalo.

8. Start a needed service

What it is: Sometimes, you’ll have an idea for new ways to leverage crowds and will see an opportunity to create a service that doesn’t already exist. For example, HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a very successful free service founded by Peter Shankman - designed to help journalists request expert interview sources for stories. Peter started the service because he was constantly receiving requests for help from his journalist friends and he came up with a way to leverage crowds to answer those requests directly.

How You Can Leverage: Each company described in this article found a creative way to deliver a product service to others. Just like Peter Shankman, think about problems facing your business - or your industry - and assess whether you can find smart ways to solve those problems. As you can see from the many examples in this article, there are unlimited creative ways to crowdsource solutions to common (and uncommon) problems. The key to building a relevant business is to find an opportunity  - an industry need that is being unmet - and develop a solution that meets that need. In fact, you can use some of these other services, such as Twitter, Facebook, or Mahalo Answers, to identify opportunities and even explore possible solutions.

9. Create your own “crowd”

What it is: I’ve listed online services, but you shouldn’t forget the communities we’ve built offline. Those communities include your existing customers, friends and families, your co-workers, people you meet at seminars and conferences, or even random people you meet in shopping malls or at the Starbucks.

How You Can Leverage offline crowds: You should be using any and all relevant “tools” available to you. While online tools are often easily accessible and low cost, you might find that your offline communities can provide more insight. For example, you can ask your friends and families (or co-workers) for feedback and suggestions about a new product or service you’re considering offering. If you’re considering increasing your hourly rates for a service, you can ask for feedback about what people are currently paying and how they’d feel about different rate levels. If you’re a small accounting firm, you might ask for feedback and suggestions about a new brochure you’d like to send to potential clients. If you’re a real estate agent, you could ask for feedback about print advertising you’re considering running in the local newspaper. Once again - the possibilities of how you leverage your own crowd are unlimited.

10. crowdSPRING

What it is: And of course, thousands of small businesses around the world have leveraged our own community on crowdSPRING. crowdSPRING is a community of over 44,000 graphic, web and industrial designers - from over 170 countries around the world. Our community has helped thousands of small businesses from over 50 countries with logo, business card, website and many other custom graphic design needs. Unlike traditional marketplaces, a buyer on crowdSPRING posts their project, names their own price and deadline, and then selects from at least 25 designs to their specifications, from multiple designers (or they get their money back).

How You Can Leverage: You can use crowdSPRING in many different ways - here are 99 suggestions for how you can crowdsource on crowdSPRING (most of these have been posted as projects on crowdSPRING by other businesses). Small businesses have asked crowdSPRING designers to design logos, websites, blogs and marketing materials for them. Other businesses have asked crowdSPRING’s industrial designers to create actual products (mobile phones, devices, watches, utensils) and product packaging (for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, for consumer goods). The possibilities are unlimited.

If you have additional resources to share or other helpful advice about crowdsourcing, please take a minute and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Thinking about leadership in crisis, I was remembering the story of one particular venture. The leader who put together this tiny company was a visionary, a learner, and an insatiably curious individual. The venture was not his first; he had already served as a founding member of one team which launched a successful enterprise; had started another successful enterprise himself; and had eventually gone on to found a third triumphant (though almost disastrous) venture three years later. I have been pondering the success of this last venture and considering why, against incredible, fierce odds it was (ultimately) successful.

Like many founders, this particular leader was driven by his own ideals, by his own curiosity, and by his own fiercely competitive nature. For this third startup, he raised almost $4 million from a small group of private investors and, along with a Government contract worth another $700,000, he was able to assemble a team of 27 motivated individuals from a widely diverse set of backgrounds. The Founder used unusual methods when interviewing and selecting his new employees: he believed that character and temperament were as important as experience, and he hired some team members based on their appearance and his first impression of them. He was also known to ask unusual questions when interviewing and one report even had him requesting that an applicant sing during his interview. The Founder also had an unusual approach to traditional job definitions and roles and was resistant to establishing typical organizational hierarchies; everyone on the team had to perform menial chores, regardless of their primary responsibilities.

Like many startups, once it was launched the venture quickly ran into some enormous challenges. Events completely outside of the team’s control unfolded, and it became virtually impossible to execute their plan and meet their schedule. The situation became progressively worse as their technology failed and they found themselves in a position that all such ventures fear: they were stuck, with very few options. The Founder’s instincts, leadership, and methodology were instrumental in the venture’s survival and serve to instruct many of us who are engaged in the world of startups. If we don’t wisely use our limited resources, our imaginations, and every ounce of our team’s collective ability it is sometimes simply not possible to find a path to success.

Two months into the venture, The Founder was forced to make a decision which put the entire operation at risk of failure. The technology which had been built specifically for their business stopped working, and The Founder determined that they had no choice but to abandon it and continue forward, improvising new solutions as they went. The venture had turned from one with huge ambitions, to one concerned with day-to-day survival. The story of how this team persevered is legendary, as were the efforts of The Founder to push the team to use their resources wisely, to re-gain and build momentum, and to maintain morale in the face of a most discouraging set of circumstances.

The venture I’m thinking of? The 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The Founder? Sir Ernest Shackleton.  The technology? The Endurance, a three-masted barquentine, which became stuck in the polar ice, and eventually crushed and sank on November 21, 1915. The story of Shackleton’s leadership, and the survival and eventual rescue of his crew has been told and re-told countless times. The story of the Endurance serves as an object lesson in leadership, in team-building, and in responsibility. Shackleton embodies the characteristics of great leadership and personal integrity.

After the ship was trapped, the Endurance crew spent months drifting with the ice flow, and eventually were forced to make a 5-day open-water crossing to reach land when their ice flow started to break apart. A camp was established on remote Elephant Island, and, from there, Shackleton and a crew of five set out in one of the lifeboats on a journey of roughly 800 miles, for South Georgia Island, where Stromness, a whaling station, had been established. The six men landed on the southern coast of South Georgia after 14 days at sea. Still ahead of them was another sea journey around the island to the whaling station on the north side, or a land crossing through its mountainous interior. Shackleton chose the latter, as his judgement was that the condition of their lifeboat and its crew had deteriorated to the point that he felt is was the only choice remaining. Three of the party remained with the boat, while Shackleton and the other two set off on a 36 hour trek across the island to safety, and 2 days later a whaler was sent to pick up the three who had remained with the lifeboat.

It took Shackleton another three months and four rescue attempts before he was able to return to Elephant Island to save the rest of his crew. Three times he was turned back by impenetrable ice pack but, finally, after convincing the Chilean government to loan him the Yelcho, a steam-powered tug, he was able to return to the Elephant Island camp and bring all of the crew back to safety.

What do today’s founders and business leaders have to learn from the story of this unlucky voyage? First an understanding that the problems we face are minor in comparison to the peril that Shackleton and his team faced. As we consider what some of the elements of great leadership are, there’s a quote from a member of the Endurance crew that sums up nicely what real leadership is - the leadership embodied by Shackleton: “I recalled the way in which he led his party across the ice floes after the Endurance had been lost; how, by his genius for leadership he had kept us all in health; how by the sheer force of his own personality he had kept our spirits up; and how, by his magnificent example, he had enabled us to win through when the dice of the elements were loaded most heavily against us…”

Frank Hurley was the expedition’s photographer and, while many of his plats were lost with the endurance, over 150 of his iconic images survived to document the harrowing voyage….

Hurley and Shackleton in camp (Shackleton is on the right)

Endurance stuck in the ice floe

Last moments: the Endurance is crushed

The crew of the Endurance

Fete

This week’s small business is a full service event production company. They provide meeting planning services for special events, corporate functions, galas, weddings (hint, hint Pete), corporate meetings and seminars. Not only can this company plan your next event, but they can cater it and offer your corporation concierge service as well. I know what you’re thinking, “Bethany, this sounds like a HUGE company, not a small business.” Well, my friend, you are wrong. This powerhouse events company is run by two people out of Canada and has been in business for about two years. They are now in need of a logo that will be used to help brand their company.

We recently asked business partners Rosie and Anthony some questions about their business and needs and here’s what they had to say:

1. Before crowdSPRING, what method did you use for creative service work?

We relied very much on our own creative abilities in writing and photography and resources in the printing/marketing/advertising/design industries, but mainly, all our creative work was designed and implemented by us - the principles of the company.

2. What made you decide to use crowdSPRING?

We felt that our current logo did not accurately represent the different entities of the company and wanted to have help from some of the best creative designers to re-create our logo so that it is a better reflection of our company as a whole.

3. What is your small business bible? As in, what is a must-read every day for all small business owners and employees?

In the events industry, “Biz Bash” magazine publication is a must-read, every quarter. Also, constant sourcing using Internet and special events directories is imperative in this business in order to remain competitive and to generate creative ideas.

4. If your best friend told you they wanted to start a business and asked for your best piece of advice, what would it be?

Believe in your product or service above all other products or services of similar nature. Believe that no one can do what you do better than you can - and make it your mission to prove it!

Click here to visit Fete’s website.

I was reminded today from Tal (a developer at crowdSPRING) that a new version of Ubuntu is out today. Code-named “the unoriginal banana” version or something, I don’t know. Ubuntu has great, but ridiculous, naming conventions.

Now, Ubuntu isn’t exactly known to be friendly with designers. There are certainly people who use The Gimp and think it’s a perfectly suitable replacement for Photoshop, but you (probably?) don’t see these people working in a studio, needing to crank out high-quality deliverables yesterday.

Ubuntu took a pretty big steep in the “looks” department with this latest release. Up until now, fonts rendered in any flavor of Linux always looked… ugly. Really, really ugly. Slap-your-grandma ugly. With this newest version, they’ve released a new font smoother that puts Ubuntu’s font renderings up in the same league as Windows and OS X.

In fact, the following image has the same text rendered in Windows XP, Ubuntu 9.10 and Mac OS X. Can you tell which is which? First person to guess correctly* gets … a crowdSPRING slinky and …  half a book of stamps.**

* According to the INSANE AMOUNT of comments (zero) my latest blog posts, this competition should be non-existant. At least leave me a comment with a joke or something. Hockey related gets you bonus points.
** Gimmie a break. I’m trying to move to Chicago and everything’s slowly getting packed. Enjoy your book of stamps. Send your grandma a letter.

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

500+ Free Download High Quality Photoshop PSD Files For Designers - http://bit.ly/23Ix0x

80 Stunning Background Patterns For Your Websites - http://bit.ly/4zFjYI

20 Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Web Design - http://bit.ly/nnSaf

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design - http://bit.ly/32jaDQ

Coffee Stains: 25 High Resolution Photoshop Brushes - http://bit.ly/2OdGKL

20+ Best Psd to XHTML/CSS Tutorials - http://bit.ly/4A9bn2

Creating Product Advertisements with a Flowing Aesthetic – Psd Plus Tutorial - http://bit.ly/1si3dB

Prepress tips for graphic designers - http://bit.ly/EsN1O

50 Photoshop Tutorials For Creating Poster Designs - http://bit.ly/36fx2m

Top Ten Spooky Fonts - MyFonts Blog - http://ping.fm/VjPTg

Over 80 Social Network Icon’s from Komodo Media - http://su.pr/2Bg2hW

17 Wordpress Theme Design Tutorials - http://bit.ly/3jWEFq

Web Dev App Reviews from the Pros – Part 1, Mac - http://bit.ly/21dtRi

10 Must-Read Design Roundups You Might Have Missed Last Week - http://bit.ly/1iB1W9

25 Well Designed Sports E-Commerce Sites - http://bit.ly/2k2kpR

1st Photoshop Web Design Professional Layout Tutorial - http://bit.ly/3KvMpF

10 User Experience Related Resources & Findings - http://bit.ly/2evMQs

Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics - http://bit.ly/1zUAQ1

40 Amazing Female Role Models for Web Designers - http://retwt.me/1trMb

Logo Design Budgets – Freelance Designer or Client to Decide? - http://bit.ly/3Xnlup

Freelancing University: How to Freelance from Just About Anywhere - http://bit.ly/Qxb0y

20 Beautiful Free Serif Fonts - http://bit.ly/aTnd0

The designers guide to iPhone apps: Revenue - http://bit.ly/36OIgB

25 Highly Detailed Web Layout Tutorials - http://bit.ly/2HRyb3

Packaging design inspiration from 30 creative companies -http://om.ly/TWpk

20 Best Wordpress Typography Plugins To Enhance Readability - http://bit.ly/28MpBe

Showcase Of Web Design In Ireland - http://bit.ly/3o9jyW

How To Design An AJAX User Poll Using jQuery and PHP - http://bit.ly/24hhQM

Leaf’d: 10 Free High-Res Photoshop Leaf Brushes - http://bit.ly/3F3kqF

24 Captivating Digital Painting Tutorials - http://bit.ly/2hnu65

Tips for Designing an Awesome Coming Soon Page - http://bit.ly/1uW5sQ

Modern and Vintage Web Design Inspiration - http://bit.ly/xYxyg

Pure CSS text gradient (no PNGs) - http://bit.ly/K9VKF

25 Examples of Clean and Well designed Web Sites - http://bit.ly/e25h5

Web Design WordPress function list - http://bit.ly/XM8kh

27 Refreshing Advertising Design Ideas From deviantART: Design Inpiration - http://bit.ly/3w8LU6

Good post in @DesignerDepot about whether design school is important - http://bit.ly/neZcl

Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/ free contract template to use today) - http://bit.ly/1ySfi

Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/ free contract template to use today) - http://bit.ly/XTLkS

Who Should you Hire at a Startup? - http://bit.ly/3LGCpv

Startup Tip: Ignore Haters But Listen To Critics -http://bit.ly/45Kvon

7 Traits of the Modern Leader - from @ducttape -http://bit.ly/1MF2hb

Startup Tip: Even Imperfect Practical Experience Is Good -http://bit.ly/38CHa

Startup Tip: 5 Thoughts About Motivating Teams -http://bit.ly/21rCsg

The Secrets Of Great Customer Service (for startups & small business) - http://bit.ly/4oUPJQ

Choose Your VC Investor Carefully - http://bit.ly/1uqxq3

10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs - http://bit.ly/2cfixD

The Best Quotes From Startup School - http://bit.ly/30JBdZ

“9 Things I Learned from the CEO of Netflix by @DaveBalter” -http://bit.ly/18MHD

Great notes from @markjournal re: Startup School - 2009:http://bit.ly/2rUXp0

Ten Rules for Web Startups - http://bit.ly/AxbQi

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips - http://bit.ly/1s37JX

Small Business Legal Issues: Copyright Basics - http://bit.ly/1hQ0cU

Ignore Haters But Listen To Critics - http://bit.ly/45Kvon

Even Imperfect Practical Experience Is Good - http://bit.ly/38CHa

5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media - http://bit.ly/1eKhQe

The Secrets Of Great Customer Service (for startups & small business) - http://bit.ly/4oUPJQ

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips - http://bit.ly/1s37JX

Twitter’s Google/Microsoft Deal: 5 ways it’s already changing the internet - http://j.mp/ts5vG

The history/evolution of social networks - http://twurl.nl/4keu8j

10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs - http://bit.ly/2cfixD

10 things Google has taught us - http://bit.ly/ZpsxJ

Six Creative Solutions in Online Advertising - http://bit.ly/24XoEH

Very nice video intro to how Google Social Search works - http://bit.ly/CptPw

Everything I Need to Know About Business I Learned From Google - http://bit.ly/2qN6ZZ

What graphic, website & industrial design projects can you post on crowdSPRING? Here are 99 ideas - http://bit.ly/p1ud7

Build a Better Light Bulb - Earn $10 Million - http://bit.ly/1LfCdL

File Management and Organization Tools and Ideas - http://bit.ly/2JnZ88

Does Desktop Minimalism Drive Productivity? - http://j.mp/4gHNZm

Bruce Nussbaum on Design, Disruption, and Innovation - http://bit.ly/XXUrb

Hulu Won’t Remain Free - http://bit.ly/2fHWjG

Small business spotlight of the week in crowdSPRING BLOG - http://bit.ly/h87eN

Why are Apple and Amazon thriving in a recession? - http://twurl.nl/ybu3fe

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - http://bit.ly/2KBJ6Q

Color Photography from Russia in the Early 1900’s - http://bit.ly/WpWuh

Seems Pete is lusting after DELL’s new multi-touch monitor -http://bit.ly/4pyNVl

Greatest news headlines ever (20 Photos) - http://bit.ly/1pbqGj

I hope you enjoy these links! If you can spare a minute, please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like.