Imagine the scene. You’re stuck on the motorway. Work, the office, the Cloud Computing Solutions and Virtual IT department seem a lifetime away. Suddenly, that  Crowdsourced to-do list you’ve left behind on your desk looks just a tad more enticing.

This is the big summer road trip. There are three others in your convoy but who knows where they’ve got to- and frankly, who cares? The radio plays the same old songs you heard yesterday and the day before, and the month before that. Your partner is moaning in the seat next to you and as for the kids on the backseat…The holiday isn’t starting out too well.

At least the clouds might offer a form of escapism. And I’m not talking about the puffy, floating ones either.

Forget the fancy new iPhone, the new form of inter-car road trip communication could be revolutionised thanks, in part, to the students of a 12-week course in ‘Cloud Computing in the Commute’ at the University of Michigan.

A Ford car sponsored competition allowed the students to create their own dream Cloud based application, of which the winning entry would be used on Ford Fiesta research cars on a genuine road trip to the Silicon Valley, California.

The apps from the winning project (titled ‘Caravan Track’) allow users to track the details of their travel convoy while they continue their journey towards the collective destination. Information about road conditions and hazards can be sent via a multiple-choice interface that eliminates the need to type. This technology could be especially useful for international truck drivers or for the bus drivers on school trips involving the use of more than one vehicle.

Caravan Track and three other apps were used in the Californian road trip, which included:

Virtual Road Rally- The app allows users to define points-of-interest (POIs) or physical landmarks, similar to those found in a road rally. The app can take the form of a “treasure hunt,” revealing information about various POIs as drivers reach them.

Auto”matic Blog- The blog attempts to elevate the car to its rightful standing as an equal member of the team, providing it with a personality and way to communicate its mood. The car itself, dubbed @AJtheFiesta, will automatically blog or tweet statements about the journey based on information it gathers from various vehicle data sensors or engine computer codes.

Local Search- The search uses a built-in social media component via the social networking app Foursquare. Each time the vehicle makes a stop, it will check in with Foursquare to identify the location, and it can also search for nearby restaurants, gas stations and parks.

It’s a new-age satellite navigation system. Just better!

So how might this have remedied the hypothetical holiday predicament? Well for starters, fellow road tripper Bob, (who fortunately negotiated his party away from the traffic congestion on the motorway) could have provided some traffic alerts which may have prevented your involvement in the jam in the first place. The telemetry and geographical data from his car would have also offered you a path to try and follow.

The local search app would have provided ready access to the nearest service and petrol stations, as your fellow passengers begin their inevitable complaints about their desperate need for the bathroom. The app could also be used for arranging rendezvous points. After all, you have access to your fellow vehicle’s fuel level and speed stats- and the data is live- so as either of you move, the other tracks exactly where you are and where you’re going.

The virtual road rally app might offer light-relief to passengers in both cars, as they pass by sights or points of interest- and record them for the others observation. Hey, anything to shut them up for a few minutes right? And while the blog app probably wouldn’t help this particular scenario, it might amuse your friends to hear of your travel frustrations.

Unfortunately, this form of cutting-edge cloud computing technology continues to be developed. For now, you’ll just have to switch off, while the moaning, arguing and the infuriating cries of: “Are we nearly there yet?” echo around you…

2010 marks the beginning of the end of Web 2.0. Just a decade since the starting gun was fired on the .com collapse.

With the last collapse went billions of dollars of investor money and high profile company flame outs like Boo.com, Excite @home followed by M&A freak shows such as AOL/Time Warner.

Now there is a new meltdown on the scene. Quieter, less in the public eye, but no less relevant. The Web 2.0 collapse. It started with a public announcement earlier this year that AOL was ditching Bebo – a mere $850 Million write off. Had Bebo been a public company we might even have hailed it as the beginning of the end of Web 2.0.

Then, in March, Ning announced that it could no longer offer free software to millions of small groups and social networking entrepreneurs. They could only afford to focus on providing chargeable software for their more corporate, er paying customers. This shake out alone will probably see over a million social networks close.

And on – the original Web 2.0 pioneers like MySpace and Digg are struggling to find their footing in the post Twitter period. They may end up being the Netscape’s of the Web 2.0 era.

But this time round the losers will be the VC’s that have spent the last 2 years quietly writing down a plethora of Web 2.0 investments that they sprayed cash at in the heyday of 2006/7. Most collapses will stay off big media front pages – becoming mere graveyard bylines at the odd tech blog.

The Web 2.0 freemium model will get challenged and geeks will shift their attention to chargeable mobile apps. The days of endless, free, community oriented and Web based consumer and small business software will be numbered but a clutch of valuable Web 2.0 companies will make the transition and our lives will be richer for it. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Groupon will be the juggernauts of this decade – making even Google look like the guys of the past.

Trends like mobile app stores, geolocation, Crowdsourcing, video everywhere and raw pure Cloud computing will define the next phase.

And when TechCrunch finally gets sold to some big ‘ol media company we’ll know that Web 3.0 has begun in earnest and Web 2.0, like the .com era was just something that got us from Web 1 to Web 3.

The Big Society? This was the big idea, hyped by big bravado, and delivered with plenty of big Crowdsourcing innuendo and platitude by David Cameron throughout April and May. A statement without substance? Further evidence of the ‘Old Politics’ masquerading as the ‘New Politics’? Either way, Cameron’s in charge now (with his new best made Nick Clegg by his side) – and he’s trumpeting the Big Society once again.

Big societies require big planning. So what better prospect than trialling the scheme in four local authority areas (two in the north, two in the south)? Congratulations to Liverpool, Eden Valley (Cumbria), Windsor and Maidenhead (Berkshire) and Sutton and Cheam (south-west London) – I think. Although David Cameron’s Big Society sounds like the start of a new BBC Three comedy show, last week the leading man in British politics formulated a strategy which he intends to implement at local government level:

1) Social Action
2) Public service reform
3) Community empowerment

Each of the four test sites will have a trained community organiser who will attempt to stimulate and structure local involvement in community projects. Dedicated civil servants will provide their expertise should bureaucracy get in the way of project progression. They will also be able to draw on the Big Society Bank, which Cameron says will provide ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ to Big Society projects from April 2011. So are we about to reclaim our community spirit?

Opponents have accused the government of building a smokescreen to cover up the gaps left by the cuts in public services, (which will possibly exceed 25%). Persuading volunteers to offer their services on a regular basis will be tricky- harder still when resources are scarce. Volunteers require just as much funding support as any professional setup. This form of Crowdsourcing doesn’t go far enough. Cameron alludes to the idea with his ‘Community empowerment’ plan. Creating communities with neighbourhoods is well-intentioned, but how easy is it to construct? How do you motivate and stimulate a crowd that has no intention of getting involved?

Cameron has described The Big Society as “the biggest redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street.” This could turn out very well for a rural area such as the Eden Valley, where the likelihood of knowing Mr Smith two doors down or Ms Jones five minutes away is greater. For those who live in larger towns or cities, how many could honestly say they have ever spoken to all the neighbours on their street, let alone personally know them? How many people genuinely recognise the strong community image of east-end London and suburban Manchester portrayed in Eastenders and Coronation Street?

The Government needs to think carefully about what it is trying to achieve. What happens when the blueprint for a successful community project is actually found? What constitutes a successful project? How focussed will the projects be? How many people can be motivated to take part? We believe there are three criteria that the coaltition must consider before going BIG on the Big Society.

1) A clear mission statement- Jo(e) Public must be able to understand what she/he is signing up for. The tasks must be achievable.

2) Measurable goals- achievement or failure must be quantifiable. No-one will work without some form of record of attainment.

3) Passion- The crux of volunteering. Volunteers need to feel a self-worth and reward for their work. If they are not passionate about the project, their spare time will be spent elsewhere.

The Big Society faces a big test. There are well-intentioned and highly successful community projects all over the country. For those seeking examples, watch episodes of Channel Four’s ‘Secret Millionaire’ for encouragement. And if there are more ‘secret millionaires’ out there ready to fund these community projects, then so much the better. There is an equal need for lucrative financial backers and legions of volunteers across the country ready to create sustainable projects.

It sounds fun. But is it realistic? If the Government are truly committed to reintroducing community spirit and redistributing power, they need to think more widely. Earlier this month, we came up with some very big ideas for Cameron and Clegg to mull over. Perhaps they’re worth big consideration too?

Crowdsourcing is our bread and butter. From cloud computing to online dating, our blogs at blur Group have pushed the calorie count this week. Enjoy the teaser!

• b-uncut

Cross-Crowdsourcing | Artists, Entrepreneurs and Flying Machines
What the hell is Cross-Crowdsourcing pollination I hear you ask! Let me explain…So why not use our focused Crowdsourcing agency as our polymath platform….more

– LMW

• blur Marketing

The Prince is Dead… Long Live The Gaga! | Social Media
So the artist Formerly known as Prince had a right royal tantrum two weeks ago by- wait for it – refusing to release any of his material online. Can someone please toss out the tumbleweed because I really can’t be bothered this time around. …more

– Lisa J

• Innovatrs

The Smart Mobile Route To Entrepreneurial Success
Tomas Mendoza,entrepreneur at Innovatrs and managing director and founder of fonmigo, talks about the difficulties of landing a first-time job after university graduation, the merits of starting up his own company and the importance of pursuing a dream career-path.

– Isabel Benitez

• blur Designs

Crowdsourcing Design | The Skillful Balance of Type and Image
Our Crowdsourcing design agency has the magnificent graphic designer/illustrator Chris Wharton to present this week….more

– LMW

• blur Group

Crowdsourcing: A New Future For Advertising Agencies

Crowdsourcing is the new word on the advertising street. Already a hit in the U.S, Crowdsourcing has increasingly gained currency in the vocabulary of British advertisers and marketers this year, thanks to influences from politics, business and the rise of social media …more

– James Michael

Crowdsourcing harnesses the power of collective thinking and doing to solve problems – often big problems.

Crowdsourcing and Cloud computing together deliver a new reality of burst-community and burst-computing.

The US and UK governments are actively adopting Crowdsourcing to change the way in which citizens comment on and alter laws and regulation. Big brands use Crowdsourcing to involve the masses in ‘social’ ad campaigns. Tech companies Crowdsource ideas to innovate better – mass ideation!

Each utilize burst techniques to rapidly harness mass opinion and input for statistically better outputs. Burst people power requires burst-computing to support it. Cloud computing services such as Amazon Web Services, Google Apps and Servage TotalCloud can support these bursts with on-demand IT.

Need a million people to provide instant, Crowdsourced feedback on politicians expenses and bingo you need burst-computing to make that happen and ensure your systems can rapidly and scalably gather mass opinion, process it and spit out meaningful results and tangible outputs. Cloud models allow you to rent those bursts – firing up on-demand processing for a few hours, days or weeks. Why own it?

Take this thinking a little further means the masses can be Crowdsourced to solve almost any kind of problem – so beware Creative industries!

Crowdsourcing is the new word on the advertising street. Already a hit in the U.S, Crowdsourcing has increasingly gained currency in the vocabulary of British advertisers and marketers this year, thanks to influences from politics, business and the rise of social media. Very soon it will be the turn of continental Europe to get to grips with the model- and the rest of the world will not be too far behind either.

But why?

Essentially, the future of agency work is changing- and at a frightening pace. The reasons are largely economical- a global recession filled with job cuts and unemployment has ended the days of profligate spending and heralded a dawn of advertising agency prudence.

However, the evolution of technology has had an equally powerful effect. The way we interact, travel and ultimately conduct business has had powerful implications for the advertising industry as a whole.

To be truly global, agency offices spaces need to expand outside of their physical location and fragment across the world.  We are better connected and our methods of communication have vastly improved, even within the past five years. A meeting in Stockholm can encompass input from Sydney, Hong Kong, New York and Manchester. Even methods for conducting the humble conference call have evolved.

The best ideas will not necessarily be formulated within the four walls of the office building- and clients do not want to pay top dollar for work that can be completed at a level standard for a fraction of the price by exploring a wider market.

As Maurice Levy, the Chief Executive of Publicis, noted as far back as 2008: “Agencies are struggling to evolve as marketing and traditional media go digital in all areas of campaign execution and audience activation.

“There is a power shift from master agency control of accounts to a more digitally empowered client wielding new partner and provider connections.”

Alice Louw, of TNS Global Brand Equity Centre, believes that the most successful advertising agencies and market research companies of the future will start adopting Crowdsourcing principles, as the model has distinct advantages over old traditional methods.

She said: “Forward-looking agencies and companies of all types need to adopt the role of expert consultants capable of guiding clients in their Crowdsourcing endeavours: helping them to achieve optimal community engagement; to build and sustain a level of trust and authenticity with the community; to implement appropriate incentive schemes; and to make appropriate tactical decisions.

“This will mean stepping outside of engrained ways of thinking; adopting new philosophies; and re-evaluating traditional cost models.”

Focused Crowdsourcing may well be the key. For Crowdsourcing to work as a concept, the ideas that emerge need to be creative, innovative and literally stand out in the crowd. With focused Crowdsourcing, the crowd is filtered and developed into specialist communities, where they can be cherry-picked for individual tasks on projects that encompass far more.

Whether your designer is based in South Korea or your PR strategist’s in Cape Town, the best-suited (and probably most cost-effective) individuals for the tasks will be selected to meet the brief. Each member of the crowd has a proven level of expertise in each particular field, which in turn, offers the client a guarantee of quality assurance.

One further and crucial factor which advertising agencies must grasp before fully embracing Crowdsourcing is engagement. Good project management is a pre-requisite whether you’re working in a small office space in London, or have your workers spread across five different continents. Regular contact, progress reports and control over your team are imperative to project success. Advertising agencies must continue to create their own ideas and continue to meet their objectives by reining in the various talents of the Crowdsourced team.

The number of talented freelancers continues to multiply. Individuals are driving into the space that the creative agencies onced owned almost by default. Complacency is the greatest challenge facing the advertising agency at present. Change is inevitable- just how quickly will be dependent on the ambition of the industry as a whole.

Clegg and Cameron are sipping their social media cocktail as we speak. The tall glasses and colourful umbrellas were popular enough to crash the Your Freedom’s website on opening day. But although the PR side has been enormously successful, does the government really understand how to turn inputs into real output? Successful Crowdsourcing is measured by its production. Right now Clegg and Cameron have recruited and engaged their crowd but can they precipitate the information into real results. Can Your Freedom really change the law for the better and can the Spending Challenge stop the UK drowning in debt?

A few days ago we spoke with E-Government Bulletin to outline the main challenges the government faces with Your Freedom. The same applies to Spending Challenge. The government have aggregated its Crowd and responses but they haven’t demonstrated or explained how they will sustain their contributors through effective management and have the necessary systems in place to harness it.

We admire the buzz created – exampled below.

But how will the government step from buzz through Crowdsourcing to results that juice our day to day?

blur Group, the leading Crowdsourced Creative Agency, today launched a new Crowdfunding initiative aimed at helping tomorrow’s entrepreneurs find money for FREE under the strap line – ‘Social Funding for Tomorrows Ventures!’

Using its skills, software and knowhow blur Group have been quietly recruiting entrepreneurs from around the world under project ‘Innovatrs‘. Now that they have Crowdsourced over 1,000 next generation entrepreneurs and innovators it is opening up its platform to any potential investor or lender.

Investors and lenders can go to Innovatrs.com and submit an investment or lending brief at no cost and help support tomorrows entrepreneurs. The platform is fully subsidized by blur Group – no fees or strings attached. Innovatrs effortlessly funnel back the most relevant looking entrepreneurs to the money folk and bingo!

Free to entrepreneurs AND free to investors. Why?

Because blur Group want to give something back. They have spent years developing some of the best Crowdsourcing and Expertsourcing mechanisms – providing cost effective, networked creative services and campaigns to challenger and leader brands around the world. Now they want to use them for a social cause. Helping deal with one of the big issues of the day – ‘How do entrepreneurs get easy and cheap access to money in a credit crunched environment?’

Venture Capital funds are no longer geared towards early stage financing, banks are not lending and Angels are hard to find.

Innovatrs is a platform designed to help efficiently solve these problems – AT NO COST!

blur Group are excited to provide this service. And if one day these entrepreneurs grow their business to the point where it might need blur Group’s creative and marketing services then that would be great too. But there are no strings whatsoever attached.

So entrepreneurs can sign up directly at Innovatrs.net and financiers can submit an investment or lending brief at Innovatrs.com.

Bringing lenders or investors to entrepreneurs – ZERO COST AND HASSLE FREE.

‘Social funding for tomorrows ventures.’

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s UK Tory-Lib Dem coalition is set to launch its second major Crowdsourcing initiative called ‘Spending Challenge’ later today.

The aim of ‘Spending Challenge’ is to reduce the UK’s deficit by inviting members of the public to suggest ways the Government could cut public spending. The website, already live, will be accompanied by the Facebook “Spending Challenge Channel” which will Crowdsource ideas from the social networks 23 million UK members.

David Cameron met with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week to discuss the possibiliity of a partnership deal. Cameron, once scepticle about the application of social networking to politics has been reported by the BBC as having become an advocate of such platforms naming them as the “primary channel” for communicating with the public about spending cuts. Could this mark the beginning of many new government crowdsourcing initatives?

‘Spending Challenge’ comes just a week after the launch of ‘Your Freedom’, the Crowdsourcing initative with the aim of determining what unnecessary laws the British people want to see repealed. However, this was open to a lot of abuse with many silly suggestions posted, will ‘Spending Challenge’ attract the same mistreatment?

If the government is to consider every idea suggested through ‘Spending Challenge’, how will they manage the hundreds of thousands of ideas they will receive and develop them into initiatives for the Spending Review due to be published in October 2010?

Last weekend the United States media news group, Journal Register Company, attempted an intriguing experiment involving community Crowdsourcing and the use of free online publishing tools for the production of all their publications.  

Journal Register produced all of its 18 daily websites and newspapers (including Connecticut’s New Haven Register and Michigan’s The Oakland Press) using only free web-based tools, such as the cloud based Google Docs, social media websites, Facebook and Twitter and the open-sourced software, Scribus.

The initiative aimed to prove that newspapers could be produced at lower costs by utilising free web apps and tools. The company serves 992 communities in 10 states, reaching nearly 14 million people each month.

The initial experiment began in April, titled ‘The Ben Franklin Project’ – a process which the Journal Register Company hoped would prove that the journalistic process could be flipped upside down and revolutionise the profession.

Instead of the reporters and editors calling the shots and deciding the news agenda, their consumers were placed at the beginning of the story cycle. Readers suggested story ideas and then became a part of the Crowdsourced news gathering process. Forms of participation included the submission of questions from residents to local officials, and sharing ideas/local knowledge on issues involving the community.

An example of one such collaboration can be found here, where the residents of Lake County, Ohio, offered their opinions to The News-Herald on the county’s most dangerous roadway intersections.

The participating public had full access to the reporter’s and editor’s  source material, and were actively encouraged to question, advise, scrutinise and participate in the story research.

“This is a groundbreaking experiment for our Company and our industry,” said Journal Register Company’s Chief Executive Officer, John Paton back in May.

“We have taught ourselves the power of open source journalism by involving our communities and we have showed the industry a way to a much more effective business model by bypassing costly legacy media proprietary systems and harnessing the power of the web.”

Following the success of April’s ’Ben Franklin Project’, the experiment was expanded to encompass all of Journal Register’s daily operations. As an additional trial, the Crowd also had an influence on the editorial story budgets.

“These are everyday issues that impact the health – physical and fiscal – of our readers,” said Jon Cooper, Journal Register’s vice president of content. “The Ben Franklin Project has renewed the focus on stories that impact the communities we serve because the ideas for those stories come from the communities we serve.”

Could such a process work long-term? It’s a topic that has been discussed in the past, and Crowdsourcing has already been applied sporadically to aid journalists in their story-gathering.

Although Cooper later revealed his company would not be converting to a fully integrated Crowd/Cloud model in the immediate future, he believes that the idea is a potentially viable one.

He said: “If an operation- part Journal Register or an outside company- wanted to, they could [use these methods]. The tools we discovered, trained on and used as part of the Ben Franklin Project could allow a news organization to throw away their old methods and start anew.”

For Crowdsourced journalism to work, journalists must be dilligent and enthuse their crowd. Ultimately, the key word is participation. There is also a responsibility on the part of the Crowd to take the model seriously. Viral spoiling campaigns which drive pointless story ideas will ultimately prove counter-productive and undermine the quality of the publication’s work. However, a failure to engage with the crowd renders the whole concept of Crowdsourcing pointless. Without participation, the model cannot work. It’s a fine balance.

Crowdsourcing has become one of the hottest trends on the Web. But who are the real experts?

Here is our list of hottie Crowdsourcing leaders and a link to their Twitter page. Follow them and watch the space unfold.

Jeff Howe – invented the term (Crowdsourcing) in the first place – der

Jake Nickell – founder of Threadless. The first really cool Crowdsourced company gathering designers to produce funky t-shirts

Matt Flannery – co-founder of Kiva. A Crowdfunding outfit helping alleviate poverty. Give generously

Jimmy Wales – Wikipedia founder. One big Crowdsourcing project. Controversial but cool

Tim O’Reilly – O’Reilly Media. ‘Cos apparently he’s the most ‘powerful voice’ in open source. And open source led to Crowdsource

Philip Letts – founder of blur Group. The first real Crowdsourcing group. Figured Agency 3.0. ‘Nuff said

Robert Scoble – aka scobleizer. ‘Cos he talks about pretty much everything tech and Web. So statistically he’s gotta cover Crowdsourcing

Chokha – one manic Crowdsourcing and open source Twitterer

We’ve probably missed a bunch. If we have, please add them to the comments below and we’ll keep updating the list at the blurGroup Twitter page.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition government today announced a major Crowdsourcing initiative called Your Freedom.

It’s a great start – assuming the public gets beyond their keyboard apathy. But what else could the coalition do?

We believe that the government should go beyond using Crowdsourcing just to source public feedback and opinions and drive Crowdsourcing initiatives into the way in which they govern. Volunteer Crowdsourcing aka Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap have shown that people really can make a difference.

The original definition of Crowdsourcing (Wired Magazine 2006) is ‘the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call’.

Applied to government it could include:

- Public policing. Going way beyond ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ and into volunteer policing using people’s mobile phones to replace CCTV.  After all, people are everywhere. CCTV will never be – thank God! The government just needs to develop a Website that enables citizens to upload and tag/describe photos or video and location.

- Public volunteer healthcare. As the NHS gets chewed by the inevitable cutbacks lets bring back the local volunteer birthing partner. If the government focused on training and educating us on basic healthcare tips, tools and techniques we could do more for ourselves/each other.

- Public volunteer government IT systems. Given the huge debacle of public spending wastage on massive, pointless, outsourced government IT projects why not use our universities and colleges to Crowdsource volunteer student Web and software geeks to help build the government’s future IT systems. Use prizes, PR and internships to reward the students – not trillions dumped into the coffers of big iron outsourcers.

- Crowdsourced street cleaning and garbage collection. Set up volunteer community street cleaning initiatives and rosters rewarding the cleanest boroughs, villages or towns. Also, pay people to dump their own and each others garbage.

- Crowdsourcing small businesses and start-ups to solve big government problems. Use contest based Crowdsourcing to inspire UK entrepreneurs to come up with the next big idea which, once implemented, would help government make innovative step changes to the way in which they improve our lives. Reward the best ideas well.

- Crowdsourcing education. Use volunteer Crowdsourcing to cost effectively deliver tomorrows education and tutoring over the Web. A UK Wikipedia for school education and curriculum. Get Ofsted to edit it effectively rather than just police our schools.

- Crowdsourced public transport. Create an easy to use government Website and mobile app which allows people to car pool quickly and efficiently. Create a points system which rewards citizens with savings on their annual car tax for every ride they volunteer.

That is our kick off list for Nick Clegg et al.

In the spirit of Crowdsourcing ‘comment’ back with your suggestions – we’ll forward the best to the governments ‘Your Freedom’ initiative.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s UK Tory-Lib Dem coalition today unveiled a major Crowdsourcing initiative called ‘Your Freedom’.

Nick Clegg announced on British TV and in the leading newspapers that this is the largest government Crowdsourcing programme to date. Really?

What it boils down to is simple. UK citizens can now go to a government Website called Your Freedom and log their perspectives and complaints on 3 areas of government:

1. Restoring civil liberties -- i.e. which current laws would you like to remove or change because they restrict your civil liberties?

2. Repealing unnecessary laws -- i.e. which offences do you think we should remove or change, and why?

3. Cutting business and 3rd sector regulations -- i.e. which regulations do you think should be removed or changed to make running your business or organisation as simple as possible?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeaIB2YvKhw

This is either a bold and democratic attempt to Crowdsource the people’s perspectives on change -- with the best suggestions implemented by the coalition government as repealed or improved laws and better regulation -- or its just one big PR stunt!

The fact that the YouTube video above (and at the top of the Your Freedom Website) has only been viewed 319 times as of the time this article was published does not bode too well.

Will public apathy stall this new angle on Web democracy and civil activism? Tell us what you think -- we’ll gladly pass it on.

This video about says it all. blur Group’s roots.

Tomorrows organization with todays trends -- design-driven, Crowdsourced and social media marketed. All in the cloud -- defining and driving Agency 3.0.

Why blur Group turns more than a few heads. Join us.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4av2pWhkaVw

What is Crowdsourcing? This question is met head-on and stripped back to basics by Brian Bednarek (Industry Analyst and CEO of Mesh 01) in a one-to-one interview with CBS News anchor Michelle Gielan.

Bednarek recognises that Crowdsourcing is changing the way start-ups, young businesses and companies are being run. The question is-do you? And if not- why not?!

The term Crowdsourcing was coined in 2006 by Jeff Howe. But it’s roots go way back.

Its early beginnings are collectives. Particularly the artist collective which was a way for a bunch of folk to get together and succeed better as a group than as individuals. Hey, it worked for the impressionists. Art is a complex creative process -- and one that benefits from informal group think. That is why even today artists huddle in studio clusters. Often, only when an artist becomes more established do they break off and set up their own, independent studio.

It is this same group think that created the Open-source software movement. A lead developer kicks a project off, writes the core code or Kernel, then other volunteers join the mission and add, amend and improve code. These open source volunteers have produced software that in the last decade has challenged many of the most established players and sectors.

Group think, hobbyist passion and the collective mission motivated teams of software developers from all over the world to unite across the Web and take on the likes of Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. The David’s versus the Goliath’s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buyub6vIG3Q

With the development of Web communities and marketplaces starting early 2,000 it became clear that the open source way of working and the collective style group think could help other projects. First up Wikipedia. An encyclopedia purely developed by the volunteer crowd -- openly curated by Wikipedia’s organizers. Now it’s pretty much the most used encyclopedia on the planet.

Web community has morphed into Web collective -- Crowdsourcing to further wider causes while also benefitting the individual inputter. What next?

Well, pretty much anything that benefits from group think, Web organisation, mission driven community and a shortening of the chain between producer and user. First up expect Crowdsourcing to improve the way in which the creative industries operate and output, then the professional services industries, then how ideas are developed and started up -- right out to how businesses and government function.

Crowdsourcing works. It removes unnecessary cost and waste, shorten’s work cycles, obliterates bloat and flattens hierarchy. It stimulates innovation and done right it even distributes wealth better than the current system. It could prove to be the most important economic game changer since the industrial revolution. Let’s see.

Crowdsourcing is the latest Web buzzword – it can also be as confusing as a tuk-tuk ride through Bangkok. Handle Crowdsourcing with care.

An increasing number of businesses are turning to Crowdsourcing to drive more efficient ideation, innovation and marketing. Not to mention Crowdsourcing as a next generation outsourcing/partnersourcing model. But how do you make it work?

Here are 5 secrets to successful Crowdsoursing:

1. Leadership – a crowd needs a strong leader and a clear, inspiring mission. Crowds form for a reason – not just for the hell of it!

2. A gaggle is not a crowd – until your crowd is at least 1,000 strong it will produce ad hoc results

3. Mixed, Generic crowds generally fail – focused, motivated and specialist crowds yield the best results – break any of these 3 rules at your peril

4. Building sustainable crowds – A sustainable crowd needs a win win model and to be treated with respect at all times. Overly competitive, dog eat dog Crowdsourcing models are bubbles waiting to burst. The Web equivalent of talent sweatshops. Use competition-only Crowdsourcing with care

5. Crowds are free – Crowdsourcing is not social networking or a stand alone Web community – you do not charge the Crowd for anything. You reward them – period.

Crowdsourcing has rapidly shifted from Web trend to a core business process innovation like outsourcing or internal marketing. An increasing number of businesses, large and small, are adopting it. And a crop of specialist Crowdsourcing start-ups are leading the way.

There is much to figure out. The Crowdsourcing movement has just begun. But it can change the way businesses and governments organize and create a more democratic, open environment for change. Let’s hope.

After six months in the making, we are over the moon about the paintastic film for the Let’s Colour campaign. The video is awesome! For those with a fetish for colour you’ll be drooling over your keyboards, your eyeballs kissing the screen! This is a crowdsourced art project that benefits communities worldwide. b-uncut is a leading crowdsourcer for international artists and loves seeing projects that are part of a fairer future for all. Crowdsourcing brings people and technology into productive harmony. Now modern communications and networking are proving the strength in numbers.

The two-minute film, shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg documents Let’s Colour painting events in Brazil, France, the UK and India. Every location is real and they remain transformed by a palette consisting of 120 different colours. The people in the film are not actors, they are real people who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community with colour. You can read more about them and how they have been impacted by colour on this blog and by watching the inspiring documentaries below.

Join the colour crusade. Spread even more colour by passing the film onto your friends. The more people who know about it, the bigger the splash will be.

UK

BRAZIL

INDIA

FRANCE

Article via b-uncut

We all know Crowdsourcing is fast becoming the Web’s hottest buzzword- but things could be about to change. Two creative agencies (GeniusRocket and 99designs) are attempting to re-define the term  and render Crowdsourcing to the depths of the technological vocabulary wilderness alongside ‘the  information superhighway’  and ‘cyberspace.’

So how are they going about this gargantuan task? Simple- they’re Crowdsourcing  it…

The two companies launched the project last week titled, “Are You a Dick…But Really Wish People Would Call You Richard?” Its aim is to discover a superior, narrower and more accurate  definition that will usurp ‘Crowdsourcing.’ GeniusRocket and 99designs are of the opinion that ‘Crowdsourcing’ has become worn around the edges, flabby and too broad.

“The fact of the matter is that the term ‘crowdsourcing’ has just become too vague,” says GeniusRocket CEO Mark Walsh. “We want a term that describes the power the global creative community can provide, not just a business industry buzzword.”

Have you got any ideas? If so, you have until July 9 to get your entry in. A shortlist of 20 names will then be drawn from a panel of judges (including executives from GeniusRocket and 99designs) and from there, the finalists will be presented on the project website, ready for the public to select the all-conquering idea. The creator of the winning term will receive a $1,000 prize from GeniusRocket.

But isn’t this just a bit of fun? Who would seriously sacrifice the naming rights to the web’s next all-encompassing buzzword for a mere $1,000?! Can you take a project seriously that begins with the title, “Are You A Dick…”?  

And besides, the two companies involved on the project are dedicated followers of Crowdsourcing. They’re not attempting to undermine the Crowdsourcing process; they’re trying to highlight the core values of Crowdsourcing and the complexity of the term. Although- haven’t we been here before?

Ok, so the particular debate that time around wasn’t focused on Crowdsourcing per se- but the underlying point remains. The word ‘Crowdsourcing’ is flawed- and it may well have swallowed a whole host of other terms that do not necessarily have any right to stand alongside it- but unless GeniusRocket are preparing a Crowdsourcing dictionary, maybe we should just accept the term for what it is?

After all, a buzzword is supposed to be trendy and evolve naturally- not force-fed by a few thousand voters. Crowdsourcing has gained increasing momentum over the last few years both in terms of its use in modern day business and in its application- so why fight it?

Feel free to offer your own alternative definitions for ‘Crowdsourcing’ in our comments section. We’re not going to offer a $1,000 for your thoughts (or even $1 for that matter) but view the discussion thread as an opportunity to test-drive your efforts before you fight for GeniusRocket’s measly monetary reward…

Crowdsourcing is becoming the Web’s hottest buzzword. It could kickstart the next Web. Like blogging, Web 2.0, social networking and social media defined the last decade of the Internet, Crowdsourcing could shape the next.

And it should. Crowdsourcing is a disruptive revolution that could only be born from the digital Webways that permeate each aspect of our lives. Crowdsourcing takes us to another dimension – harnessing the infrastructure of Web 2.0 and the communities of interest gathered on social networks to create new ways of working, gathering and delivering change.

Enabling, community (Crowd) driven campaigns to make a bigger impact – shifting grassroots movements to the big league. From fringe politics to mainstream government, from volunteer projects to industry changing maps, encyclopedias and software. Respectively challenging Google Maps, Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft.

Crowdsourcing is changing the way we work, market, design, write and organize. The very future of corporation could be affected. The company of tomorrow might be designed, resourced and defined by the crowd. There are already examples of start-ups entirely staffed and driven by volunteer or part time crowds.

An amalgam of community, collective, networking, social media and democracy shaped on the Web. Channeled through Crowdsourcing, forming the next big social and economic revolution. One that could take us to places we never imagined.

A place where the Crowd makes politicians fully accountable. Where customers get to define company products, strategies and even leaders. Where the employee contract gets torn up and home working becomes reality. Where the gig economy can thrive. Where innovation is dispersed. Where change is once and for all driven from underneath. From the people.

It’s up to us – we’re all part of this movement. Crowdsourcing is about the the long tail of people shaping tomorrows world. That’s the promise – let’s not blow it. What’s your Crowd?

Web 2.0 was all about the ‘social revolution’. Broadband, cheap laptops and smartphones allowed the masses to access free or nearly free software to converse and create. It unleashed the social media revolution we now depend on.

The media landscape is changed for ever – and with it the way people meet, greet, speak, party, read, vote, entertain. Do just about anything they used to do.

Web 3.0 comes next – the next Web. As Web 2.0 delivered a social revolution, Web 3.0 will deliver the ‘organizational revolution’. The two big Web trends of this decade, cloud computing and Crowdsourcing will drive it.

Cloud computing’s up first – abstracting technology into the cloud. No longer requiring organizations to fortress their IT internally. Moving it to the heart of the Internet (cloud) and with it the data and knowledge of small and large organizations will become fully mobile, flexible and infinitely scalable.

In fact the very heart of the IT department will shift into the cloud leaving only those that add value beyond IT support and maintenance within the organization. Tomorrows IT departments will become technology orchestrators and strategists – not tech support folk. Innovation drivers not suppliers.

As technology moves to the Web, so too will people. While cloud computing shifts your company data, knowledge and communications to the outside world, Crowdsourcing moves your people. Crowdsourced, virtual employees, partners and even customers are the future – blurring the lines between internal and external resources. Abstracting your people resources, flexing and shaping tomorrows business. Speeding and opening up innovation. Going way beyond outsourcing or supplier chains.

Organizations that try and hem their human assets into internal firewalls will get left behind by the Crowdsourcing revolution. Open, Web savvy organizations will get that connecting strategically to external human resources, be they volunteers, freelancers, browsers, shoppers or whatever holds the key to tomorrows organizational design and optimized efficiency.

Crowdsourcing will change the very soul and role of management and the nature of organization. Tomorrows leaders will be expert orchestrators, communicators, strategists and visionaries. Equally comfortable driving, organizing and inspiring external as well as internal resources. Recognizing that their next big or small idea, action or deal is just as likely to come from the crowd outside as the employee within.

Indeed the most successful organizations of the next decade will effortlessly embrace both Clouds and Crowds. You?

Traditional venture capital is at a Crossroads. The industry is still young by many standards, and like all spotty teenagers, it’s changing.

The first and second generation of professional VC’s have learned a bunch of things, sadly most at the expense of the entrepreneurs they backed and the investors they sold.

First up they learned that venture capital is not private equity or fund management. It’s about individuals and organisations – not stocks, shares or asset stripping and reallocations. Value is created in the marketplace – not on spreadsheets.

Second they learned that venture capital does not scale. It’s an industry where talented individuals make all the difference – no matter how many financially oriented rookies and corporate guys get thrown at the problem.

Third they learned that professional VC’s find it almost impossible to add enough value to the ventures they back so they get increasingly sidelined by the smart entrepreneurs they most wish to invest in. After all, how many successful entrepreneurs choose to build their second business with a VC they have worked with before. Very few.

Fourth they learned that venture investing is not about the deal. It’s about helping build a long term, valuable market leader. No room for deal guys here.

The future of professional venture capital is later stage. Starting with businesses that have revenues of $10 Million and growing.

Early stage ventures have to go a different route. Venture capital 3.0 is it. It’s all about clusters. Clusters of entrepreneurs attracting clusters of angels. Online and offline. Man to man, woman to man, woman to woman. The network is the key.

The core asset is deal flow and so the clusters of entrepreneurs take the lead. Angel investors will swarm around those that attract and nurture the best founders. Their Web platforms will be like online incubators. Venture Capital 3.0 is the future: an entrepreneur centric future. Good bye traditional venture capital.

Welcome to the crazy world of Ushahidi- a Crowdsourcing platform using geospatial information to aid social activism, encourage public accountability and  increase citizen journalism.

Ushahidi- (meaning ‘testimony’ in Swahili) – was initially created in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 Kenyan elections, when a wave of violence spread across the country.

A group of Kenyan citizen journalists realised that their fellow countrymen and women required urgent access to communications, to increase their nation’s awareness of the desperate situation.

The founders decided the best way to highlight this would be to build an open-sourced Google map, pinpointing the exact areas where the reported areas of violence were occurring, based on the information of the Kenyan people.

As these chaotic scenes unfolded, local observers were actively encouraged to make themselves more visible to the humanitarian authorities and government, through reports via email, text, Twitter and video message, informing them of the situation, and the needs of the people most adversely affected.

45,000 users responded, proving the Crowdsourced model offered a genuine option for future conflicts, disaster and mass confusion. Furthermore, the Ushahidi application is accessible for free download- making it an ever increasingly popular and valuable public service for the organisation of disaster management.

Open-source mapping was used again during the violent outbreaks in Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was then re-introduced in the monitoring of the 2009 Indian elections, and during the reporting of the global swine flu outbreak. This year Ushahidi proved a vital resource during the operation to cope with the devastation caused by the Haiti earthquake.

And now the system is being used to help alleviate some of the problems faced in the Gulf of Mexico, where oil began leaking at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. As the oil spill drifts ever closer to land, the residents of the Gulf Coast have been directed towards Crowdsourcing to provide a large community clean-up operation.

Effectively, the model provides a vision and a voice of life in these local communities and provided the rescue organisations a way to strategise their response to specific problems, including sightings of endangered wildlife, oil on shore, health impacts, using the Oil Spill Crisis Map.

“The Oil Spill Crisis Map compiles and maps eyewitness accounts of the oil’s effects in real time,” said Anne Rolfes, of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade- a local environmental health and justice organisation. “This is a tool for all of us to understand the extent of the damage.”

It will also provide a long-standing public record of the events, which can help prevent, or at least prepare future generations how to best deal with wide-spread devastation or chaos.

This simple Crowdsourcing web tool has quickly become an integral part of global relief strategy- and shows no signs of slowing down yet.

The art world is a changing. Slowly, underground yet profoundly.

The first 1,000 years of the art market was patron-centric. Call it Art 1.0:

The patron – generally the aristocracy or church – owned the artists and ran their lives, wives and commissions. The artist was their decorator, creator and muse. With the collapse of the monarchy and aristocracy through the 1800′s and 1900′s the patron lost his suit.

The last 100 years of the art market’s evolution has been gallerist-centric. Art 2.0:

In the early 1900′s the art dealer or gallerist stepped in to the scene and became the artists patron and promoter. Part collector, curator, dealer and art marketer these gallerists have shaped the commercial art scene since Picasso. They started out as art lovers and supporters and ended up as market makers and retailers.

The artists that the art world anointed, the dealers bought. Art schools, museums and the media helped leading gallerists define their roster of artists and the buyers collections. This dealer-centric era saw top gallery’s shape the game. The artists their tool.

But since Andy Warhol decided to pursue a different path and began selling his art directly from his famous studio, The Factory, the art world has been gradually shifting. Artists like Damien Hirst further developed this trend of artist as entrepreneur. Framing their own destiny. Managing their brand. Commercialising their studio and dictating everything from shows, prices, collections and gallery relations.

The next 100 years will be artist-centic. Art 3.0:

Artist networks will drive the next phase; underground, on the Web and artist-driven. Bringing back the power of many and dusting off the artist collective for the new millenium. But with a kicker. A global collective of artists bound by a digital platform and a desire to make it as a group. A rising tide to lift all ships. Controlling their destiny together. Working and hunting in packs, nurturing their art market. Launching art shows and accessory sales.

Innovating by pioneering the move to online auctions and artist commissioning systems.

Defining the next generation art platform, part MySpace, part iTunes, part Spotify – but for art works and art lovers. Making contemporary and emerging art accessible and affordable to more. Enabling people around the world to buy art and connect with artists direct from their living room – at their iMac.

Cutting out needless middle men. Discovering, curating and surfacing art that would often never be seen outside a local gallery or a hidden studio. Bringing it to the masses. Art 3.0 is the future. Finally.

In 2006 Jeff Howe, a writer for Wired magazine, coined the term ‘Crowdsourcing.’

‘Crowdsourcing’ represented the change in attitude towards the internet as solely a communication and research tool, into its modern day guise as a worldwide marketplace, a live business forum and a new-aged globalised workforce. Virtual communities have come to the fore and are very much the present.

“No one has a monopoly on knowledge the way that, say, IBM had in the 1960s in computing, or that Bell Labs had through the 1970s in communications,” said Henry Chesbrough, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

He continued: “When useful knowledge exists in companies of all sizes and also in universities, non-profits and individual minds, it makes sense to orient your innovation efforts to accessing, building upon and integrating that external knowledge into useful products and services.”

The presence of Crowdsourcing and availability of knowledge has changed the equation for business.  A small business can now compete on an equal footing with the likes of Procter and Gamble or IBM. Too good to be true?

Let’s look at some examples of effective and ineffective Crowdsourcing;

Golden rule number one: crowds need a leader.

One of the classic differences that has afflicted many businesses has been the failure to find a distinction between the use of managed and unmanaged crowds.

Cambrian House, a Crowdsourced community that develops new business and technology- despite forming a crowd of more than 50,000 members and 7,000 ideas, it has failed to interact with their crowds and implement these ideas.

Cambrian House CEO, Michael Sikorsky, said:

“A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (Crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short…

“Hence: the wisdom of crowds worked well in the model, but it was our participation of crowds’ aspect which broke down. Trying to find people willing or capable to take on the offspring (our outputs) of the CH model was hard and/or incredibly time consuming.”

The crowd is not enough- it needs to be managed and needs an inspiring leader to guide it.

Golden rule number two: don’t forget your key marketing principles.

Traditional marketing strategies and safeguards are also necessary.

Kraft’s Vegemite, already a well-established brand in Australia, piloted a Crowdsourced marketing ‘name’ campaign for a new product of Vegemite and cream cheese. After narrowing the public entries into a shortlist, Kraft executives picked a winning entry- iSnack 2.0. Two days later it was withdrawn.  

The public response to the new branding was defiant: a Facebook poll asking what people thought of the name had over 20,000 responses- and 97% hated it. Using the general public to formulate a name is one thing- making the public connect with it is quite another. Viral campaigns are powerful (see the ‘Rage Against The Machine’ Christmas number one bandwagon), and Crowdsourcing a concept cannot be considered the end of the process.     

Procter & Gamble, the company behind the likes of Max Factor, Fairy Liquid and Oral-B, have built a Crowdsourcing model to supplement the work of their 7,000 person workforce. Nearly 50% of P&G’s products are involved in Crowdsourcing, in areas including packaging, design, marketing models and research methods.

P&G use vocalpoint.com- a virtual crowd of 240,000 female consumers in the US to promote its own and partner brands. Where Kraft had failed spectacularly with Vegemite, Vocalpoint, is an open forum which tests out P&G’s proposed strategy to discover what works, what people like, and what creates an initial buzz about the product.

So where does the future take us?

Unilever have recently announced the ‘Unilever Consumer Creative Challenge’.

According to Marketing magazine: “In collaboration with MOFILM, a community of aspiring film-makers, Unilever will seek video content for 13 of its brands: Lynx, Ben & Jerry’s, Close Up, Dove deodorant, Wall’s ice cream, Knorr, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Comfort, Sure, Surf, Sunsilk and Vaseline.”

As more ‘Fast Moving Consumer Goods’ (FMCG) giants such as Unilever adopt more managed Crowdsourced campaigns, the greater their impact and popularity. Of course, it is too early to say how successful or problematic Unilever will find their consumer challenge to implement. But, as P&G have proven, it is a model that can be incorporated into existing business models and can be executed perfectly.

Outsourcing discovered the concept of work as globalisation. Open-sourcing discovered the concept of working externally. Crowdsourcing is discovering the concept of working socially. To prove a successful marketing strategy, businesses must be prepared to put aside necessary amounts of time to engage with their crowd and adopt Crowdsourcing as a genuine marketing principle, as opposed to an unmanaged novelty act.