The Brainzooming Group

After The Brainzooming Group released our “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap” report last November, BBC reporter David Botti emailed me about talking during a trip to Kansas City to report on Google Fiber reactions.

The initial trip was postponed, but David Botti and Daniel Nasaw from the BBC arrived in Kansas City in early February to report the story. Along with Aaron Deacon of CurioLab, we met David and Daniel at Aaron’s office to discuss the implications of Google Fiber for Kansas City, along with findings from the Gigabit City report addressing hundreds of ways to take advantage of the introduction of Google Fiber in Kansas City.

David and Daniel completed their reporting, and the BBC released its Google Fiber story online this week, along with the video below highlighting perspectives on Google Fiber from a variety of Kansas City citizens.

You can find the full Google Fiber article on the BBC website.

If you have not downloaded our free 120-page “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap” report yet, it is a great time to do so now. People worldwide have downloaded the report to learn more about the gigabit future for Kansas City. They are also gaining valuable insights into how ultra high-speed Internet speeds will drive innovation, community change, and economic development in communities globally. The Gigabit City report contains hundreds of ideas, concepts, and critical success factors for governments, educational institutions, and other businesses and organizations to consider and exploit as ultra high-speed Internet becomes more prevalent in the future.

We also just released a recap of the Brainzooming methodology we used to bring together hundreds of online perspectives and a 90-participant in-person Brainzooming session to create the Gigabit City event and report. If you have been curious about what we do (which I am finding a variety of long-time readers are), this new recap shares how we created an efficient and productive day for all our Gigabit City participants. You can get a copy of the overview by emailing us at info@brainzooming.com.

Watch for more details soon on another effort The Brainzooming Group is in the midst of planning which will involve local and global experts in Gigabit City-related discussions to further develop Gigabit City ideas.  - Mike Brown

How can ultra high-speed internet speeds drive innovation? “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap,” a free 120-page report, shares 60 business opportunities for driving innovation and hundreds of ideas for education, healthcare, jobs, community activities, and more.  Download this exclusive Google Fiber report sponsored by Social Media Club of Kansas City and The Brainzooming Group addressing how ultra high-speed internet can spur economic development, growth, and improved lifestyles globally. 

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Reviewing Brainzooming Google Analytics for the past month, the most frequent search term people are using to find the Brainzooming blog is “brainstorming.” These Google Analytics results prompted me to share a variety of Brainzooming posts related to brainstorming techniques on Twitter last Saturday. Because of this, here are the brainstorming techniques shared on Twitter plus a few other posts on various related aspects, many of them tied to the Google Fiber brainstorming sessions we conducted in October 2011:

Brainstorming Session Expectations

1. A Career-Changing Business Quote – 10 Years Later - A fantastic setup for the value of brainstorming techniques and their importance in anticipating what you can’t specifically anticipate.

2. The Value of Brainstorming Techniques for Business Ideas - Brainstorming is seen by some as an unproductive, low yielding activity. The people who think brainstorming techniques don’t provide value are simply wrong.

3. 7 Things a Brainstorming  Session ISN’T - Some people think a brainstorming session can cure all the issues plaguing a business. The people who think brainstorming techniques can do all this are simply wrong. 

Brainstorming Session Design

4. “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” - Our free eBook on Taking the NO Out of InNOvation is a tremendous resource to get yourself and your team ready in planning a productive brainstorming session.

5. Not Even One of These Things Is Not Like Another - When you choose who will be in your brainstorming session, make sure to build in plenty of diversity.

6. Looking for the Elusive Big Idea - You don’t want to start looking for a BIG idea. Look for big volumes of ideas and then find the clear winners within that list.

7. Put Yourself in a Sticky Situation for Strategic Thinking Exercises - We’re making an interesting investment in a really powerful tool to do more of our brainstorming sessions online, but we’re still big fans of sticky notes for many reasons.

8. Extreme Creativity – 10 Questions from Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives - Extreme creativity can come from anywhere. We try to pull from a variety of reality TV shows and other sources to maximize how extreme creativity can help drive brainstorming results.

9. Creative Thinking Exercises for When You’re Successful - Sometimes a team has been together for so long and had so much success, it’s tough for the team to imagine doing anything differently. You can build on past success as a platform for new ideas though.

10. A Creative Thinking Exercise to Boost Team Energy & Ideas - One way to brainstorm really bold ideas (and have a lot of fun along the way) is to deliberately try to tweak your authority figures.

Participant Roles

11. Brainstorming Success & Saying “Think Outside the Box” Don’t Mix - Brainstorming success isn’t just about telling people to “think outside the box.” It’s important to actually create an environment that triggers creativity and new ideas.

12. Strategic Connections – 3 Tips for Identifying More Opportunities - The more strategic connections you can create among ideas, the more ideas you’ll be able to generate in a brainstorming session.

13. Thinking Aloud: Can You Hear What I’m Thinking? - There’s real value during a brainstorming session to having participants voice their ideas so others can hear them and build on them.

14. Brainstorming Session Success – 8 Ways to Contribute Beyond New Ideas - Although generating ideas is the objective with any brainstorming session, there are other important roles participants can and need to play as well.

15. Subtle Forms of Censorship - It’s valuable to have an organization’s leaders actively participating in brainstorming sessions. You have to make sure their behaviors, however, don’t lead to ideas being censored.

16. How Creative Thinking Gets Killed by Team Members – 8 Fatal Blows - Leaders aren’t the only ones who can censor ideas from other brainstorming participants. Participants can censor and beat up on each other, too. Those behaviors have to be managed.

17. Dilbert and Brainstorming for Innovative Business Ideas - Of course Dilbert has a funny and dark perspective on brainstorming. And unfortunately, the funny and dark perspective on brainstorming in this Dilbert comic strip happens all the time.

After a Brainstorming Session

18. 11 Next Steps for Brainstorming Output - Shared in relation to the Google Fiber brainstorming session, these 11 next steps for brainstorming output apply broadly to a whole variety of brainstorming sessions.

19. Dirty Ideas? Let Others Help Clean Up Your Creative Thinking - It’s not always to your advantage for the brainstorming facilitator to clean up and categorize the ideas. Someone who has a fresh perspective may be able to shed even more light on the results.

20. Brainstorming for Later Use - Not every idea you’ll generate in a brainstorming session has to be used right away. Always be on the lookout for ideas whose time may come later.

21. Extending Brainstorming Ground Rules to Everyday Business Life - Why not try and make these brainstorming ground rules a part of your daily work life. It’s possible, and can help you attract new ideas on a very regular basis.  - Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

It’s not THAT often when successful presentation tips can make a 6-figure financial difference in your career, but that was the case recently in Kansas City. I attended the Gigabit Challenge Finale in Kansas City recently where 17 finalists (individuals or teams) made the last presentation pitch for winning $450,000 in cash and services. Organized by Think Big Partners, the Gigabit Challenge was a global competition centered on the prospects for taking advantage of the Google Fiber initiative under development in Kansas City.

While I admired the creative ideas and hard work that the Gigabit Challenge finalists demonstrated, the PowerPoint presentations were, for the most part, underwhelming.

Presenters faced a panel of 17 contest judges (mostly from the legal and financial worlds), another 250 members of the live audience, and an online audience that averaged about that same number. Each presenter had ten minutes to present their idea and five minutes for questions from the contest judges.

Here are seven successful presentation tips on how many groups could have scored better with all of those audiences:

1. Make sure we know who you are.

Make your name and contact information the first slide in your PowerPoint presentation and make it the last. The judges may know who you are, but why not make sure? Also, the rest of the audience could contain people who have the financial resources, the intellectual piece of the puzzle, or the contacts that you’ve been missing. Make it easy for them to remember you and find you later by repeating your name and contact information.

2. It’s Showtime, Folks.

If you are asking people to invest in your creative idea, they need to be excited about your creative idea. Somewhere in your presentation, you need some drama, whether it is from your performance, from the images on your PowerPoint slides, or from the audacious brilliance of your idea. All three would be good.

3. Use the power of PowerPoint.

Nearly every finalist had some process story to tell – either in how they were going to develop their idea or it was going to be used. But almost no one used the power of basic PowerPoint capabilities. It does nice builds, visual effects, sound effects, reveals, takeaways, etc. It has limitations, but basic PowerPoint capabilities will do a whiz-bang job of focusing the audience’s attention on just what you want them to see when you want them to see it.

4. If we can’t read it, you don’t need it.

Many, okay most, of the presentations had PowerPoint slides that contained way more words than anyone could possibly read during the time they were displayed. That level of verbal detail is what your business plan is for, not your presentation. Words on slides should be cues for the points you want to make in your presentation.

5. Play it safe(ty) margin.

Sometime during the day, the projector went a little off kilter and began cutting off the edges of the slides. That’s not uncommon. Account  for it by making sure that your slide content stays inside a safety area that covers no more than 75 percent of the PowerPoint slide’s area.

6. Have a plan.

This applies to two areas. Many of the presenters presented ideas rather than business plans. If I was looking to invest, I want to know who would be interested in buying your  product/service, how you were going to develop and market that product/service, and what the cost and revenue projections were—pretty much in that order. If that level of detail isn’t available or possible at this point, I would suggest an organization scheme that borrows from the SPIN selling method.

7. It’s your time in the sunshine, enjoy yourself.

Just being on that stage means you done good. Act like you want to be there.

To learn more about the possibilities of Google Fiber you can download the free report sponsored by the Social Media Club of Kansas City and prepared by The Brainzooming Group. – Barrett Sydnor

How can ultra high-speed Internet speeds drive innovation? “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap,” a free 120-page report, shares 60 business opportunities for driving innovation and hundreds of ideas for education, healthcare, jobs, community activities, and more.  Download this exclusive Google Fiber report by The Brainzooming Group addressing how ultra high-speed Internet can spur economic development, growth, and improved lifestyles globally. 

Barrett Sydnor

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Too often, an organization signs on for a sponsorship without a clear sponsorship strategy. Sponsorship marketing can produce attention and strong ROI impacts for companies of all sizes, but it takes clear strategy. While it’s easy to pay money to get your company name attached to a sponsorship, that doesn’t mean you have a solid sponsorship strategy to enhance attention and produce a positive ROI for your organization. With the “Building the Gigabit City” project to brainstorm ideas for Google Fiber in Kansas City, The Brainzooming Group employed a non-traditional sponsorship strategy, creating a sponsorship where one didn’t already exist by:

• Identifying a situation (Google Fiber) that was already generating attention
• Aligning with a very relevant party (Social Media Club of Kansas City) that would also help attract attention
• Committing what we do (strategy and innovation services) to showcase our capabilities and benefits for the broader community

Since our sponsorship strategy was one any company could pursue under the right circumstances, here are five key sponsorship principles to consider in pursuing a similar path:

1. Stand near somebody else’s spotlight

Standing near another party’s spotlight is part of why NASCAR sponsorships work. Since a whole army of media cover the NASCAR racing world, a sponsor doesn’t have to try to get media to show up for the event. There has been considerable coverage for the Google Fiber move into Kansas City. Creating Gigabit City allowed us to stand near the Google Fiber spotlight for a credible reason, even though the event wasn’t an official Google Fiber program. The Google name drew strong media attention for Gigabit City, nevertheless.

2. Create your own sponsorship property

The traditional sponsorship strategy is to pay money to a sponsorable property’s owner (i.e., a sports team, an entertainment venue, a nonprofit event, etc.). With Building the Gigabit City, there was no property to sponsor. Working with Social Media Club of Kansas City (SMCKC), we created the sponsorship property. It takes more work, but it offers the opportunity to shape and mold what you’re investing in to best suit your business objectives.

3. Pursue a sponsorship built around what you do

The storyline for a sponsorship can be difficult to twist back to what your company does when you’re only investing dollars. Instead, look for a way to put what you do in your business at the heart of your sponsorship contribution. By donating our strategic brainstorming services to the Google Fiber in Kansas City event, The Brainzooming Group and our strategy and innovation services were at the heart of the story, providing the opportunity to integrate it more seamlessly into news stories.

4. Don’t ask for permission and don’t even worry about having to ask for forgiveness

Most of the Google Fiber attention in Kansas City appears to be forming with little attention boosting effort from Google. While a traditional move might have been to try doing something directly with Google, we instead created an event related to Google where the natural partner was almost incidental. Providing our brainstorming services pro bono allowed us to start, move quickly, and issue a comprehensive report free to anyone who wants it. Since Building the Gigabit City wasn’t authorized by Google though, we were careful to structure an event that would be neutral at worst to Google and ideally somewhat intriguing.

5. You have to activate a sponsorship to make it worthwhile

Even though our initial “investment” in Building the Gigabit City was in-kind (i.e., providing our services on a pro bono basis to design and implement the brainstorming session), to realize the full benefit we had to get behind the public relations effort. Another partner of The Brainzooming Group, Alex Greenwood, was fundamental in representing our awareness-building and messaging interests among the potential media opportunities to ensure we received attention. That translated into considerable television and radio time, shareable third-party stories, and greater recognition for The Brainzooming Group in Kansas City and within the category.

Learn More Today

We’re extending our Gigabit City sponsorship strategy through other media appearances. I’m on Kelly Scanlon’s radio show on 1510 KCTE AM at 9 am CST, Friday, January 13 to discuss Google Fiber and what it can mean for small businesses in Kansas City and elsewhere. You can listen live on 1510.com.

I also wrote a feature story in the January 2012 edition of The Social Media Monthly magazine on “The Social Side of Speed” about how Google Fiber might impact societal and cultural elements of Kansas City. You can get a printed copy at any Barnes & Noble store, plus check out one of the “Hottest Magazine Launches of 2011″ with an online subscription at The Social Media Monthly magazine’s website.

What could you do with your sponsorship strategy?

Does our approach instigate any creative ideas for how you could develop more effective sponsorships? If not, give us a call. We can put our years of sponsorship strategy and implementation experience to work for you to realize your business objectives.  - Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Following up our work on Google Fiber in Kansas City, one idea that’s received great attention is a virtual time capsule that would allow 3-D, holographic recording of people visiting Kansas City landmarks, videoing their experiences and recollections. The video experiences would be available for download and viewing as part of a catalog of Kansas City’s history and people. What is incredible is future generations could actually see and experience Kansas City as an ancestor they might have never met experienced it years before. It’s the one idea that when discussed at the end of our Google Fiber brainstorming session actually took my breath away. That’s always a strong sign it could be a great idea with big possibilities.

Since then, a number of people have asked whether the virtual time capsule idea is simply intriguing or if it is a real business idea.

My answer is it’s both. It’s intriguing for a variety of reasons:

• It creates a multi-dimensional connection across generations that might never know each other.
• The virtual time capsule creates rich, shared memories for individuals, families, and the entire community.
• It provides a very different application of typical streaming video ideas that simply focus on how to deliver video faster because of Google Fiber.

Relative to the virtual time capsule being a real idea to be commercialized, there are a variety of points where it could potentially generate revenue:

• Selling hardware – the video and storage equipment behind the virtual time capsule
• Software and apps development to make the hardware work
• Fees to shoot, store, and/or watch videos
• Sales of personal hardware and apps for individuals to participate
• Subscriptions to content for institutions and individuals
• Processing and production fees for the virtual time capsule videos

Maybe not all these pan out or there are other revenue opportunities that exist, but it’s clear the virtual time capsule is a great idea that could deliver value to multiple parties.

What’s even better about this great idea is it’s already instigated a very special multi-generational video. Paula Holmquist, a participant in the live brainstorming session (and someone who the incredible story of our meeting two days before the brainstorming session requires a blog post all its own), heard the idea at our report out session on November 10. The next day, Veteran’s Day, Paula took her father, a veteran of the Korean War, to Kansas City’s Korean War Veteran memorial and the Liberty Memorial, to capture his memories of his service to our country. The video is absolutely delightful, especially as Paula’s dad interacts with another veteran talking about how Navy stories grow in grandeur with each telling.

The video is even more special since Paula’s father, Robert Schweiger passed away later in November. Because of the video time capsule idea, Paula and her father captured both family and historical memories that now live on.

The video time capsule – I can’t wait to see it become a distinctive part of the Kansas City experience.   - Mike Brown

How can ultra high-speed internet speeds drive innovation? “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap,” a free 120-page report, shares 60 business opportunities for driving innovation and hundreds of ideas for education, healthcare, jobs, community activities, and more.  Download this exclusive Google Fiber report sponsored by Social Media Club of Kansas City and The Brainzooming Group addressing how ultra high-speed internet can spur economic development, growth, and improved lifestyles globally. 

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Last week, we published a list of the top 17 Brainzooming posts from 2011 based on your readership and social sharing. Today’s list represents my personal standout posts from 2011. As usual, my list of favorite Brainzooming blog posts looks nothing like your list, although there are a few list posts even on here! My personal favorite Brainzooming blog posts most often make this list because of what went on behind the scenes. Some posts are included because they worked well; others did not turn out as I had expected, but still were an important part of the year’s content.

1. Who Are the Top 100 People Who Personally Define You? – August 1

For an idea that came from standing in line looking at the magazines at Walmart, this article instigated many reactions from readers. The exercise seems easy enough: list the 100 people who have most defined who you are today. Actually creating the list, however, is more challenging than you would think according to many people I heard from who read the post. I could do some refinement at the fringes of my list, but looking back, my top one hundred are holding up pretty well.

2. 6 Reasons a Brand Manager Wouldn’t Do the Ford “Focus Doug” Campaign – and Why They’d Be Mistaken – September 26

Brainzooming articles are written for many different reasons. This one was written for a client. We had pitched a similar strategic video approach to the client before the Ford Focus Doug campaign was introduced. We simply could not get the sale made, unfortunately, as to why it was the right strategic social networking approach based on the client’s brand objectives. We heard multiple reasons why the strategy didn’t make sense. The client’s six main objectives make up the post along with why each objection was wrong. Beyond seeing how the objections were refuted by Focus Doug, you can also see some really funny videos with an orange puppet. The videos (especially the last one with the boss) are what keep ME coming back to this post on a regular basis.

3. Building the Gigabit City – Brainstorming Google Fiber – November 10

One Gigabit City post had to make my personal top 10. Sponsoring and designing this large session about Google Fiber coming to Kansas City in conjunction with Social Media Club of Kansas City was a quick decision. It was a success, however, for both our organizations and for the Kansas City community by delivering a crowd sourced, open sourced vision for what Kansas City could become in the not too distant future. While the report is unlike anything we’ve prepared before in reflecting so many voices, it is a powerful blueprint for reflecting broad community input. If you haven’t downloaded the free report to take a look at it, I’d encourage you to do so today.

4. Steve Jobs and Anticipating Who Will Change the World – October 13

Nate Riggs has talked to me before about writing certain posts simply to cause a shit storm. That’s what this post was intended to do, but it failed miserably. Maybe I was too subtle. Maybe it should have been about a really charged topic such as Klout. Maybe I was the only person that found a fascinating connection to societal and political debates in the story of a once unwanted child who, given the chance to be born, changed the world.

5. Author John L. Allen, Jr. on Identifying Current Trends – April 29

I’ve known John Allen since high school, well before he became a reporter, author, and CNN analyst. I hadn’t seen him in the 10 years since he was dispatched to Rome with the direction to essentially wait it out until Pope John Paul II passed away. Getting the opportunity to see John speak at The University of Kansas after all those years was a great pleasure. It was equally great to get him on video sharing his lessons for how to crowd source and vet ideas for what trends will really shape the future of the Catholic Church since the lessons apply to any long-term forecasting challenge you may face.

6. 21 Things I Don’t Understand about Social Media – June 17

This article came to life over several years of forming a long list of social media-related frustrations. It was written during a five-hour delay at the San Diego airport while nursing the biggest glass of wine I’ve ever had seen. The need for the wine, I clearly understand. The social media stuff in the post? I still don’t understand most of that!

7. You Never Know Someone’s Private Hell Unless You’re Listening – July 19

When you see a tweet about a TED talk by someone who survived a suicide attempt, you don’t click the link expecting to see someone you know from high school. Yet there was something about the June tweet that told me I HAD to check out the video. Watch the video for yourself. It’s only 5 minutes, and it tells the whole story.

8. 7 Social Media Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making in Business-to-Business – June 6

This article represents a new way of extending a social media presentation to provide additional information and value to event attendees. For a B2B oriented social media strategy presentation at the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association conference, I included many examples of transportation and logistics companies doing great in social media. The bad examples? Rather than embarrassing anyone in the session, I removed the names to protect the guilty, wrote the post, and invited attendees to review the article and see if any of the bad examples sounded familiar!

9. Osama Bin Laden Death: Initial Social Media & Strategic Insights – May 1

Despite the serious nature of the subject matter, this post is a personal favorite because it was written unlike any posts I’d ever done for Brainzooming before. First, learning of the rumor of Bin Laden’s death on Twitter, it seemed the perfect opportunity to get an article out there early talking about the communication and social media lessons I the story. I think the first version published within 90 minutes of President Obama’s statement, with several updates later that evening and next morning. The Bin Laden post wasn’t a huge traffic magnet, but it did wind up getting a lot of attention for a Sunday night article on Brainzooming.

What Will 2012 Hold?

Thanks once again for your readership, and I can’t wait to see how our two lists – most viewed posts and my personal favorites – match up for 2012!  - Mike Brown

How can ultra high-speed internet speeds drive innovation? “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap,” a free 120-page report, shares 60 business opportunities for driving innovation and hundreds of ideas for education, healthcare, jobs, community activities, and more.  Download this exclusive Google Fiber report sponsored by Social Media Club of Kansas City and The Brainzooming Group addressing how ultra high-speed internet can spur economic development, growth, and improved lifestyles globally. 

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

The Brainzooming Group is a big proponent of soliciting diverse input from as big a group as possible. Maybe that’s how you define crowdsourcing or maybe not, but we consistently find diverse input – smartly managed – creates much stronger strategic thinking, creativity, and performance.

What “smartly managed” is can be challenging, however, when crowdsourcing diverse input. It is common to see an online campaign or contest where crowdsourced input is solicited without much, if any, direction or guidance about what’s requested.

Challenges in Crowdsourcing Diverse Input

Here are three challenges in corwdsourcing diverse input we have come across where “smartly managed” is an issue:

• Inside a global, action-oriented movement where crowdsourced input is an important element in the credibility and robustness of the program, an internal planning team was pushing to ask the crowd to share essay-based answers to a very open-ended, speculative question. Since answers can take any form, before too much input is received, processing the content could become a nightmare.
• A nonprofit held an online contest involving self-nomination and voting from the crowd with essentially no restrictions. The prize was for the winner to perform a very public function for the nonprofit. The ultimate winner, however, performed the function in a way the organization was not expecting, causing issues that, at that point, were challenging to manage.
• A client did not pursue a great idea for identifying new social media content creators from their crowd because they could not get over the perceived risk of not knowing what type of persons the crowd would choose as the winning content creators.

It could be my market research background, but to me, there is no reason to ask for questions or participation in a way that does not allow you to be effective with the crowdsourced input. Far better to introduce some guidelines or other provisions to allow both the crowd and their input to perform very well.

3 Ways to Make Crowdsourcing Work Harder

In these crowdsourced cases, and ones you might be considering, here are three ways to make crowdsourcing work harder:

1. Be specific when being specific helps everyone (including the crowd) perform better

It is difficult for people to speculate about things in ways they don’t ever consider. When we created the online survey for the Google Fiber in Kansas City effort, we included an open-ended, “tell us anything you want in the future” question. But most of the survey consisted of targeted questions on current challenges and needs. People think about these, even if they have no idea what Google Fiber in Kansas City and gigabit Internet speeds will be like. We received diverse input that was easier for the crowd to offer and much more manageable to process and use.

2. Crowdsourced does not have to mean there no parameters for participating

In the nonprofit’s case, the challenge came from the nomination, voting, and ultimate winner performing the winning role all without having very reasonable protections in place. Instead of the nominating process visible in real-time, nominations could have been subject to an approval step from the nonprofit before being displayed for voting. Instead of letting the winner perform a function the organization typically would have staff do, they could have let the winner make decisions about pre-selected choices. Either step would have helped deliver a better result with fewer issues to manage after it was too late.

3. Vet first then let the crowd vote

For the client who passed on the crowdsourced content creator idea, we recommended creating a “job” description against which the company would vet nominees for competence. By reviewing the initial nominations and narrowing the field to a short list of candidates, the crowd would only vote on potential content creators who were crowdsourced but also screened to make sure they could create strong social media content. For our client, limited time killed the idea. They needed to hit a seasonal window and the two-step approach, while meeting their concerns, would take too long for them.

Help your crowd be successful and satisfied with providing input

The crowd may well be smarter than the organization in coming up with new ideas and imagining previously unconsidered possibilities. If that is the case, it is in an organization’s best interests to reach out and crowdsource thinking. But the organization should be smarter than the crowd in how to internally manage, shape, and use the input. If that’s not the case, maybe there are a whole bunch of jobs the organization should consider crowdsourcing! - Mike Brown

How can ultra high-speed Internet speeds drive innovation? “Building the Gigabit City: Brainzooming a Google Fiber Roadmap,” a free 120-page report, shares 60 business opportunities for driving innovation and hundreds of ideas for education, healthcare, jobs, community activities, and more.  Download this exclusive Google Fiber report sponsored by Social Media Club of Kansas City and The Brainzooming Group addressing how ultra high-speed Internet can spur economic development, growth, and improved lifestyles globally. 

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading