In the last post I discussed how Pieter Jan Glerum could make Anoniem Anno Nu (AAN) commercially more attractive through different pricing strategies. Today, however, I want to reflect on the different ways AAN facilitates value co-creation through collective intelligence and suggest some room for improvement.

In post-modern theoretical works on value co-creation, the term has been characterized by consumer’s ability to craft personal consumption experiences through the offering of more customized goods or services. However, for a deeper understanding of the underlying frictions between the three terms (value, co, and creation) need to be dismantled and separately evaluated according to their meaning. In the case of AAN, value is generated for the artists who get to send in their artworks for a potential sale and for Glerum who gets a 10-15% mark-up over all sales. ‘Co’ refers to the resources that are used by the consumers when creating value. In this case, it is the artists who use their artistic talents to create works to be sold through AAN. Lastly, creation refers to the mechanisms that are used by artists and art patrons to change roles that were traditionally taken on by firms. At AAN, co-creation and voting are used by the consumers and integrate with the firm’s own resources.

However, though we now know what is being done at AAN – creating artworks and making decisions around the quality of these works – and by whom it is being done – artists and art enthusiasts on both crowd and individual level –, we can ask ourselves why it is being done (i.e., why would one partake in the website’s objectives?).

Malone et al. (2010) name three reasons why someone would actively partake in a value co-creation process: money, love and glory. When we critically look at the co-creation levels at AAN, we can divide these into three: a) creating an artwork, b) deciding which art works are the best and should be sold, and c) buying the artwork. Though each stage requires love for art – whether it is the process of creation or simply admiring artworks – and some stages revolve around making money – either through a sale or through the potential investment opportunity – the term glory is missed.

If artists would have a profile where the success of their art would be on display by showing the art works they had sold or ratings and reviews from art patrons, AAN would engage artists on a whole new level; artists would be driven by a sense of ownership and competition to keep partaking on the platform. Equally, art patrons could also get a profile, where their reviews and purchases could be seen. When giving good reviews or making interesting purchases they could gain ‘expert’ status. Making them take pride (or glory) in their participation.

Lastly, a (short) suggestion on  the platform works. It would be interesting if numerical weights would take the place of voting, as being used by www.threadless.com, and if competitions on the website – for instance: create a modern still-life – would be used to spur artist’s creativity and longing for glory.

Sources:

• Malone, Thomas W., Robert Laubacher, and Chrysanthos Dellarocas. “The Collective Intelligence Genome.” MIT Sloan Management Review 51.3 (2010): 21-31.
• Paulo B. Goes, Mingfeng Lin, Ching-man Au Yeung “Popularity Effect” in User-Generated Content: Evidence from Online Product Reviews.” Information Systems Research (2014)
• Saarijärvi, Hannu, P. K. Kannan, and Hannu Kuusela. “Value co-creation: theoretical approaches and practical implications.” European Business Review 25.1 (2013): 6-19.