All posts by joostmartijndekok

To The Stars and Beyond – A Bright Future For Co-creation

April 26, 2015 joostmartijndekok Leave a comment

Howdy!

As I recently wrote about Local Motors, an online co-creation initiative to launch the first 3D printed car, I would like to point you to yet another fascinating example of co-creation: Project Dragonfly.

The Dragonfly project aims to explore interstellar flight (a space mission that goes beyond our solar system!) through leveraging not only technologies such as complex computing and the miniaturisation of space flight components, but phenomena such as co-creation, design competitions and crowdfunding as well.

Now, although the technologies involved to get a satellite to travel to other stars is fascinating stuff (the mission enhances a laser-propelled spacecraft that ‘sails’ through space, more information here) I would like to point you to the way the project leverages co-creation, quite the way as local Motors does: through design-based competitions. The difference between Local Motors and Project Dragonfly however is that Local Motors pays royalties on each car sale to successful designers, whereas Project Dragonfly awards fixed sums of money to successful contestants in the form of a prize.

Design competitions are more and more used by new initiatives, but how do they work? First, the initiators define their goals and set up proper design requirements in order to identify so-called ‘performance drivers’ and ‘showstoppers’. Within the limits of these requirements, students, scientist, innovators and entrepreneurs are then invited to come up with innovations. Deliverables of teams participating in such a competition consists of a final design report, which covers all areas that are relevant to makt a mission a success and to return scientific data. With DragonFly for example, a team could report new findings on instruments, communication technology or new usage of power supply. Also, teams have to research economic and technological feasibility. Instead of granting one prize, competitions (as is the case with Dragonfly) offer cash prizes for multiple areas of technological development, allowing multiple teams of people to innovate and succeed in a particular area. Hence, design competitions speed up technological advancement in multiple areas at a given point in time. Finally, design entries are evaluated by industry experts and winners are chosen. The results then could form as a basis for future technology development of a mission. Participants are invited to continue working on their project or could be offered a contract to join the initiative. The design competition itself is financed through a crowdfunding campaign. Funds raised allow the organisation to market, raise awareness about and support the design competition.

It is great to see more and more initiatives leveraging co-creation to make steps in technological advancements. One wonders what potential co-creation beholds for the future. Will it one day enable us to travel beyond the stars?

For more information read the original article from the blog Centauri Dreams.

Business Case

Introducing The World’s First 3D printed Electric Vehicle – The Strati

April 3, 2015 joostmartijndekok 1 Comment

One of the world’s most exciting open source co-creation initiatives is Local Motors. Part online platform, part physical business, Local Motors combines co-creation and micro-manufacturing to bring hardware innovation to market at unprecedented speed. The platform consists of a global co-creation community made up of enthusiasts, hobbyist innovators and professional. Besides the online platform, the organisation operates an international network of so-called micro-factories.

The way it works is as follow. On the Local Motors Platform, users are able to share and evaluate ideas, prototypes and projects for motor vehicles with a global community of like-minded innovators. Through a voting process, users decide what projects get continued and developed. If a prototype is chosen, it will be produced in a micro-factory in low volume. As it is brought to market for sale, Local Motor’s sales team and e-commerce platform help to sell the product. Finally, if successful, each one’s contributions get rewarded. A percentage of sales revenue for each co-created product is paid to the community members who made a contribution to the vehicle.

The use of micro factories is revolutionary in its own right. A micro-factory refers to a small factory able to produce small dimension products. Such micro-factory’s main advantage is to save great amount of resources in terms of space, energy, materials, money and time. Micro-factories are highly automated, containing automated systems such as tools, assembly systems, quality inspection, replacement and material input. Each of Local Motor’s micro-factories is a place where innovators could develop their own projects and consumers are welcome to visit, watch progress and potentially buy their products.

Local Motor’s motto is “We make the coolest machines together.” And hell, they do. In 2015, the company is expected to launch the world’s first 3D printed electric car, named the Strati. As the company puts it, “There is nothing conventional about this car, the way it’s made, or the company behind it.” First to note is that the Strati is fully functional and is aimed for (small) production for the road. The car is developed according to Local Motor’s principles of designing and developing open source with a global community. It is made from ABS plastic in combination with carbon fiber. In order to get the material right, the company has been through a process of extensive material testing, sponsored by SABIC. All car parts that could be brought down to a single material piece have been 3D printed, including the frame, the exterior body and interior features. Mechanical components such as batteries, motors and wiring, however, come from the electric powered Renault Twizy. Currently, the Strati takes about 44 hours to print, although the organisation aims to bring printing time back to 24 hours. As soon as the Strati is cleared by US regulations later this year, it will enter public roads.

The Strati is an amazing outcome of open source co-creation. The automobile shows that a global community of innovators could complete the design and development of complex products. Interestingly, the business model of paying royalties according to one’s role in the development process works motivating enough for engineers to participate in these projects. One wonders what this may behold for the future.

What else will we be co-creating in the future according to Local Motor’s principles?

Business Case

Creativity of the Crowd – Pornhub’s Ad Contest

April 3, 2015 joostmartijndekok Leave a comment

“Do you have what it takes to be the Creative Director of the world’s No.1 adult website?”

Last year, the YouTube of Porn, otherwise called Pornhub, challenged creative enthusiasts to come up with non-pornographic advertising concepts to advertise the platform to a wider audience (Adweek.com). The adult website coined its search for ad material a hunt for SFW (Suitable For Work) advertising. As the contest stated, “Traditionally, porn has been a taboo subject – but the fact is, over 35 million people visit Pornhub.com every day. How do we reach the next 35 million? We need a national advertising campaign that can be channelled through mainstream media (Pornhubcampaign.tumblr.com).” In order to succeed, contestant had to come up with family friendly ideas that still manage to convey the nature of the site (Huhmagazine.co.uk). The person with the best idea would be awarded with a one-year contract to be Pornhub’s creative director.

Through the use of wordplay and subtle imaging, designers and ad creatives all over the globe submitted brilliant and subtle images and videos. One entry displays a bus stop outside of a university campus, displaying a two meter high white poster ad with the copy Where are you getting off?, subtly accompanied with the Pornhub logo. Another image displays typical male and female toilet symbols in combination of male-female, as well as female-female, female-man-female and many others, accompanied with the quote We’ve got it all. Yet another minimalist ad shows the shadow of a bare hand with the text America’s Largest Do-It-Yourself Website.

This crowdsourcing describes a new web-based business model that harnesses the creative solutions of a distributed network of individuals through what amounts to an open call for proposals (Howe, 2006). According to some, the creative industry increasingly relies on crowdsourcing to find solutions to problems. Mau (2004) states that problem solving is no longer the activity of the individual genius, but he is hesitant to a business model in which problem solving is radically distributed beyond the boundaries of professionalism. Clearly, he is not the only one convinced of the power of crowdsourcing over professionalism. As one commenter on the Adweek.com article notes, “So does Pornhub specialize in amateur? Pay for great ideas, work with people or agencies with a track record or success, you might just get great ideas (Adweek.com).” As Brabham (2008) notes, “where design teams and other group collaboration rely on collections of experts, the wise crowd insists on the presence of non-experts, on the presence of amateurs.”

In the case of Pornhub, I think their quest for creative ads is the perfect example of consumer value creation. Even though the contestants might be amateurs, they have come up with some pretty unique ways to communicate the brand to a wider audience. Besides the results of the contest, the company Pornhub has profited from the PR of the competition, it has managed to actively involve its consumers in its business and has found itself a new creative director.

Now, judge for yourself. What do you think of Pornhub’s contests that challenges the crowd to come up with subtle ad’s to reach a wider audience in a family friendly way while still conveying the nature of the website? For one, do you think professional ad agencies could have come up with better ideas than the contest results?

Sources

Howe, J. (2006) ‘Crowdsourcing: A Definition’, Crowdsourcing: Tracking the Rise of the Amateur .
Adweek
Brabham, C. 2008. Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving. The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies.
Mau, B. with Leonard, J. and The Institute Without Boundaries (2004) Massive Change. New York: Phaidon.
Pornhub Campaign Tumblr (SFW)
Huhmagazine.co.uk
Daily Dot

Articles, Opinion

The number of Facebook friends on crowdfunding success

April 2, 2015 joostmartijndekok Leave a comment

(*This entry is based on the research article ‘The Dynamics of Crowdfunding – An Exploratory Study’ by Ethan Mollick)

In order to make something work, one aims to find a recipe for success. This principle holds for crowdfunding, too, in which founders of all sorts of projects request funding from many individuals, often in return for future products or equity (Mollick, 2014). Many crowdfunding projects, however, fail. Therefore, it is of importance to find out the underlying dynamics of success and failure among crowdfunding ventures. This is exactly what Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management at Wharton University of Pennsylvania and author of The Dynamics of Crowdfunding – An Exploratory Study, has done. By analysing a dataset containing 48,500 crowdfunding projects with a combined funding over $237 M, Mollick researches the effects of a fund seeker’s personal network, underlying project quality and geography on successful fundraising. In this post, I will focus attention on the effect of a fund seeker’s personal network through the notion of one’s number of Facebook friends. Then, I’ll show how this looks like in practise on Kickstarter.com. Finally, I suggest a way in which the power of an entrepreneur’s personal network could be even better put to use.

(Professor Ethan Mollick)

Social capital

Social networks have long played an important role in the funding of new ventures (Hsu, 2007; Shane and Cable, 2002). An entrepreneur’s social network influences the succes of raising capital, as it provides (1) connections to funders and resources as well as (2) endorsements of project, its product or service, and the initiator (Shane and Cable, 2002; Sorensen and Fassiotto, 2011; Stam and Elfring, 2008). Actually, an entrepreneur’s social network is the initial source of funding, called friends and family money (Agrawal et al, 2010). As Mollick found, about one in three Kickstarter.com accounts are linked to social network Facebook. Hence, the author looked at Facebook friends of founders (FBF) for the project initiator, as this number is less likely to increase as the project progresses. Here, FBF is a measure of the size of a founder’s social network. Models 2 and 5 in Mollick’s results (see table below) show that social network size predict success. According to the author, the link between social network size and crowdfunding succes could be compared to the following. Having just 10 Facebook friends leads to 9% chance of succes, whereas a 100 Facebook friends lead to 20% of success. With 1000 Facebook friends denoted on Kickstarter.com, a fund seeker has 40% change of success. However, Model 6 in Mollick’s results (see table below) shows that having no Facebook account coupled to Kickstarter.com is yet better than just having few online connections. This suggests that, although larger networks generally lead to more success in fundraising, entrepreneurs yet need to strategize on whether or not linking their social network to their fundraising, based on the number of friends they have on Facebook.

If you are interested in how the number of Facebook friends is depicted on Kickstarter.com, visit:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/snappower/the-snaprays-guidelight-illuminate-your-life?ref=nav_search.

Here you see the SnapRays project on Kickstarter.com by entrepreneur Jeremy Smith. Click on Jeremy’s photo on the right to view his profile. The number of Facebook friends is depicted on the right.

A suggestion

Could an entrepreneur’s social network be leveraged more as to earn more trust among investors and hence raise more capital? In addition to stating the number of the fund seeker’s Facebook friends, the crowdfunding platform could enable the fund seeker to show the number of steps and the actual relations between him or her and a particular potential funder the way LinkedIn depicts the relations between you and someone else. To get an idea, see the mock-up I made below. To my belief, this would give a potential funder a feeling of being ‘more connected’ to the fund seeker, hence it would raise trust and it might lead to more funding.*

*Note: I e-mailed Professor Ethan Mollick about this suggestion. I’ll update this post if he replies.

Your turn

Now, could you think of other reasons why the number of Facebook friends is a quality signal to potential investors? And could you imagine different ways in which a fund seeker’s personal network could be leveraged more on crowdfunding platforms? Let me know you thoughts in the comments below.

References

Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., Goldfarb, A., 2010. The geography of crowdfunding. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Hsu, D., 2007. Experienced entrepreneurial founders, organizational capital, and venture capital funding. Research Policy 36.
Mollick, E., 2014. The Dynamics of Crowdfunding – An Exploratory Study. Journal of Business Venturing 29, 1-16.
Shane, S., Cable, D., 2002. Network ties, reputation, and the financing of new ventures. Management Science 48, 364.
Sørensen, J., Fassiotto, M., 2011. Organizations as fonts of entrepreneurship. Organization Science 22, 1322–1331.
Stam, W., Elfring, T., 2008. Entrepreneurial orientation and new venture performance: the moderating role of intra-and extra industry social capital. Academy of Management Journal 51, 97–111.