Influx

Opening your company up to  ideas from the outside is an obviously intelligent thing to do. Passionate brand fans and inventors exist out there and they should have the forum and the chance to share their thinking. It seems that most companies will soon have some kind of web-based environment where this can happen.

However, it’s going to get complicated because companies will have the chance to create profitable new ventures from the ideas of these outsiders. Whether these outsiders get fairly compensated will be a matter for further discussion.

Campbell’s is the latest company to try this out, but if you investigate and read the small print, it’s clear they they are not willing to pay that much.

In a 3.0 world where the crowd is coming closer to the company, members of the crowd with good ideas want to be treated differently. We’ve already seen YouTube move to pay for performance model, perhaps these brands with crowdsourced R&D will adopt a similar plan.

The other thing we are likely to see is Crowdsourcing lawyers; professionals at the ready to help people in the crowd protect their ideas.

Posted by Ed Cotton